THE FIRST AXIAL AGE

My lectures are based on Karen Armstrong's work The Great Transformation - The Beginning or our Religious Traditions. They were given as a Summer course in 2007 - and are now followed by a semester course this Fall 2007.

Armstrong treats the religious and philosophical traditions that were created by the peoples of four distinct regions of the civilized world: China, with its Confucianism and Daoism, India's Hinduism and Buddhism, the monotheism of Israel, and the philosophical rationalism of Greece.

With the help of Armstrong we will discover how these sages of the "Axial Age" speak clearly and helpfully to the violence and desperation of our own times.

See the Syllabus for further details.