INTG 302. Reflections: The Pursuit of Well-Being
What is well-being and how do we develop it? It is the goal of this course to critically evaluate the experience of well-being and understand it in the context of the individual, family, society, culture and history. We will examine the role of money, exercise, religion, struggle, sacrifice, volunteerism, gender, age and happiness. Other topics include Amish voluntary simplicity, the lifestyle of 100-year-old Okinawans, materialism and self-actualization. Readings will include Man’s Search for Meaning, Walden, and Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics. Students will also participate in various practices including Tai Chi, meditation, and developing a personal mission statement, while reflecting on their own experience. (Three credits.)

INTG 303. Reflections: Bodies, Nature, Power
This course will examine the "death of nature" in early modernity (roughly the 16th and 17th centuries). The emphasis will be on the role of modern philosophy, theology, and science in European colonial expansion, on the witch burnings in Renaissance Europe and the rise of "scientific racism." Post-colonial and feminist alternatives will be explored as we rethink human relationships with the natural world. (Three credits.)

INTG 304. Reflections: Beyond Belief
This course will track the history of science (from the Enlightenment) and its naturalistic approach to knowledge as it conflicts with religious belief. Using examples such as the heliocentric universe, evolution and creation, neurology and the soul, and evolutionary psychology we will illustrate increasing challenges to religious authority and the concept of god(s). Arguably, science has weakened theism by continually narrowing the scope of God’s provenance and challenging the authority of religious proclamations. Therefore, we will consider the relationship among science and agnosticism and atheism, concluding with how atheists defend their views and answer the fundamental questions of meaning and existence. Students in this course will seriously consider how individuals throughout history have approached the dichotomies of faith and reason; the transcendental and the physical; and the material and immaterial. (Three credits.)

INTG 305. Reflections: Ancient Religious Reflections
This course focuses on a number of important religious sites in the ancient Mediterranean world. We will compare and contrast these holy places and consider what makes them sacred. You will be challenged to compare these sacred places to your own sense of the spatial sacredness. We will examine the geography of the place, its history, its religious rituals, etc. The course will approach these sacred places from a variety of materials including texts, painting, sculpture and archaeology. The basic premise of this course is that a sense of sacred space is an important aspect of what it means to be human. The places sacred to a culture illustrate the values and attitudes upon which that society is based. Some of the sacred places this course could examine include: the Acropolis in Athens, the sanctuary of Apollo in Delphi, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the Vatican in Rome, and the Mormon Temple in Nauvoo, Illinois. Participants in this course will be challenged to compare one or more of these sacred places with places they consider to be sacred in their own lives. (Three credits.)

INTG 306. Reflections: The Psychological Aspects of Civil Rights Issues
This course asks students to reflect upon their personal values and moral belief systems, and to develop an understanding of how societies have struggled to formulate ethical and moral frameworks. In order to do this, we will examine a variety of civil rights issues, including slavery, suffrage, genocide, and apartheid, and discuss how societies have struggled to deal with these issues. We will also examine various psychological aspects of oppression and civil rights struggles, to better understand the psychological impact on both the individual and the society. (Three credits.)

INTG 307. Reflections: Friends, Neighbors, Lovers, Enemies
This course offers students the opportunity to reflect on their lives and the lives of others through the medium of story. Using stories from the world’s religious traditions as well as novels and biography, students will be asked to examine how narratives shape our ideas of who we consider to be friends, neighbors, lovers, and enemies and how we are to respond to them. Students will explore their beliefs about themselves and others, their images of God and how they have been formed, how these understandings of the divine influence human behavior, the importance of caring for self, and the need to connect with our global human society and help care for the earth. The course will continually ask students to consider the possibility that there is more than one "right" answer to basic questions of creaturely being and relating to the divine. (Three credits.)

INTG 308. Reflections: The Just War
This course will introduce students to some of the standard theories of "just wars" (jus ad bellum) and just war practices (jus in bello). We will consider questions about the moral and legal acceptability of force. We will study international rules of warfare, and how they have changed over the centuries. We will contemplate whether the killing of civilians is "collateral damage" or an immoral act, or something else. We will ask questions about accountability and justice. We will proceed roughly chronologically and explore how the ideas of the earliest thinkers have held up or been changed by wars, terrorism, and weapons development. (Three credits).

INTG 309. Reflections: Personal Identity
This course provides an examination of the biological, behavioral, and social foundations of the sense of personal identity. The course considers the way in which personal identity may be a gift, a biological imperative, a challenge, a social creation, or even an illusion. The multiple anchors of our identity in memory, body, society, and experiences are explored. (Three credits.)

INTG 310. Reflections: Questions of Life: Creating a Rhetoric of Personal Values and Identity
This course asks students to contemplate 15 of the most defining questions of one’s life and examine the answers that have been given by the famous and infamous. Questions to be discussed include: "Who am I?"; "What do we know and how did we come to know it?"; and "What is fair in civil discourse?" Through discussion, readings, media viewings, field trips and experiential opportunities, students will formulate their personal answers to the critical questions of personal identity and humanity. Using value clarification, epistemological readings, and texts of pop culture, students will engage in structured controversy and writing assignments that invite each to consider world views other than their own and formulate answers to key life questions, following that exposure. Students will gain practical experience in civil discourse on highly conflicted policy choices while taking a journey of self-discovery and personal enrichment. This is a course in personal epistemology via rhetorical dialectics. (Three credits.)

INTG 311. Reflections: Warrior Ethos
What does it mean to be a warrior? "Warrior" has become an overused and misunderstood word. Professional wrestlers, football players and Ultimate Fighters are all described as "warriors." But are they? In this class, we will read about, think about, and talk about warrior qualities. Some of the subjects we will discuss include: the warrior in history; warrior codes; warrior spirituality; warrior and technology; warrior and self; women as warriors; and warrior and community. (Three credits.)

INTG 312. Reflections: Music and Literature
This course will examine important themes inherent to the human condition: faith, freedom, war, and love. Each exploration will begin with a musical work and branch into a literary counterpart. Our spiritual stories and journeys have inspired some of our finest music. Conversely, the intuitive and emotional language of music has the power to intensify and reinterpret our words. Central to the course will be discussion of how the artist helps to define us. (Three credits.)

INTG 313. Reflections: Suffering, Evil, and Hope
Why is there suffering and evil? What is our responsibility in the face of suffering? Are there grounds for hoping that suffering may one day cease? This class focuses on the long tradition of religious and philosophical reflection on these and related questions. The course material includes classic texts, novels, and film as points of departure for class discussion. (Three credits.)

INTG 333. Reflections: Machiavelli and Gandhi – Meaningful Ethics in an Amoral World
This course looks for common ground between two highly compelling philosophies, moral realism, which assumes that effective behavior requires ethical compromise, and moral idealism (best exemplified by pacifism), which assumes that ethically tainted means can never lead to a morally desirable end. Machiavelli and Gandhi are presented as the respective archetypes of these two philosophies. We will also examine the work of contemporary writers from a variety of disciplines who struggle with the issues of situational vs. pure ethics and short vs. long term effectiveness. (Three credits).

IMPORTANT DATES