Discussion Questions for Science, Religion, and the Humanities

Here are the discussion questions for the sixth email in the AMV Deep Dive of Marden J. Clark’s essay collection Liberating Form.

If you haven’t signed up for the email, you can read it (and sign up to receive future ones) here: Science, Religion, and the Humanities.

Please note that comments are moderated, and the goal is to make this a place welcome to Mormons of all stripes (as well as folks with an interest in Mormonism).

1. Clark writes that “art can bring us pain as well as comfort” (70). Are those the two primary emotions it can bring us? Are they the most important? Which other emotions can art bring us? Are those other emotions of equal, greater, or lesser value than pain and comfort and how so?
2. What kind of darkness do you seek out in art? (Which may or may not coincide with the kind of art that is labeled as dark). Which works of art that has darkness in it have you had interesting, profound, and/or emotional experiences with?
3. Which works (if any) of Surfiction, postmodern art, metafiction, fabulation, high modernist art, etc. do you find valuable? Which do you think would be the most likely to change Clark’s mind on the value of such art?
4. How does reading literature affect how you read scripture?