The above picture was taken in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, in the aftermath of the devastation – to property and peoples’ lives – of Hurricane Katrina.
This blog will be largely written by my students this Fall semester in my Freshman Seminar, “Am I My Brother’s Keeper?: Ethics and Social Justice in the Middle Ages and Today.”
The question that Cain asks God in the Book of Genesis, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” epitomizes the powerful role of religion in shaping ideas of social justice. By what principles has the just society been envisioned in the past, and how should it be envisioned today? How have past and present ideals been informed by religious belief? What does it mean to say that humans have rights? How have prisoners and victims of persecution and oppression – people who have had rights curtailed, revoked, ignored – responded to these experiences? The seminar examines a selection of medieval and modern writings, modern films, and current events that may help us answer such questions and gain a better understanding of how others, in the Middle Ages and today, have sought to answer them.
