Fall 2012

Please Note – 400-level courses are not any more advanced than 300-level courses. The 400-level designation allows us to offer a course in small group (no more than 15) seminar format for Majors, Minors and students who have a genuine interest in the topic.  These courses do require “department consent,” the enrollment control helps ensure the seminar is populated by those with a genuine interest. 

TRS 430 Special Topics in Moral Theology/Ethics: Race, Racism and Slavery
[Tuesday/Thursday 9:35 – 10:50]

Instructor: Dr. Joseph Capizzi

The purpose of this course is to look at different understandings of race and its relationship to slavery in the creation and rise of the Americas.  Among the topics we will look at include theories of "natural slavery," the relationship of slavery to racism, the evolution of racism and its relationship to capitalism, Scripture and arguments for slavery and race-based slavery, Southern and Northern Christian arguments about slavery, and the Catholic Church and race.  The readings will be a blend of primary and secondary sources, including Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Frederick Douglass, Marx, David Brion Davis, Eric Williams, Eugene D. Genovese, and Hannah Arendt, among many others.