Class Schedules

Buddhism is increasingly well-known in the USA, but what is it, and how does Buddhism encourage people to organize and think about their lives? Organized on the basis of the Eightfold Noble Path, with a focus of 'morals, the Buddhist psychology of mind, and meditation,'  this course offers an introduction to the personalities, teachings, and institutions of Buddhism. Beginning in India at the time of the Buddha, this course focuses on Theravada Buddhism, asking students to think historically, philosophically, and anthropologically. Many Friday sessions will be dedicated to an exploration of the variety of Buddhist meditative techniques.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course will introduce students to what is known today as the Bible: a library of ancient Scriptures that are central to modern Jewish and Christian adherence (called the Tanakh in Judaism and the Old Testament in Christianity). We will study the Bible in its original literary and cultural contexts, which reflect the worldviews of ancient Israelites from roughly 1200 BCE to 150 BCE. Alongside an analysis of the biblical texts, students will also encounter related literature from the Ancient Near East to compare with the Bible. Through this comparative approach, we will gain insight into ancient history, as well as the political and theological views of the Israelites and their neighbors. We will also see how the Bible contributes to various topics of discourse that remain relevant today, including its influence on ideology, ritual, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, ethics, science, and collective memory. As such, students will have the opportunity to put the Bible into dialogue with their own understandings of identity, society, and religiosity.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines the diverse literature of the New Testament along with some other early Christian texts that did not become part of the Christian "canon." We will employ historical-critical approaches in order to situate New Testament texts in their social, political, and historical contexts. We will pay special attention to how the various authors of the New Testament produced Jewish-Christian difference and how they understood the role of women within their communities. Contemporary modes of interpretation will be employed to explore the formation of identity in the first and second centuries of Christianity.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course examines the diverse literature of the New Testament along with some other early Christian texts that did not become part of the Christian "canon." We will employ historical-critical approaches in order to situate New Testament texts in their social, political, and historical contexts. We will pay special attention to how the various authors of the New Testament produced Jewish-Christian difference and how they understood the role of women within their communities. Contemporary modes of interpretation will be employed to explore the formation of identity in the first and second centuries of Christianity.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Our goal will be to make an effort to comprehend just what cultural literacy would mean when studying the major religious traditions of the world, while at the same time developing an appreciation of some of the blind spots and problems in this enterprise. To a large extent, we will do some serious construction before we feel ready for de-construction. Every couple of weeks, we will cover one of five major areas (South Asia, East Asia, Judaism, Christianity, Islam) and each student will read a different author's treatment of this material.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course investigates the ways in which gender identities and relationships between “men” and “women” have been articulated, constructed, and refashioned throughout the Muslim World. Starting with problematizing fixed notions of gender and sexuality, we map prominent attitudes through visiting a diverse array of sources from the Qur’an, Sunna, and legal documents to historical and anthropological case studies, literature, and film from across the region. Exploring notions of femininity and masculinity, as well as attitudes towards homosexuality and transgendered populations, we witness their implications in case studies and stories, from a divorce court in Iran to a matriarchal utopia in India.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

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 the Babri Masjid crisis and India's debates about secularism.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

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.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

All readings and class taught in English; no pre-knowledge required. Marx's contribution to the theorization of the function of the imaginary in both the constitution of subjectivity and the mechanisms of politics and economy-usually referred to as ideology-cannot be overestimated. The first part of this course traces Marx's gradual conceptualization of the imaginary throughout his work-as well as further Marxist theoreticians, such as Louis Althusser, Étienne Balibar, and Slavoj Žižek-while exploring how the imaginary enabled Marx's discovery of three further crucial concepts: structure, the unconscious, and the symptom, all of which are central in the analysis of culture and ideology. In the second part of the course, we shall focus on the logic and mechanisms of power in contemporary neoliberalism, including the claim that today Marx's theory is no longer relevant (readings will include Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Maurizio Lazzarato, McKenzie Wark).

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this course, students will explore how stories of past and present Christians and the theologies they produced contribute to the histories of gender and sexuality, particularly in the United States. We will pay special attention to the development of and intersections among queer theory, queer and trans activism, queer biblical interpretation, and queer theology in the U.S. from the late twentieth century on. Students will learn how the development of queer biblical interpretation and theology grew out of the intellectual and activist work of feminist, womanist, and mujerista scholars, theologians, ethicists, and pastors. In readings, class discussion, online forums, and written and creative work, students will be invited to explore the social construction of gendered identities and sexualities over time, from antiquity to the postmodern, and the intersections of these identities with religion, race, ethnicity, class, and dis/ability. Although the majority of the class will be devoted to historical scholarship and theological writing that insists on the inclusion of diverse sexualities and genders in the Christian past, present, and future, we will also examine the role that some forms of American Christianity play in the exclusion of LGBTQ+ people, the enforcement of compulsory heterosexuality, the “naturalization” of a gender binary, and the reification of patriarchal, racist, homophobic, and transphobic cultures.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course surveys Jewish thinkers who have both theorized and criticized religion from the early modern period to the present. Students will encounter a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives on religion, including the biblical criticism of Baruch Spinoza, the economic theory of Karl Marx, the sociological lens of Emile Durkheim, the psychology of Sigmund Freud, and the mysticism of Abraham Joshua Heschel. Alongside consideration of classical theory and Jewish spirituality, we will examine early 21st-century criticism from the so-called New Atheist movement, encounter cinematic conceptualizations of Jewish ritual and praxis, and work through questions of Jewishness and ethnicity from the perspective of contemporary stand-up comedians. Our course will put these theoretical/critical frameworks into conversation with religious Scripture and tradition to contextualize our analyses within the history of Judaism.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Iran, Pakistan, and until very recently, Afghanistan are three countries that are constitutionally imagined as Islamic Republics. Is this category a possibility or an oxymoron? How is nation imagined in them? What is meant by national identity? Is nation a primordial concept or a byproduct of Modernity? What social, economic, sexual, religious, and racial factors are at work in creating a nation? This course looks at these questions in the context of the Modern Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan, where competing nation-building enterprises were at work to establish an “authentic national identity” with a focus on religious identity. We will study the historical and recent political developments in these countries such as the India/Pakistan partition, the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and Afghanistan’s transition from Islamic Emirates to Islamic Republic and again to Islamic Emirates with the return of Taliban to power in September 2021. We will look at political essays, literary creations, images, and songs to study the diverse ways in which the nation is imagined and critiqued in the region, along with sources on Modern political thought.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

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.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores the historical development of Buddhist thought and practice across Asia by tracing how communities of monks, scholars, and philosophers sought to understand and embody the path to liberation. Including studies of major schools and figures in Buddhism, including Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, and Buddhaghosa, students examine how diverse Buddhist traditions emerged from shared questions about mind, self, causality, and the nature of awakening.Along the way, the course cultivates key academic skills in textual interpretation, argumentation, and historical contextualization. Students learn to analyze philosophical ideas within their religious and cultural settings, compare perspectives across regions and time periods, and engage critically with both primary sources and modern scholarship.By combining close reading with cross-cultural inquiry and philosophical reasoning, students gain insight not only into the development of Buddhism but also into the broader processes by which ideas travel, transform, and shape worlds. The course provides both newcomers and those with prior background a rigorous and rewarding foundation for further study in religion, philosophy, or intellectual history.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The story of the exodus from Egypt is the central collective memory in all of Jewish thought and history. The scriptural narrative of Israel’s emergence from slavery informs not only the rest of the Bible, but also the content of post-biblical Judaism and Christianity. In this course, we will trace the impact of this foundational account from its inception in the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) to its influence over later Jewish literature, including the New Testament and rabbinic discourse. After focusing on the original exodus narrative and its literary afterlife, students will see how the liberation from Egypt influences Jewish holidays (including, but not limited to, Passover), the Jewish-Christian discourse of late antiquity, medieval Jewish philosophy, and more. These explorations will give way to viewing the exodus story through modern cultural lenses, including its application in the abolition of slavery in the United States, its influence within the Civil Rights movement, and its role in shaping various forms of popular culture such as marketing, movies, and socio-cultural commentary.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Religion and Law in Africa is an intermediate cross-listed history and religion course designed to teach students how to think like historians and assess how the legal systems of indigenous African societies have been shaped by their respective religions and cosmologies. This course also explores how Arab migration and European colonization in different parts of Africa imposed new legal systems that were influenced by either Islam or Christianity. The major themes of this class include African agency, indigenous African forms of knowledge and periodization, the interconnectedness of religious, legislative, and judicial facets of African societies, and diversity among African regions, societies, ethnic groups, religions, and languages. It counts toward the Legal Studies and African Studies concentrations. For history, it meets either the pre-1800 or post-1800 requirement and can count towards the "Law & Social Justice," or "Race and Indigeneity," or "Africa & Atlantic World" fields.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

From Socrates to suicide bombers, martyrs have been forced to give up their lives, or chosen to risk them and even to die, rather than renounce their beliefs or practices. Of course, we know their stories only second hand. This course explores how narratives about martyrs ("martyrologies") relate to the formation of religious identities and communities. Over the course of the semester, we will analyze martyrologies from the early Christian and Jewish periods, the beginnings of Islam, the sixteenth century, and modernity. We will pay special attention to the social and political contexts with which martyrs often found themselves at odds (including the Roman Empire in the ancient past, and the U.S./Middle East conflicts of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries). In class discussions, readings, and written work, you will have the opportunity to reflect on the following questions (among others): How do the stories we tell about martyrs shape the way we understand religious practices and beliefs? How do narratives of bearing witness, suffering, and death help to illumine relationships between religious and political domains? How might our current understanding of martyrdom be informed for better and for worse by a study of history?

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores the pleasures and pains of love (divine and human) as imagined by authors writing within the Persianate tradition. We will examine diverse sources, including autobiographies, letters, poems, and novels, produced from the tenth century to the present day. Readings (in English translation) will center on themes such as forbidden love, the celebration of carnal pleasure and lust, homoeroticism, mystical love, and love for God, religious figures, and the nation. Primary texts will be paired with secondary readings that develop key literary and philosophical questions about love.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Varies by semester. Consult the department or class schedule for current listing.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

The word "ritual" is used in many contexts to refer to types of practice that are considered centrally important, as well as formalistic and repetitive. This seminar-style course concentrates on the concept of ritual as a central component of social practice, within and without religious groupings. Focusing on developing the concept of ritual, we will focus on ritual across traditions. This requires 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.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course explores how bodily practices of fasting and sexual abstinence have shaped Christian identities from the first century, C.E. to today. From Paul of Tarsus' instructions about sexual discipline to the True Love Waits® campaign, from the desert fathers' rigorous bodily regimens to the contemporary Christian diet movement, Christians have often understood the practice of renunciation as a necessary feature of spiritual perfection. In this course we will consider several ascetic movements in Christian history, including the development of ascetic practice in late antiquity, the rise of fasting practices among women in medieval Europe, and the culture of Christian dieting and chastity in the U.S. We will pay special attention to how Christian practices of piety both draw upon and contribute to cultural understandings of gender and the body.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

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. Prerequisite(s): Two courses in Religious Studies and permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials