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Religious StudiesCOURSES 100 INTRODUCTION TO ISLAM: FORMATION AND EXPANSION This course charts the formation of Islam and the expansion of Muslim peoples, from the life of the Prophet Muhammad to the Mongol conquest of Baghdad. It will examine Muslim institutions, beliefs, and ritual practices in their historical contexts. In addition to the basics of Muslim practice and belief, the class will introduce students to mystic traditions (Sufism), Islamicate statecraft, and intellectual/legal traditions as well as cultural trends including art, architecture, and literature. No prerequisites. Every year. (4 credits) 101 ISLAM IN AMERICA 8 million Muslims in America make up only 3% of the population but represent worlds of culture reflecting the diversity of Muslim societies worldwide. The story of Muslims in America distinguishes, for historical and religious reasons, three groups: Blackamericans (42% of American Muslims), Indo-Pakistanis (29%), Arab/Middle Easterners (12%) from the rest of the American Muslim population. The historical and numerical importance of Blackamericans followed by Indo-Pakistanis (whose presence in America can be dated back to the split of the Subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1946) interacts with the religious importance of Arab/Middle Eastern Muslims and becomes the basis of contentions about religious authority and the American Muslim identity. 9/11 presented unique challenges to American Muslims. These issues will be explored in this course. Not offered 2009–2010). (4 credits) 102 MODERN ISLAM Muslim-majority societies faced daunting social, political, and intellectual challenges after Europe’s military and economic expansion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the modern period, Muslims have pursued various attempts at re-imagining Islam and strengthening Muslim-majority polities through different agendas of reform and revival. The course will survey the early-modern Muslim empires (Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal), the encounter of Muslim peoples with colonialism, and the major religious and social developments from the eighteenth century to the present. No prerequisites. Next offered 2009–2010. (4 credits) 111 INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHISM Organized on the basis of the Buddhist triple gem (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha), this course examines each in turn, offering an introduction to the personalities, teachings, and institutions of Buddhism. Beginning in India at the time of the Buddha, this course moves throughout most of the Buddhist world, asking students to think both historically and comparatively, learning both about Buddhism “in general,” and about the diversity among “Buddhisms.” No prerequisite. Next offered 2009–2010. (4 credits) 120 HEBREW BIBLE This course introduces students to the academic study of Hebrew Bible texts and other Ancient Near Eastern literature in translation. Students will learn to apply a range of methodologies, from traditional methods such as historical and source criticism to newer methods such as feminist and post-modern interpretations. Students will learn how to write exegesis papers and critically engage the social legacies of biblical texts. No prerequisite. Every year. (4 credits) 121 NEW TESTAMENT This course introduces students to New Testament literature and thought in light of the historical, literary, and religious multiculturalism of the ancient Mediterranean world. The texts that make up the New Testament will be situated in various historical, literary, and cultural contexts, and read as one of a diverse set of representations of Jesus and his followers. We will also attend to the politics of canonization and decanonization, the production of Jewish-Christian difference, and the role of women in early Christian communities. No prerequisite. Every year. (4 credits). 123 JESUS, DISSENT, AND DESIRE This course introduces students to Christian practice, doctrine, faith, and social organization by examining various historical controversies and the roles they have played in the formation and alteration of the traditions from Christian origins to the present. Specific controversies will be selected from historical events and movements, beginning with the earliest struggles over the significance of the person and nature of Jesus of Nazareth, the ethos and institutional structure of the early communities, and the canonization of scripture. The course will conclude with a brief discussion of contemporary disputes over internal ethical and denominational pluralism and relationships between Christianity and the State. This course is strongly recommended in preparation for Religion 346: Dissent, Reform, and Expansion in Sixteenth Century Europe and for Religion 348: Contemporary Christian Thought. No prerequisite. Not offered 2009–2010. (4 credits) 124 INTRODUCTION TO ASIAN RELIGIONS (Same as Asian Languages and Cultures 124) This course is intended to familiarize students with the basic shapes and practices of a few major Asian religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Shinto. By the end of the course, students should be capable of easily summarizing key concepts from each religion studied, comparing it to others, and contextualizing religious beliefs and practices in geographical and historical terms. No prerequisite. Every year. (4 credits) 125 LOVE AND DEATH This course explores possible relations between love and death in human life, illustrated in theory, fiction, and film. We shall raise such questions as: How does love differ according to the kind of relationship in which it finds expression (for example, parental love, friendship, sexual intimacy, love for strangers and enemies, neighborly love, self-love, love for learning, love for justice, and devotion to a transcendent reality)? What does love require in regard to how owe live and die? How does our awareness that death is inevitable inform our views and experiences of love? What role does love play in the significance we attribute to death? As we raise all of these questions we will repeatedly ask: What difference do racial, gender, class, age, sexual, and religious differences make in how we love and how we die. Not offered 2009–2010. (4 credits) 126 RELIGION IN AMERICA The social and intellectual history of religion in the United States through the year 1900, with an emphasis on popular religious movements. The social and economic correlates of religious developments will be analyzed as well as the impact of Christian values on American institutions. Alternate years. (4 credits) 127 RELIGIONS OF INDIA (Same as Asian Languages and Cultures 127) An introductory level course on the popular, classical and contemporary religious traditions of South Asia. Topics include Advaita Vedanta and yoga, popular devotionalism, monastic and lay life in Theravada Buddhism, the caste system, Gandhi and modern India. Prerequisite: Religious Studies 124 or permission of instructor. Alternate years. (4 credits) 135 ROME AND INDIA (Same as Classics 135) This course is taught jointly between the department of religious studies and the department of classics, by a specialist in the Roman East and a specialist in classical India. We will start on either side of this world, with Alexander the Great and Ashoka, exploring the relationship between empire and religion from Rome to India in the world’s crossroads for the thousand years between Alexander and the rise of Islam. Alternate years. (4 credits) 141 NON-CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY What is myth, and why have scholars spent so much time arguing over its nature? How have various groups used narratives and other related forms to describe the origins and nature of humans, animals, love, death, and the cosmos? Do myths exist in our present-day culture? How have people brought themselves into contact with myth through ritual, drama, possession, music, art, pilgrimage, and other activities? Do people really believe their myths? Do myths change the way in which we experience the world? This class will explore the role of myth in religion and culture, with an emphasis on examples outside of the more familiar ancient Greek and Roman traditions. Our focus will be on the religious aspects of myth, but we will also explore perspectives drawn from Folkloristics, Literary Criticism, Art History, Philosophy, and other academic disciplines. Through readings, lectures, slides, videos, and hands-on experiences, we will investigate case studies from many cultures and historical periods. We will explore aspects and uses of myth including myth theory, archetypes and psychological transformation, cosmology and the idea of social charters, myth as a kind of scientific thought, the use of myth in art and performance, political control and subversion, and recent efforts to utilize or create new myths in the form of literature and film. Every other year. (4 credits) 145 PAGANS, CHRISTIANS, AND JEWS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY: CULTURES IN CONFLICT (Same as Classics 145 and Humanities Media and Cultural Studies 145) This course studies the interaction of Jewish, Christian, and pagan cultures, and the protracted struggle for self-definition and multi-cultural exchange this encounter provoked. The course draws attention to how the other and cultural and religious difference are construed, resisted, and apprehended. Readings include Acts, Philo, Revelation, I Clement, pagan charges against Christianity, Adversus Ioudaios writers, the Goyim in the Mishna, and apologetic literature. Alternate years. (4 credits) 200 THE QUR’AN (KORAN) This course offers an introduction to the Qur’an (Koran), the central text of Islam. Students will read the Qur’an in translation, explore traditions of Qur’anic interpretation, and engage recent academic approaches to understanding the text. In addition to considering the original context of the Qur’an and its relationship to Biblical materials, the course will examine contemporary controversies surrounding the text and its import for living Muslim communities. No prerequisites. Fall 2009. (4 credits) 201 ISLAM AND PHILOSOPHY The course begins with an explanation of the concept of philosophy in Islam and explores Islamic philosophical writings addressing a broad range of themes. These include 1) natural disposition and knowledge, 2) how can we know “what we know,” 3) reconciling revelatory and philosophical knowledge, 4) the possibility of universal logic, 5) the evolution of religion in community, 6) the meaning of history and civilization, 7) the relationship between law and morality, among others. Philosophers discussed include Farabi (d.950), Ghazalia (d. 1111), Ibn Tufayl (d.1185), Ibn Rushd (d. 1198), and Ibn Khladun (d. 1409). Not offered 2009–2010. (4 credits) 222 CHRISTIANITY IN LATE ANTIQUITY This course introduces students to the emergence of a diverse social movement now termed “Christianity” within the political, economic, historical and cultural worlds of the ancient Mediterranean (i.e. the Roman Empire) We will examine the formation of early Christian identity during the first four centuries of the common era. We will explore multifaceted forms of religious practice, resistance to and adaptations of institutional and social power, relations between Christians and non-Christians, and rhetorical strategies used in articulating Christian identity. Offered every other year. (4 credits) 223 ORTHODOXY AND HERESY IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY The critical study of ancient Christian texts involves making strange texts familiar and familiar texts strange. In this course, we will consider non-canonical texts alongside canonical texts in order to develop insight into the formation of Christian identity in the first through fourth centuries. Special emphasis will be given to the development of the discourses of orthodoxy and heresy, the diversity of Christian beliefs and practices, and the examination of early Christian writings within their social and political contexts. Instead of investigating the material in strict chronological order, we will consider how different people (Jesus, Mary Magdalene, James, Paul, etc) serve as authorizing figures for the texts. Using this organization, we will investigate issues at stake in the development of Christian “canon,” including theology, Christology, apostolic authority, women’s roles, and the relation of Christianity to the state and to other religious traditions. Next offered 2009–2010. (4 credits) 233 HINDUS AND MUSLIMS This class will be a reflection on the long history of co-existence of people in South Asia thought to belong to two very different religions Hinduism and Islam. We will begin by looking at the formation of classical Islam in the Middle East, and looking at the classical Hindu epic, the Ramayana. From there we will move to a survey of the history of encounter and exchange, from the early period (al Biruni), to the establishment of the great Muslim sultanates. We will critically examine the evidence of religious conflict, alongside the evidence of rich cultural exchange, and interrogate the competing historigrahic narratives, according to which South Asia either become a single Indo-Islamic civilization or a place of two cultures destined to become different modern nation states (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh). Finally, we will consider colonial and post colonial South Asia and conclude with a reflection on he Babri Masjid crisis and India’s debates about secularism. Offered alternate years. (4 credits) 234 INTRODUCTION TO JEWISH LIFE AND THOUGHT This course will survey Judaism’s basic beliefs and practices, from the Bible to the present day, through examination and discussion of religious and social literature created by the Jewish people. Alternate years. (4 credits)
235 THEORY AND METHOD IN THE STUDY OF RELIGION The course is an introduction to some of the important theoretical and methodological work conducted by scholars in various disciplines who hope to better define and understand religious phenomena. This seminar begins with some of the early twentieth century texts that are often cited and discussed by contemporary scholars of religion (e.g., Durkheim, Weber, Freud) and then turns to a number of investigations stemming from engagement with earlier theorists or refracting new concerns. The course inquires into the problems of defining and analyzing religious cultures, and the researcher’s position or positions in this analysis, as this has been approached from anthropological, sociological, and religious studies perspectives. Every year. (4 credits) 238 CATHOLICISM A study of the religious tradition of Roman Catholicism. Some attention will be given to the theology and historical development of the Roman Catholic Church, but major emphasis will fall on the relationship of the Catholic religion to various Catholic cultures, including Ireland, Mexico, Poland, and especially the United States. Next offered 2009–2010. (4 credits) 244 DISSENT, REFORM, AND EXPANSION IN 16th CENTURY EUROPE This course examines the Protestant, Radical, and Catholic reformation movements of sixteenth century Europe in conjunction with European global expansion. We will explore such theological debates of the time as the nature of religious authority, the relationship between religious and political authority, the relation between faith and works, whether humans are free or predestined in respect to their salvation, whether colonized people have souls, and how to tell if someone is a witch. We will analyze these debates in relation to their historical context with an eye to their roles in the development of the nation state, secularism, and global capitalism, as we know them today. Alternate years. (4 credits) 246 CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN THOUGHT AND PRACTICE This course critically examines the engagement of Christian thought and practice with modern and post-modern cultures. Students will explore interactions across theological thinking, ethical action, ritual behavior, and material culture in Christian life. Possible issues for focus include: divine creativity and environmentalism; the nature and gender of God in relation to what it means to be human; liberation theologies and global capitalism; Christian theological responses to violence; Christian identity and U.S. nationalism; Christianity and sexual identity; the rise of evangelicalism to political power; spiritual discipline across Christian traditions; global Christianity; Christian theologies of the environment and the relation between the Incarnation and material objects. Alternate years. (4 credits) 248 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION (Same as Philosophy 238) The Philosophy of Religion seeks an understanding of religion by raising philosophical questions about its underlying assumptions and implications. When we believe something it is because we think it is true and because we think we have good evidence to support our belief. In the case of religious beliefs, however, we are immediately faced with questions concerning the nature of such beliefs. What claims do they make? What would count as good evidence for a religious belief? What is the nature of religious truth? In this course we will examine the nature of religious beliefs and the ways in which philosophers in different traditions have justified or argued against such beliefs. Perhaps in response to the increasing challenge to religion from the natural sciences, twentieth century philosophers have questioned the traditional philosophical approach to religion. Some philosophers, Wittgenstein for example, question traditional interpretations of religious language and re-examine the relationship between faith and reason. Can religious life be practiced without a theology or with skepticism or agnosticism regarding theological questions? Other topics covered in the course include the attempt to introduce intelligent design into public schools as part of the science curriculum; religious pluralism; the belief in life after death; and feminist critiques of religious language. Alternate years; next offered 2010–2011. (4 credits) 300 INTRODUCTION TO ISLAMIC LAW This course introduces students to the basic concepts that recur in the study of Islamic law and provides a general overview of the history and development of Islamic law and legal theories. The course will also offer the students an opportunity to delve into the process of legal reasoning as practiced by Muslim jurists in order to understand it and anticipate its outcome. We will discuss Muslim juristic hermeneutics (their unique way of reading the authoritative texts of the Qur’an and the Sunna/Tradition of the Prophet), their reasoning based on analogy, utility, and their concept of rights. Comparisons with Western legal reasoning will be offered in the course of our discussions, but previous knowledge of law or legal philosophy is not assumed. Prerequisite: Two courses in religious studies preferred. Not offered 2009–2010. (4 credit) 311 RITUAL This seminar-style course concentrates on the concept of ritual in approaches to the study of religion, and examines examples of rituals in practice. We will eschew focus on any single religious tradition for a focus on ritual across traditions. This will require students to ’work with’ concepts—forming a conception of what they mean by ritual, and be willing to change that conception when faced with contradictory evidence. Offered alternate years. (4 credits) 469 APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF RELIGION An advanced seminar required for religious studies majors, open to minors. Both classic and contemporary theories on the nature of religion and critical methods for the study of religion will be considered. Prerequisites: two courses in religious studies and permission of the instructor. Every year. (4 credits) 604 TUTORIAL Prerequisite: permission of the instructor. Every semester. (4 credits) 614 INDEPENDENT PROJECT Prerequisite: permission of the instructor. Every semester. (4 credits) 624 INTERNSHIP Prerequisite: permission of the instructor. A maximum of one internship may be applied toward the religious studies major. Every semester. (4 credits) 634 PRECEPTORSHIP Prerequisite: permission of the instructor. Every semester. (4 credits) 644 HONORS INDEPENDENT Independent research, writing, or other preparation leading to the culmination of the senior honors project. Offered every semester. (1–4 credits)
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