The Never Ending Arts Degree

I took this course first semester 2004. My recollection is that I was working part time as a GP and part time as the Senior Medical Adviser to the treatment section of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs in Queensland. I was playing music for my local Catholic Church and busy with four children, although my wife, who was working part time as a GP was lifting a heavier load there.

I only got a pass for this course, which was likely due to the lousy essays I presented. The other problem with the course is that at some point the lecturer was taken off supervising the course and did not mark the assignments. The lecturer was Yuri Josef Koszarycz PhD who taught at ACU from 1975 to 2010 and I have no idea why he didn’t continue to look after the course. I suspect he may have been more sympathetic to what I produced than the the staff member who actually did the marking. He went on to have a major interest in bioethics:

 … specifically in the interface between bioethics, theology and christian philosophy as they relate to ethical decision making in relation to biomedical technology.

https://www.eubios.info/GBNads.htm

The course materials were extensive notes with reading lists and links with 12 modules:

1 A Brief Overview of Ethics

2 Religious Pluralism

3 Challenges to Faith Traditions

4 Christianity

5 Judaism

6 Islam

7 Hinduism

8 Buddhism

9 Confucianism / Taoism

10 Australian Aboriginal Religion

11 The Sunburnt Soul – Christianity in Search of an Australian Identity

12 Spirituality: A Never Ending Quest for Meaning.

Good stuff and it was most broadening.

I found a response to an article that we had to submit – not assessment. It has my usual overconfident tone.

I didn’t think it had and this essay is sounds a little angry and hectoring. I use Cupitt a lot.

Coghlan gave me a distinction for the course, which was nice of him considering the tone of the essays.

It may be considered ratbaggery at a catholic university to submit an essay that basically says that miracles don’t exist and if they did they would disprove the existence of God. This essay has an odd snarky tone and uses some medical examples that I seem to recall the marker didn’t completely grasp. In other words an ill considered effort. I had the gall to submit this to the in house journal, I believe, where it was ignored, and rightly so.

My semester two subject in 2003 was Issues in Philosophy of Religion. The lecturer was Peter Coghlan BA (Uni Melb) MEd (Monash) who had been teaching philosophy since 1974. It looks like he was still teaching at least to 2007 and the subject appears to have ceased being offered in 2013. There are some publications here and some others at ACU. Here is an article he wrote for the Age. I never met the lecturer, since this was all online, and I pretty sure I had no idea he had nearly 30 years of teaching experience at the time.

The aims were to introduce us “to some of the basic philosophical issues posed by religious belief”, looking at the rationality of religious belief and the concept of God. Philosophy in general hurts my brain, but I was a big Don Cupitt fan, so it was worth a go.

The modules covered:

• The Ontological Argument
• The Cosmological Argument
• The Design Argument
• Religious Experience
• Objections to Religious Beliefs
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Morality
• The Concept of God
• Religious Language
• Some Radical Alternatives
• Revelation
• Religious Diversity

That was a lot of material and the notes were extensive with well chosen readings supplied for each module. Despite being online, being 2003, it was still all text based. There were two assignments worth 40% and 60% of the assessment, with suggested activities for each module that were not for assessment.

The risk for me with these topics was to succumb to being a ratbag radical upsetting people at a catholic university.

So most of the assessment was one large assignment. I’m not sure every lecturer would have appreciated my take on the subject of Resurrection, but Dr Hall was impressed enough to give me a high distinction.

O rereading it I am impressed with my own argument for a change and happy enough with my efforts back then. Then again with my background in New Testament studies I should have been up to the task by then.

Deciding to go back to tertiary study, this time at the Australian Catholic University, in 2003 semester one, also meant going back to distance education. That had changed beyond recognition since external studies in the pre-internet age. Everything was text, but online and communication was by email and discussion board. I don’t remember going to the ACU campus more than a couple of times, and for research that needed more than the internet, that meant a trip to the UQ libraries. My impression of the ACU library at the time was that it was limited. The Brisbane campus of ACU was situated across the road from my primary school, Nudgee State School, which no longer exists. When I was a child it just the Banyo Seminary, a closed and mysterious place. It is now an open and attractive campus with coastal views.

This course looks like it is still being offered, but my lecturer Dr Gerard Hall left ACU in 2017. I don’t think I knew he was a Marist priest. He had once been a school teacher and had a degree in literature and he must have been working on his PhD the year he supervised this course. I suspect I was rather spoiled by having him as the first lecturer from ACU, as not all the subsequent lecturers were of the same standard.

His blog has a wealth of information on his story and has access to his publications. There are also archived ACU sites about him that date from the time I did his subject and do not appear to have been updated, here and here.

My notes say there were two assignments worth 80% between them, but he must have allowed us to combine them into one. There was also 20% for participation in the discussion board. I don’t appear to have kept a record of these ephemera but did find one draft of something I must have contributed.

The support material was phenomenal. The modules of the course guide led to further readings from Hall’s Christology material – still available online here. There were bibliographies, but the modules also linked to provided readings. Being set in my ways, I printed it all out! I had trouble reading for understanding from screens and still do.

I was impressed by his openness to a plurality of ideas and also his use of poetry and other works of art to advance the discussions. He also edited the Australian E-Journal of Theology for many years, which seems to have ceased to be since he departed.

I was worried that when I got closer to the present and blogged courses that still exist, the risk of plagiarism would increase and I debated whether to post my old assignments. Happily, no-one other than myself reads this blog. I also suspect my old fashioned way of writing would be obvious to any astute lecturer of the future.

It is hard to remember what I was doing for those years, so since I am writing this for myself, I will see what I can recall. My wife was working as a part time GP. The four children were growing. I was working in General Practice and also as a medical adviser to DVA. I was increasingly active in the local church. At one stage I was on the parish council, but I was mainly involved in the music since I could play guitar and they were short of musicians. I was asked to assist a youth group but they grew up and moved on and then I just played with my family or other groups. I also started making primitive backings for hymns on an ancient version of Band in a Box.

Looking at old documents reminded me that I was published in Australian Family Physician. My wife and I had been published previously but this one was on my own. I’m not sure if this is a draft or the final version but it does not suggest I am happy in General Practice.

This nasty piece of writing imagining the life of a drug rep would seem to confirm that.

I also found notes for a short talk, apparently to other doctors, about treating mental health issues. I don’t know what SC means.

On a brighter note I was leading evening sessions at St Edwards. Father Frank Andersen had come to talk to us for a couple of evenings and we decided to go more in depth over several weeks, largely based on his book, “Eucharist: Participating in the Mystery.”

I do not recall how but at some stage in 2002, I was made aware of the MA (Theol) course at ACU, for which I possessed the prerequisites and that was wholly online so it wouldn’t interfere with working two jobs (!). Which is how is spent from 2003 to 2006 doing the eight units that would make up a coursework MA.

There are four poems miraculously preserved in a single manuscript by an unknown poet, who is usually called the Gawain poet. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and “Pearl” are considered works of genius, but the two other poems “Patience” and “Cleanness” are less celebrated.

When it came to looking at a dissertation topic, when my other suggestions were discouraged as being monumentally boring, Dr Moores was OK with me looking at the less celebrated of the poet’s works.

Most of this appears to be a combination of overeach and wishful thinking but if you ever were looking for a contrarian reading of these poems have a look.

I did spend an awful lot of time and effort on it and she did give me a grade of 7 (out of 7). I think she rightly struggled with my style suggesting that I wrote arts essays like a scientist.

Abstract:

Dissertation:

…and there ended my studies at the University of Queensland and logically should have ended my studies altogether.

It didn’t and I did use UQ libraries a lot when I embarked on further studies later on. This was because they were just better than the ACU library at Banyo, except for niche areas, and I was more familiar with them.

I found both the factual test and the two hour exam paper that between them were 50% of the marks for this subject.

I had an advantage in that I was up to my neck in the Gawain poet in my dissertation and that was a lot of the exam.

My last coursework subject at UQ was rewarded with a grading of 7 (out of 7)

My essay for this subject related to Guthlac A, The Passion of St Edmund and The Battle of Maldon.

It was graded 20/21.