Humanities and Philosophy Courses with Dennis Polkow

Philosophy 205: World Religions

Dennis Polkow takes a phenomenological and historical approach to religion rooted in the work of Wilfred Cantwell Smith and Mircea Eliade but also drenched in the work of his teachers Vasudha Narayanan and John Dominic Crossan. He also draws upon his extensive travels to the Middle East and Far East as a journalist and countless interviews conducted with religious leaders and landmark figures and scholars of all faiths. His course is concerned with trying to understand the faith of the major religions of the world not as mere dogmas and creeds or as abstract systems of belief or philosophies, but as the living faith of living peoples. There are three books for the course, but they are actual books and the cost of them together is less than a standard World Religions textbook.

Coogan, Michael D. (ed.): The Illustrated Guide to World Religions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Smart, Ninian and Richard D. Hecht (ed.): Sacred Texts of the World: A Universal Anthology. New York: Crossroad, 1982
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell: Patterns of Faith Around the World. Reprint edition “ Oxford: Oneworld, 1998.

Humanities 125: Introduction to Music

Dennis Polkow does not consider introductory music courses so much as "music appreciation", but rather, as an opportunity to demonstrate how truth and knowledge are revealed through music in a profound way unthinkable and unobtainable from other disciplines and to consider the factors or conditions that make an aesthetic experience through music possible. He also emphasizes that music should not be a mere spectator sport, but that we all benefit from a firsthand experience with music from a performing perspective, whether or not we have any prior practical training in music whatsoever. Using non-commercial Western art music as a springboard, the course seeks to open up our ears and hear music in a fresh way by actually making music itself the exclusive object of our attention. He draws upon a lifetime spent working across a wide variety of music genres as a performer, producer and critic, having worked with or interviewed a plethora of major music figures of the last 30-plus years. Note that the text/CD set is less expensive when purchased as a set.

Kamien, Roger, Music: An Appreciation, Fourth Brief Edition. New York: McGraw-Hall, 2002.
Basic Set of Eight Compact Discs to Accompany Roger Kamien, Music: An
Appreciation, Seventh Edition. New York: McGraw-Hall, 2000.

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