FYS 1086 IMAGINING HELL

This course will examine what role our imagining Hell plays in human experience. We will compare descriptions and representation of Hell in its various guises (i.e., war images, mental illness, imaginary journeys) in texts, artwork, monuments, and films of various periods and cultures in order to determine whether our imagining hell serves as a means to moral action or to conformity. Does it, in other words, formulate a “humanity” and its attendant aspiration for the good, the moral, or the holy? Or does it foster the means by which oppression might be implemented through fear and, most notably, silence the particulars of the “hells” experienced by non-majority groups? Or, again, is it simply true, that is, does each of us experience our own hells through which, by sharing, we form common bonds? Among the works read is Dante’s Inferno.