ENG375/AHI318

Spring 2025
Time:
Location:	Virtual
Instructor:	SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Diane Christian Email: engdc@buffalo.edu Office hours: To be determined and by appointment.
Teaching Assistants:	Emma Duncan eduncan@buffalo.edu Office hours: TBD and by appointment..
Tyler Hudson tylerhud@buffalo.edu Office hours: TBD and by appointment.

This course will consider great verbal and visual texts of eternal reward and punishment -- images and stories of heaven, hell and judgment from ancient Sumer to modern film. We will study the Sumerian goddess Inanna's descent to the great below, the Egyptian weighing of the soul, classical underworlds, blessed places and judgment scenes. We'll also consider the Christian Apocalypse and medieval illuminations, Romanesque churches, Dante's Inferno and Paradiso, mystic visionaries, Michelangelo, Signorelli and Bosch, and Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. We'll finish with the 1946 classic film A Matter of Life and Death (Stairway to Heaven).

Syllabus and Schedule of Readings
Schedule of Images Online