Courses

Religion has played, and continues to play, a central role in virtually all societies. It is intimately related to such key aspects of communities as the structure of political power, economic organization, class structures, conceptions of gender, marriage, work and war. In short, religion shapes both the institutional order and the thought and behavior of individuals who inhabit it. The study of religion, therefore, is basic to the liberal arts and helps prepare students for a variety of career paths, including journalism, law, business, education and work in philanthropic and religious institutions. The department offers a major and a minor in Religious Studies; it also offers a bridge major, which involves the combination of work in religion with courses in another or other fields. Key to the program are courses on the history, scriptures, thought, practices and institutions of both Western and Asian religious traditions. Attention is also given to the interaction between religion and society and to the comparative study of religions.

Course Catalog

Requirements for a major

Religious Studies

Religious Studies bridged to another discipline

Requirements for a minor

Religious Studies

Courses in Religious Studies

Introduction to Religions

A cross-cultural survey course of major religious traditions, with emphasis upon the theoretical and methodological issues at stake in the discipline of Religious Studies. The course provides a balanced treatment of Asian and Western/Abrahamic traditions in order to explore the concept of 'religion' within a comparative humanistic context. Most important will be a close reading and discussion of primary texts in English translation. By the end of the course students will have developed a vocabulary for understanding religious phenomena cross-culturally and a sensibility for engaging with religious others in our globalizing world.

Judaism, Christianity, Islam

A basic cross-cultural survey course of the major religious traditions of the West: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Particular attention is paid to the thought, scriptures, practices and institutions of these traditions.

Hebrew Bible

This course surveys the diverse literature of Ancient Israel, read in English translation, that came to be recognized as sacred scripture by Judaism and Christianity (known alternatively as Tanakh or Old Testament). The texts are studied within the historical and cultural context of Ancient Israel with an interest in the history and methods of interpretation.

New Testament

The literature and faith of the New Testament communities studied in the context of the early church and the Judaic and Greco-Roman world.

Introduction to World Religious Literature

This course introduces major Eastern and Western religious themes and ideas through a combination of sacred and secular literature. The approach is comparative in nature, emphasizing texts that place these traditions in new geographical, cultural, temporal, and philosophical contexts. May be counted toward a major or minor in English literature upon approval of English department chair.

On-Campus Extended Studies Course

On-Campus Extended Studies course in Religious Studies.

Topics

Topics in Religious Studies.

First-Year Seminar

A seminar focused on a theme in the study of religion. Open only to first-year students.

Biblical Literature

An assessment of the Old and New Testament as anthologies of poetry and prose. Students will be invited to observe the varieties of literary genre, the artistic character of literary traditions and of individual books and the role of the author or editor in delivering a specific message to an audience, and the role of contemporary literary theory and interpretation.

Judaism

An introduction to Jewish life, thought and practice. Description of basic Jewish beliefs, attitudes, values and practices.

Jewish Writers

This class treats a range of modern and contemporary Jewish writers (European, American, and Israeli). Through writers such as Freud, Kafka, David Grossman, Dara Horn, Philip Roth, and Larry David, we will explore elements of Jewish identity, culture, history, theology and humor. Is there such a thing as a distinctly Jewish imagination? A distinctly Jewish aesthetic?

Christianity

A survey of major beliefs, practices and forms of the Christian religion. Special attention will be given to the Biblical foundations, theological formation and pivotal historical developments.

Islam

A survey of the major beliefs, rituals and institutions of Islam. Special emphasis will be given to recurring themes and issues that have shaped Muslim self-understanding throughout history.

Religions of India

This course provides an introduction to the many religious traditions which have found a home in India. In this comprehensive introduction we survey the history, thought, and practices of the major Indian religious traditions in order to come to a better understanding of the ways in which people in South Asia have found meaning and purpose in their lives through religion over several millennia. India (by which we mean not just the present-day nation-state of India but the cultural complex of South Asian civilization from Sri Lanka to Tibet and from Afghanistan to Myanmar from 2500 BCE to the present) gave birth to the three great religious traditions which now blanket Asia: Hinduism in modern-day India, Nepal, and Indonesia; Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos; and Mahayana Buddhism in Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. So, too, the religions of Jainism and Sikhism were born on Indian soil. And in the present day, the majority of the world's Muslims live in South Asia, thus making Islam a thoroughly 'Indian' religion by adoption. In this introductory class we concentrate on the practices and worldviews of Indian religions classical and modern.

Hinduism

In this course students examine religious experience and expression in Hindu India in all of their diversity and regional variation with special emphasis on the contemporary persistence of traditional values and practices. Relevant historical background information is surveyed in order to help assess continuity and change in learned and vernacular Hindu religious practices with particular attention paid to the values that both influence and are displayed by them.

Buddhism

Examines the development of Buddhist thought, scriptures, practices and institutions in India and the religion's spread to China and Japan.

East Asian Religions

This course serves as an introduction to the religious beliefs and practices of East Asia. The course proceeds in chronological order, but it will also focus on broader themes of East Asian religions. Emphasis will be placed on the diversity and unity of religious expressions in China, Korea, and Japan, with readings drawn from a wide-range of texts: religious scriptures, philosophical texts, popular literature, and ethnographic studies. Special attention will be given to those forms of religion common to both the elite and popular culture: cosmology, afterlife, morality, and mythology. The course also raises more general questions concerning gender, class, political patronage, and differing concepts of religion.

Religion in American Culture: Friend or Foe?

The class examines both historical and contemporary examples of the relationship between religion and culture in the United States in light of such questions as: In what ways has religion in the United States reflected the values of the larger culture? In what ways has it rejected those values? What happens when religious traditions conflict with or seek to convert one another? In what ways, apart from institutional settings such as churches and synagogues, have Americans found religious grounding for their lives? How does religious affiliation affect adherents' views of racial relationships, family life or capitalism? What myths undergird American identities?

Caribbean Religions and Culture

An exploration of the relationship between Caribbean religious traditions and culture in the development of Caribbean identity and nationhood. It focuses on how the major world religions were modified through the encounter between peoples of Amerindian, African, European and Asian descent. Further, it studies the impact of slavery, emigration, colonialism, and globalization on the emergence of indigenous Caribbean religious traditions (Vodun, Santeria, Rastafari).

Liberation Theology

An examination of the interaction between Western religious traditions and the foremost liberation movements: Third-World, black, gay and women's liberation.

Religion and Film

This course uses major theories of religion in order to investigate religious themes and symbols in a number of contemporary films. In this course we use the screening of a dozen or so religiously evocative films in order to open up a discursive space within which we can think critically about ourselves and the time we live in. In order to do this we look at the ways in which powerful religious themes have been dealt within film. At times the religious themes addressed in movies are overt and tradition-specific while at other times they are covert and universal. Throughout the course we interrogate filmic texts in order to understand the ways in which religious themes are dealt with through the cinematic medium. But we also allow the films to interrogate us! In this class we view the screening of the films as an opportunity for us to reflect upon the nature of religion as we try to come to a better understanding of its place within society and our own lives. The purpose of the course is twofold: first, students learn how to think critically about religion and its place as a social and cultural force in the contemporary world; second, they learn how to apply a critical attitude and critical tools to view films and other aspects of popular culture.

Malcolm, Martin & Co.: A Religious Interpretation

This course explores the religious dimensions in the life, philosophy, and work of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., two iconic figures whose complicated lives and articulate rhetoric were deeply shaped by religion, and their transformative role in the modern Civil Rights movement, the African American struggle for inclusion, law, and the construction of a democratic ethos in America and beyond. Drawing on primary and secondary sources, it emphasizes how the religious dynamic in Malcolm and Martin's heritage, personal development, consciousness, constructions of self, and society, impacted their significant and lasting contributions toward America's 'long civil rights movement,' and pursuit of its utopian promise. It also reflects on the ways in which their religious commitments and activism, framed between chaos and community, affected their environment, families, relations with other major figures in the global black struggle for emancipation--across the lines of gender, race, and sexuality. Ultimately, it reflects on their interrogations of contemporary society, the pathways of freedom they kept open, and the ways in which they are remembered.

Religion, Healing and Medicine

This course deals with the fact that religious traditions all over the world understand illness and disease as symptoms of spiritual defects. Additionally, many of these religious groups focus to varying degrees on therapeutic means of dealing with illness. This course considers cross-cultural contexts that include traditions of Asia, South America and the West.

Wisdom and Parables of Jesus

This course studies the parables, as significant parts of the New Testament, within the framework of the biblical wisdom tradition, the prevailing consensus and contemporary approaches to parable interpretation including socio-historical criticism that interpret the parables in relationship to the context of Ancient Palestine. The course seeks to broaden students' understanding of the parables, and to identify the authority, interpretive possibilities, and legacy of the major parables in the formation of the Christian tradition.

Topics in Religion

Topics such as religious phenomena, e.g., Millenialism, religious ethics and historical religious figures and movements. May be repeated for credit with different topics.

Religion and the Meaning of Life

The course explores the fundamental question whether life has meaning. The course poses the question and explores its relationship to religion as the human quest for meaning through reading and critical reflection on selected literature, and other related texts that illustrate the importance of meaning in the study of religion, and ways in which some of humankind's most important questions are grounded in religious sentiments. Texts include authors such as Karen Armstrong, Saint Augustine, Christina Baldwin, Viktor Frankl, Malcolm X, and Amy Tan.

Genesis and Gender: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Readings

This course considers ways that interpretations of sacred texts influence religious perceptions of gender and social order. Christian readings of Genesis 1-3 are the main focus; yet attention is also given to understandings of Eve and Adam in Judaism and Islam. Interpretations of Genesis that historically and presently argue for the subordination of women to men forms a central theme of the course. A counter theme emerges as we consider alternative readings that have traditionally used Genesis 1-3 to argue for gender equality. We will also reflect on the ways in which a hierarchical reading of the text has served to legitimate the domination of groups such as African-American slaves. Texts range from the Gnostic gospels, Philo, the Qur'an, The Maelleus Maleficarum, Paradise Lost, The Bible Defense of Slavery, The Woman's Bible and "The Coming of Lilith."

Topics in Biblical Studies

A study of selected problems or current developments in relation to the Old and/or New Testaments. Topics may include history and myth in the Ancient Near East, the social world of the prophets, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the historical Jesus and hermeneutics. May be repeated for credit with different topics.

Jewish and Christian Origins

This course focuses on the history, literature, and religious communities in the period that defines the background and the emergence of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism (400BCE-400CE). We deal with a vast array of ancient primary sources ranging from late biblical literature, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament and early Christian texts, and the literature of Rabbinic Judaism. These texts allow us to discuss the formations and developments of communities such as the Jerusalem Priesthood, the Dead Sea Scrolls Community, the Pharisees, and the various communities of Early Christianity, Rabbinic Judaism, and Jewish-Christianity.

Modern Christian Thought: From Liberalism to Liberation

Examines the ways in which Christian theology has responded to challenges presented by the modern world, particularly the Enlightenment. Considers the rise of 19th century liberalism, the development of historical critical approaches to scripture, and the search for the historical Jesus; post-World War I disillusionment and the neo-orthodox critique of liberalism; European theological responses to National Socialism; and the formation of gender, ethnic, racial and economic critiques of traditional Christianity that seek to present Christianity as a religion of liberation.

Modern Islam

Examines the developments, issues, events and ideas that have shaped modern Muslim thought and societies. Special attention will be given to the meaning of modernity/modernization, the way it was first encountered by Muslims, and its material and intellectual impact on Muslim societies.

Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Islam

This course examines women and gender in the Islamic tradition and Muslim societies. Through a variety of written and visual sources, it treats 1.) the history of women in Islam, 2.) the impact of the tradition on women's lives and gender categories, and 3.) the efforts of modern Muslims to challenge traditional gender definitions and create a useable past.

Modern Hinduism

In this course we examine the rise of Hindu modernity from the colonial period to the present day. Our main objective is to come to an understanding of the embedded nature of modern Hinduism within the historical matrices of culture, society, politics, and economics in India. Through the close reading of primary and secondary interpretive texts dealing with the transformation of religion in modern South Asia students learn how to apply the critical hermeneutical techniques specific to the discipline of the history of religions. At the same time they gain a better understanding of contemporary Hinduism as they learn about the challenges which Hindus have faced and negotiated in the modern period. By doing so students are able to understand more thoroughly the situation of religious belief and practice across the globe in the modern and post-modern periods.

Religion in Modern Japanese Society

Examines religion within the context of Japanese society from the 17th to the 20th century. Attention given to the rise of Confucianism in the 17th century, the Shinto revival of the 18th century, Buddhism in early modern Japan, the appearance of the new religions, and the relationship of religion to modernization and nationalism. Prerequisite: an introductory course in the department, East Asian history or permission of the instructor.

Bob Marley, Caribbean Religion and Culture

This course is a close study and analysis of the religious core and communicative rationality in Bob Marley's life and music. It develops the intersections between Caribbean religion and culture based on Marley's affiliation to Rastafari.

Advanced Topics in Religion

Usually a category of religious phenomena, such as religious experience, mysticism, the nature of deities; or the role and status of persons; healing in religious traditions; sectarian groups; major thinkers or movements; or themes and approaches in the study of religion. May be repeated for credit with different topics.

Psychoanalytic Approaches to the Study of Religion

The purpose of this course is to investigate the use to which psychoanalytic frameworks have been put in the understanding of religious phenomena over the past 100 years or so. Although out-of-fashion as a therapeutic model in the early 21st century, psychoanalysis nevertheless continues to exert an influence on the academic study of religion from scholars who have found psychoanalytic theoretical insights to be particularly helpful in the interpretation of religious experience and behavior. In this course students read key texts in the development of psychoanalytic thought and evaluate the extent to which they both help and hinder our understanding of religious human beings.

Seminar in Religion

This class involves readings and discussion of theoretical issues concerning the study of religion, research methods and concentrated research on a topic in Religious Studies. It culminates in a major paper that will be presented to senior majors and department faculty. Prerequisite: major in religious studies and senior status. May not be taken pass/fail.

Independent Study in Religion

Directed studies in a selected field or fields of religion. May be repeated for credit with different topics.