Spring 2008

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HBR 1103 - Hebrew II (Goff)
The second semester of introduction to Biblical Hebrew.  In HBR 1102 and HBR 1103 students will be introduced to the grammar of Biblical Hebrew and acquire a good working vocabulary of the language, so that they will be able to translate any biblical text with the help of a dictionary.  Selections from the Hebrew Bible will be read in class. The sequence of HBR 1102, 1103 and 2202 fulfills the College of Arts & Sciences language requirement.

HUM 2937-06/ISS 2937-03 - Human Rights and Crimes Against Humanity; A Multi-Disciplinary Approach (Twiss and Maier-Katkin)
This seminar examines the history and dynamics of crimes against humanity as an introduction to the international human rights movement.  It focuses on two historical cases--the Belgian Congo in the late 19th-early 20th centuries and the Holocaust at mid-20th century--both of which spawned a considerable literature of testimony, analysis, resistance, and reform at the time and subsequently.  Materials for study include works of literature, drama, history, journalism, and philosophy, as well as essays, public addresses, letters, and other creative works by prominent figures in the humanities, arts, social sciences, public life, and the learned professions (e.g., law).  The course is co-instructed by Professors Maier-Katkin (Criminology) and Twiss (Religion & Human Rights Center)

HUM 3413 - Humanities: South Asia (Erndl)
An introduction to the cultures of South Asia, especially India and Pakistan, through literature, the arts, and film. Classical and modern cultural expressions will be explored. No prerequisite. This course may count as Religion Department credit. Note: Attendance at Salman Rushdie’s performance on Feb. 22 is required.

REL 1300 - Introduction to World Religions
A survey of the major living religious traditions of the world, with attention to their origins in the ancient world and their classic beliefs and practices.

REL 1300-04 - Introduction to World Religions, Honors Section (Kragh)
A survey of the major living religious traditions of the world, covering particularly Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity and in less detail Confucianism, Daoism, Judaism, Native American and primal religions. Each religion will be considered in terms of its origin, history and modern situation, theologically as well as socio-politically, and will be discussed in the context of its land of origin as well as its presence in the USA. Special attention will be paid to the issue of the encounter with other cultures and how we may navigate that encounter in ways that remain aware of and eventually transcend our own cultural-religious point of view. Central methods of the study of religion will also be presented at intervals during the course.

REL 2121 - Religion in the United States (Porterfield and Staff)
The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the historical study of religion in the United States, with an eye toward ways that social and cultural contexts have shaped the religious experience of Americans in different places and times. We will survey religious developments, movements, groups, and individuals, stopping to linger over representative "soundings" within each historical period. The primary goal of the course is for you to become familiar with the history of American religion both by learning about central events, individuals, and trends, and by learning how to think and write historically. Because this course carries Gordon Rule credit, you will do a significant amount of reading and writing in this course.

REL 2210 - Introduction to the Old Testament (Goff, Tigchelaar, and Staff)
This course will introduce the student to the contents of the Old Testament, also known as the Hebrew Bible, and examine these individual writings within their historical contexts. Throughout the semester, the class will learn how to recognize and analyze the major themes and characters of the Old Testament. The purpose of the course is to understand the OT within the broader cultural background of the ancient Near East, the history of the people who composed the book, and how the literary contents of the Bible reflect, reject, or otherwise interact with the cultural and historical circumstances of the times. This course meets the Liberal Studies literature requirement and the "Gordon Rule" writing requirement.

REL 2240 - Introduction to the New Testament (Levenson and Staff)
To understand the writings of the New Testament in the context of the historical development of the early Christian church. After surveying Judaism and other religious options in the Roman world, attention will be focused on the figure of Jesus of Nazareth and the development of the traditions about Jesus. Next, an attempt will be made to understand Paul and the development and spread of the Christian movement. Emphasis throughout will fall on the variety of interpretations of the Christian message as Christians encountered new social circumstances and theological challenges. This course meets the Liberal Studies literature requirement and the "Gordon Rule" writing requirement.

REL 2315 Religions of South Asia (Simmons)
An overview of the religions in the South Asian cultural region with emphasis on Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Islam. The history and cultural contexts of these traditions will be explored with particular attention to sacred stories, holy people, religious leadership, and gender issues. This course also serves as an introduction to the academic study of religion. No previous background is required. Meets Liberal Studies Humanities, Gordon Rule, and Multicultural (x) requirements. Honors students will have the opportunity to write e research paper on a topic of their choice.

REL 3054 Critics of Religion (Kelsay)
This course will be an introduction to the major thinkers and texts in the critique of religion as it developed in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the west. After beginning with Schleiermacher, a critic but also a defender of religion, we will move on to consider the so-called ‘masters of suspicion’—Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud. By means of a close examination of the central texts, we will explore the meaning of a critique of religion, the structure of religious consciousness, the place of religion with respect to other forms of culture, the problem of religion and alienation, and the possibility of a ‘critical’ faith.

REL 3142 Religion, Self & Society (Day)
During the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries, growing numbers of European intellectuals began to articulate a series of distinctions including such familiar contrasts as public vs. private, secular vs. sacred, politics vs. religion which posited a fundamental divide between two (relatively) autonomous realms of human existence. The human penchant for trafficking with gods, ghosts, angels, ancestors and spirits (i.e., "religion") was thought to be far removed from the mundane world of political and economic imperatives.  In other words, religious activity was said to express "other worldly" or "spiritual" concerns while political and economic activity merely expressed "inner worldly" or "material" concerns of workaday life. Beginning in the nineteenth century, however, the wisdom of this assumption came under increasing scrutiny.  That is to say, theorists began to wonder whether religion was really an autonomous realm of non-political "spirituality" or simply a redescription of our social life that obscured political and economic reality.  Broadly speaking, this course is dedicated to following the historical development of this second theoretical tradition through the close reading of a few select texts.

REL 3170 - Religious Ethics and Moral Problems (Staff)
This course is an introduction to the study of religion and ethics. We will examine contemporary moral issues such as neighbor love, lying, capital punishment, war, sexuality, and the environment in the context of religious views about love, duty, good, and evil. We will read material describing views of different religious traditions including Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Islam.

REL 3128: Religion in the American South (Pasquier)
This course is an in-depth analysis of religion in the American South from the colonial period to the present, with special consideration given to the relationship between religion, race, and place. We will begin by concentrating on the interaction of Native American religions and European Christianities throughout the colonial Gulf South. We will then focus on the development of Protestant denominationalism in the American South beginning in the eighteenth century and culminating in the nineteenth century. The cultural construction of race and the organization of African American religious communities played an important role in the diversification of religion in the antebellum and reconstruction South. Race and place also played an important role in the inclusion and exclusion of Roman Catholics and Jews in the American South. We will extend our discussion of these and other issues into the twentieth century, paying close attention to the Civil Rights Movement and the role of religion in southern politics. In short, we will be in interested in asking how different religious groups influenced and were influenced by southern culture. A range of reading materials, films, and writing assignments have been chosen to provide a framework within which to engage a variety of religious issues and understand the significance and relevance of religion in the history of the American South.

REL 3180 - Bioethics and Religion (Kalbian)
This course introduces students to the problems and issues in the field of biomedical ethics, especially as these problems and issues relate to religion. We will explore the theories and approaches used in resolving issues in biomedical ethics through a survey of the history of bioethics and the role of leading philosophers and theologians in this discipline. We will examine specific case studies relating to beginning and end-of-life issues. We will also attend to the particular problem of cultural communication in medicine.

REL 3293:  Magic and Superstition in the Ancient World
This course deals with magic, superstition, and religious belief in the ancient Mediterranean world from 500 BCE to 500 CE.  We will read various ancient Greek, Roman, Christian, and Jewish texts that address these issues, paying special attention to how these texts define magic and superstition in relation to “genuine” religious beliefs and practices, and what functions were served by the use of such terminological distinctions.  Class meetings will consist of lecture and structured group work.  Prerequisite:  Either REL 2240 (Introduction to the New Testament) or REL 2210 (Introduction to the Old Testament).  

REL 3340 - The Buddhist Tradition (Kragh)
A survey of the Buddhist tradition in Asia from its beginnings through the modern period pertaining to doctrine, ethics, meditation, ritual, monasticism and popular traditions. The first six weeks of the course are devoted to presenting the origins and development of Buddhism in India and Nepal, including its three classical phases of Sravakayana, Mahayana and Tantric Buddhism, as well as the modern context of Dalit Buddhism and Nepalese Tantrism. The next six weeks cover the history and modern socio-political aspects of Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Burma, Mahayana Buddhism in China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan, Vajrayana Buddhism in Tibet, Mongolia and Bhutan, and the Buddhist presence in USA and its influence on American culture. The last two weeks of the course concern special issues pertaining to socially engaged Buddhism, Buddhist ethics, the academic study of Buddhism, women in Buddhism and Buddhist feminism.

REL 3358 - Tibetan and Himalayan Religions (Kragh)
The basic theme of this course is the tension between the preservation of a tradition and religious innovation. The Himalayan people came to see themselves as the special caretakers of Buddhism in its purest and highest form, after they had witnessed its disappearance from its land of origin, India, in the 13th century. However, in conserving the Buddhist teachings, rituals and meditations, the Himalayans had to come up with various strategies for reinvigorating, reinventing and reformulating these, whereby the religion was altered into the various forms of Buddhism and Bön found in the region and among the Tibetan diaspora today. This course will thus survey the different forms of Buddhism, Bön and Hinduism practiced in Tibet, Mongolia, Nepal and Bhutan to examine how the religions were transformed in the course of their preservation and how the religions in turn transformed the people and the land.

REL 3505 - The Christian Tradition (Kong and Hagele)
The purpose of the course is to allow the student to explore the historical variety of the Christian tradition, spanning from the New Testament to the modern era. In an effort to better understand the complexity of the contemporary expressions of Christianity, we will cover both Eastern and Western Christian traditions, focusing primarily on the persons and events that gave rise to a vast diversity. Students will read from both primary and secondary sources, and will critically reflect on those sources in an effort to understand the problems faced, and solutions proposed, by a variety of representatives of the Christian tradition. The course will be taught from a perspective that brackets the question of whether any specific Christian tradition is the 'right one' or the 'true religion.' In the academic study of religion, the goal is to become better acquainted with the complex of perspectives that make up a religious tradition.

REL 3936-01 - Islam in the Modern World (Gaiser)
REL 3936, Islam in the Modern World examines Islam and its adherents from 1300 CE to the present, concentrating on the last two centuries of Islamic history: the period of reform, renewal and revolution in the wake of Western political and cultural domination. The course will investigate a basic question: What happened to different Muslim communities and intellectuals (specifically those in the Arab world, Iran, Turkey and North Africa) as they responded to the challenges posed by “Westernization” and “modernization?” Moreover, it will explore the relatively new phenomenon of Islam in America.

REL 3936-02 - Women in Buddhism Seminar (Kragh)
Women have played manifold roles in Buddhist culture and doctrine, ranging from misogyny as sexual threats to the celibate lifestyle of monks right through to being objects of worship as female embodiments of goddesses and givers of enlightening wisdom through Tantric sex. Although Buddhism already in the fifth century BCE developed one of the very earliest communities in the world granting opportunity for women to lead purely religious lives without the burden of family responsibilities in the form of the Buddhist order of nuns, the situation of women in Buddhism was never easy in the traditional, patriarchal societies of Asia. We shall here examine women's multiple roles in Buddhism through a close reading of an autobiographical account and spiritual lineage-history written by Lakshminkara, an 8th-9th century female Buddhist Tantric master who lived in what now is NW Pakistan, and consider the later male reception of her tradition and the male reformulation of her life-story and significance. Taking Lakshminkara's text as our starting point, we shall appraise the opportunities and oppressions of women in Buddhism historically as well as today, while familiarizing ourselves with the available critical scholarship and feminist writing on women in Buddhism.

REL 4190/5195 - Seminar in Religion and Culture
Seminar in Religion and Culture.  This seminar will deal with discussions of the nature and import of the just war tradition since 1975.  We begin with Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars, then move to the several contributions of the U.S. Catholic Bishops.  Rodin and Sorabji's collection on The Ethics of War:  Shared Problems in Different Traditions will allow discussion of the just war in contemporary philosophical writing and in comparative ethics, with Jean Elshtain's work on Women and War helping us to think about gender and just war.  The course then moves to contemporary discussions of the war on terror by Walzer and J.T. Johnson, before concluding with Samantha Powers' study of intervention (A Problem from Hell) and D. Paul Crook's study of Darwinism, War, and History. 

REL 4359/5354 - East/West: Images of Self and Other in Literature and Film (Erndl)
Investigation of selected works by Westerners about India and by Indians about the West--including novels, short stories, memoirs, essays, and films—that explore issues of cultural and religious identity, hegemony, assimilation, conversion, hybridity, and diaspora. No prerequisite for graduate students in Religion. Open to undergraduates by permission only. Note: Attendance at Salman Rushdie’s performance on Feb. 22 is required.

REL 4511/5515:  Christianity in Late Antiquity (Kelley)
This reading intensive course is an advanced survey of important events, movements, ideas, and people in the development of Christianity from the fourth and fifth centuries CE.  The course is organized around a series of topics of particular significance in late antique Christianity, including the relationship between Christians and the Roman empire, Christological controversies, the formation of the canon, early creeds and councils, asceticism and monasticism, and the lives of the saints. Particular emphasis is placed on careful reading of
relevant primary texts in English translation. Class meetings will consist of lecture and structured group work.  Prerequisite:  REL 2240 (Introduction to the New Testament) or equivalent.

REL 6498 - Puritanism (Porterfield)
This seminar studies the origins of Puritanism in England and its subsequent development in North America, focusing on New England Puritan writing from John Winthrop to Jonathan Edwards. In addition, the seminar investigates the historiography of Puritanism along with literary perceptions of Puritanism as a foundational element of American culture.

REL 5305 - Islam in North America (Gaiser)
REL 5305, Islam in North America, surveys in seminar format the manifestations of Islam in the United States, focusing on the early half of the 20th century to the present. The course examines American attitudes toward Islam, Muslim perceptions of America, Islam in the African-American experience, immigrant Muslims, converts, “progressive” Muslims and American Muslim mystics (Sufis). Students of REL 5305 will examine what it means to be a Muslim in America, and how the issues of race, immigration and stereotypes impact the experience of Muslims in North America.

REL 5316 - Religion and Emotion (Corrigan)
We will study a range of recent theories about emotion, drawing on research in the behavioral and social sciences, neuroscience, history, and other areas, with an eye especially to constructedness, context, locality, universality, cognition, and performance in emotional life. We will consider such issues with respect to a number of different religious settings, including major faith traditions, highly localized religion, and new religious movements.

REL 5937-01 Freud and the Invention of the Modern Mind (Day)
This graduate seminar explores Sigmund Freud's life, work and legacy against the backdrop of the histories of science.  Structurally speaking, the course is built around the close reading of key Freudian texts and is roughly divided into four thematic sections.  In the first section ("Freud as Detective"), we will examine Freud's case histories and clinical reflections.  In the
second section ("Freud as Archaeologist") , we will study Freud's attempt to excavate the psychological complexity of everyday life.  In the third section ("Freud as Critic"), we will scrutinize Freud's macro-sociological theorizing.  The fourth section is dedicated to reading a handful of contemporary efforts to make historical sense of the Freudian enterprise.

REL 6298 - Religions of Western Antiquity Proseminar
This class, mandatory for RWA students, will treat fundamental issues in the study of the Hebrew Bible.  Issues that will be addressed include the history of scholarship, methodologies, and major topics of debate in the field. 

REL 6176 - Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Interpretations (Kalbian)
In the first part of the seminar, we will read segments of Thomas Aquinas’s writings on morality from his Summa Theologia.  We will devote the remainder of the seminar to works by contemporary interpreters of Aquinas, including but not limited to Jean Porter, James Keenan, John Bowlin, Pamela Hall, John Finnis, and Diana Fritz Cates.

 

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