“Why are we here? What’s the point?”
Karen Carr’s fascination with “the big questions” began in the late 1970s as a student at Oberlin College, majoring in philosophy and religion. Her thought-provoking exploration continues nearly three decades later and a new generation of college students is both learning from the professor of religious studies, and simultaneously teaching Carr to examine these weighty subjects with new perspective.
“Teaching a good class is right up there with the best things in life,” Carr says. “Being able to share my interests with students and have them see the world in a different way, and to have their ideas make me think about things differently — shared joy is a wonderful thing.” Occasionally, that intellectual connection is inspired by the examination of dark, abhorrent themes. In 2007-08, Carr’s classroom conversations will help shape the subject of her next book, an exploration of religious, philosophical, and “post-metaphysical” conceptions of evil. Carr says, “It’s important to face the dark side of human reflection, so we can face its consequences and, one hopes, find ways to get beyond it.”
The study of religion is on the rise and last year Carr introduced a new course titled Religion, Self-Deception, and Alienation that focused on how five thinkers — Camus, Freud, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Becker — respond to the question, “Is religion an instance of, or a remedy for, self-deception and/or alienation?”
A scholar on the history of Christianity and 19th- and 20th-century religious thought, Carr is the author of two books, The Banalization of Nihilism, and The Sense of Anti-Rationalism: The Religious Thought of Zhuangzi and Kierkegaard, a comparative study of religious epistemology, co-authored with Philip J. Ivanhoe.
Carr was presented Lawrence University’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2006, complementing the Outstanding Young Teacher Award she received in 1989, her third year at the college. “It’s gratifying to be recognized by peers,” says Carr. “Lawrence faculty members are here because we love to teach. I love this community, the students, the interactions, and especially hearing from students after they’ve graduated. What we do here is special.”
View other faculty profiles from the president's annual report
