Class Schedules

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:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

Buddhism is increasing 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:
Internationalism
Writing WP

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

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:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

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.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

For the past century, film has been a conduit for religious imagery and ideology. This course focuses on the role of Jews and Judaism in the creation and content of cinema. Alongside films by Jewish directors such as Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, and the Coen Brothers, we will also see how non-Jewish filmmakers portray Jewish ethnicity and history. We will view comedies, musicals, and dramas, with a focus on how Judaic considerations shape the cinematic message. Readings from the Bible and later Jewish literature will supplement analyses of religious themes in movies from the United States, Europe, and Israel. Students will engage films as critical texts in order to assess the degree to which popular media express contemporary religious concerns.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

For over two thousand years, Jews and Christians have read and interpreted the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh, Old Testament) in a variety of ways. This course explores the many historical and religious contexts in which ancient and modern readers have understood Scripture. Students will survey methods for interpretation, as well as specific biblical passages that have yielded various meanings throughout the centuries. We will analyze ancient texts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, and rabbinic literature, in order to see how different religious groups utilized the Bible for their respective communities. The course will also compare these early interpretations with modern scholarly approaches to highlight Scripture’s role in political, social, and theological debates today.

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 WP

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this course we explore the complicated lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. - the convergences and divergences. We analyze the intersections of racial identity, religious affiliation, and political orientation and their relations to the prevailing notions of manhood. How did Malcolm and Martin enter the black freedom movement? How did their religious affiliation facilitate or hinder entry? How did their participation in the movement inform their understanding of religion? Within their respective imaginations, what kind of "religio-political and ethical figure" is America - Egypt, or Promised Land, Zion or Babylon; messianic nation or apocalyptic, dystopian nightmare? How do Martin and Malcolm perform, enact, and embody the notion that "black lives matter?"

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

America is incomprehensible without reference to black Americans. In this course we explore the complicated lives of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X: how their lives converged and diverged. We analyze the intersections of racial identity, religious affiliation, and political orientation and their relations to the prevailing notions of manhood and American identity. How did Martin Luther King and Malcolm X enter the black freedom movement? How did their religious affiliations facilitate or hinder entry? How did their participation in the movement transform their understanding of religion? In what ways do MLK and X make theological critiques of antiblackness and white supremacy? How do they understand the relations among race, religion, and politics? Is religion central to their respective self-understanding? How do Martin and Malcolm enact—before the fact—the ideas expressed by the Twitter hashtags “#BlackLivesMatter” (created by the activists Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi) and “#SayHerName” (by the poet Aja Monet)?

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this course, we explore ancient and modern understandings of atheism. The course is organized around ten questions. 1. What basic claims does atheism make about the "nature of things,” about what is and what is not (ontology), how things came to be (cosmology), and about their value? 2. Is atheism the “negation” of religion or merely the "other" of god(s)? 3. Can one be atheistic and religious too? 4. Are atheism and theism radically different or, in fact, "kissing cousins?" 5. Is deifying human being the inevitable consequence of rejecting god(s)? 6. What is the relationship between atheism and humanism? 7. Are atheists more reasonable, more evidence-based than theists? 8. Are atheists less virtuous and moral than theists? 9. Does atheism imply a specific ethics and politics? 10. What are the “existential” (life and death, anxiety-producing and management) implications of atheism; is humanism a more sustainable philosophy of life than theism?

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

In this course, we will examine the role of the veil in societies from the ancient Near East to the present. We will pay special attention to veiling as a cultural and religious practice that reflects ideas about piety, gender, and status. Along with learning about the history of the veil and its use in some of the major religious traditions, we will consider the function of the veil in contemporary political debates, and we will explore women's veiling as a topic in feminist discourse.

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. As a First Year Course, this class offers an intensive introduction to theories of culture and social thought, and provides persistent and explicit practice in named academic skills.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials