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March 28, 2024

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Spring Housing Guide

Class to explore Saints, madness

Some classes can drive a student to the brink of madness. One class being offered next semester is hoping to have students enter the world of schizophrenia.

The University will be offering a Saints and Schizophrenia course. This class will explore works about both schizophrenia and medieval saints. The class is designed to look at the two subjects and compare them in an interrogative manner.

“I want students to be able to think in comparative manner about texts that might appear to be vastly different,” course teacher, Erin Labbie said.

Labbie is an assistant professor with a degree in medieval studies and critical theory. Labbie has a doctorate from the University of Minnesota in English, cultural studies and comparative literature.

The course is not designed to teach students that saints are schizophrenic. However, it is an attempt to show how the writings of saints carry similarities to the writings from schizophrenic. The course ultimately brings a new perspective to the study of language.

“In post modernism it is said that we live in a schizophrenic society,” Labbie said. “The course takes a postmodern approach to a traditional subject, the study of saints.”

Labbie became interested in the subject after reading the work of Daniel Paul Schreber. Schreber was a prominent German figure who suffered from schizophrenia. While in an asylum, Schreber wrote about his mental condition in the book “Memoirs of My Nervous Illness.”

This book became the basis for Sigmund Freud’s writings on schizophrenia.

“It struck me how his language reflected that of medieval saints,” Labbie said.

Schreber writes about his desire to become a woman so that God could impregnate him. This is a tendency similar to the writing of saints. For them the ideal movement is for God to take them as a lover. The work of Schreber is a center point of the course.

The class will cover other subjects as well.

Students will read St. Augustine’s “The City of God.” In this work St. Augustine tries to construct himself as an ideal being within God’s view. Students will also read the “Interior Castle,” a response to St. Augustine’s work. The life of Teresa of Avila a sixteenth century saint will also be discussed and the movie “Fight Club” will be shown.

Labbie believes that some controversy may occur because the class is strongly centered in both religion and psychology. “I did not think it was controversial initially,” Labbie said. “I think some people may find it blasphemous, but it is a truly intellectual endeavor.”

“It is certainly attracting a lot of interest from our students,” Allan Emery, director of the Honors Program, said. “I think it is a nice interdisciplinary course because it will look at both religion and psychology.”

Emery had his doubts about the course after hearing the title. However, when the course was fully described Emery approved without any objections.

The class is three credit hours and will be offered as 480 Honors and a 580 graduate course in the spring. It will be held on Thursdays from 2:30-5:30 p.m. The prerequisites for the course are completion of English 201, 202 or a student can be approved by meeting with Labbie.

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