Fall 2024 Course Descriptions

This seminar explores what it means to think and live faithfully in our world by engaging in an in-depth study of an important issue. Each class will engage with the richness and complexity of its subject by considering diverse viewpoints and multiple academic disciplines and exploring their interconnections. Each class will also be challenged with some of the best Christian thinking about the issue. The class will maintain an atmosphere of open inquiry and discovery, and provide occasion for each student to reflect on God’s call on his/her life. Prerequisite: senior standing, or junior standing and completion of all other general education requirements.



GEN 460 01: PEACE IN STRESS
 
Meets Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:00-3:15 p.m.
Instructor: Dr. Eb de Oliveira
 
At some point in our lives, we struggle with stress linked to conditions such as work overload, imminent graduation, job hunting, relational or economic strains. But is a peaceful life supposed to be stress-free? In this course, we will explore what it means to thrive in the presence of 21st-century life stressors in young adulthood mainly in the US, but also in more collectivistic contexts where “pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps” is seldom praiseworthy. We will be seeking answers to questions such as these: How did we get to this “age of stress”? How do our everyday emotions and thoughts influence our wellbeing and physical health? Drawing from multiple disciplines, the goal will be to build a repertoire of responses to stressors which will increase participants’ chance of experiencing “shalom,” as expressed through personal resilience and caring relationships.
 
GEN 460 02:  HOLLYWOOD AND THE CALL OF DISCIPLESHIP
 
Meets Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:30 a.m.-12:45 p.m.
Instructor: Prof. Drew Meziere
 
Hollywood and the Call of Discipleship will focus on equipping students with the skill of discernment. The course will watch major motion pictures and discuss themes that are related to the life of Christian discipleship such as prayer, calling, justice, love/marriage, and grief. The idea is that through the practice of discernment, the student will be able to see the messages that Hollywood conveys to us that are both in support of and antithetical to a discipleship lifestyle as laid out in Scripture. By discussing the issues concerning discipleship, students will be equipped to leave Malone University ready to follow Jesus in their respective career and vocational paths. The practice of discernment skills related to film will help students understand and implement these skills throughout their post-Malone life.
 
GEN 460 03: GRIEF AND LOSS
 
Meets Tuesdays, 6:00-8:30 p.m.
Instructor: Cherie Parsons
 
This is a course on loss and grief; but it also a course about joy, truth seeking, and vulnerability. Whether we want or expect to be, we are tossed into the vastness of vulnerability and loss of time and time again in our lifetimes. We will explore what it means to be vulnerable and the profound power that can come from it. How do we help others and ourselves embrace vulnerability and accept the role loss plays in our lives so that we might live wholeheartedly and faithfully? How do we continue to live and love, despite the pain and sorrow of loss? These are the questions central to the course – and to our lives.