Courses and Syllabi
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Religious Studies Spring 2024
Undergraduate
Examines main forms of religious expression as embodied in several important religious traditions in contemporary world. Investigates religious experience; myth and ritual; teachings and scripture; ethical, social, and artistic aspects of religion; and nature and function of religion in human society. Limited to three attempts.
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6 Sections Currently Scheduled »
Focuses on Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other global and local religions of Europe, Asia Minor, north Africa, and the Americas from historical, comparative, and cross-cultural perspectives. May include modern developments of religions like Mormonism, Baha'ism, and Scientology as well as other religions of ancient Asia Minor like Zoroastrianism. Limited to three attempts.
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2 Sections Currently Scheduled
Focuses on the traditional religions from Asia, particularly Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Confusianism from historical, comparative, and cross-cultural perspectives. May also include Jainism, Sihk, Shinto, native shamanism, and others as well as modern developments after European colonialism and these traditions' growth as global religions. Limited to three attempts.
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2 Sections Currently Scheduled
Explores the relationship between religion and literature in different times and cultures, the influence of religion on literary works, and how literature expresses major religious themes such as death and immortality, divine will and justice, suffering and human destiny, and religion and state. Limited to three attempts.
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8 Sections Currently Scheduled »
The course examines both the way that religious stories, images, ideas, and values have influenced the production and experience of art, and how art has historically been a primary means to express religious thought, feeling, and meaning. Thus, this course will examine the arts across different religions. The course will also examine the extent to which the artistic experience may be thought of as a kind of "religious" experience, and how even civil art projects convey a kind of civic or national "religion." Limited to three attempts.
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2 Sections Currently Scheduled
Explores how selected world religions address the universal experience of death and express their beliefs in an afterlife. Focuses on the scriptures, beliefs, rituals and customs of selected world religions as they reflect each tradition's response to the most basic question about human destiny - how human beings face death and attempt to transcend it. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Examines early Christian church from time of Jesus to 700 C.E. Covers internal development of Christianity as it formed official doctrines and institutions, and external relations of Christians with followers of other religions in Roman Empire. Special attention to reasons for success of Christianity in Roman world. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Surveys Buddhist religious traditions. Includes historical development of Buddhism in India, China, and Japan, examining both Theravada and Mahayana traditions; philosophical and religious significance of Buddhism; and social and political implications of Buddhist traditions in South Asian and East Asian countries. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
In this course, students will analyze texts that Americans have treated as “scripture.” Students will read texts that present themselves as scripture, such as selections from the Book of Mormon and a Holy Sacred and Divine Roll and Book (a Shaker text). They will also read texts that have attained a sort of canonicity within American culture, such as the Declaration of Independence and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Students will thus gain more than a valuable familiarity with a variety of American religious traditions. They will also reflect on the way that, even in a digital age, texts continue to shape American identity. Equivalent to HIST 334.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Analyzes the Bible as a collection of literary texts. Course readings will include selections from the Jewish Tanakh and from the Christian New Testament. Students will become familiar with contemporary scholarship on the Bible and sample the Bible's impact on the art and literature of the last millennia. Students will become conversant with concepts such as scripture, canon, source criticism, historical criticism, genre, and reception history. Limited to three attempts.
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2 Sections Currently Scheduled
Examines the tradition of Islamic mysticism, Sufism, through an exploration of the literature produced by Sufis themselves. Provide general introduction to Sufism and its spiritual perspective and investigates various genres of Sufi literature, including hagiography, symbolic scriptural exegesis, spiritual autobiography, didactic allegory and love poetry. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Examines life and character of the founder of Islam, as remembered and understood by Muslims, as well as explores influence of his paradigmatic life and teachings on Islamic religious discourse and culture. Addresses Western critical studies of the accounts of Muhammad's life and contemporary controversies regarding Muhammad. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Examines Jewish religion, history, and literature from the Babylonian Exile to third century C.E. Special attention to development of Hebrew Bible, Apocalyptic and Apocryphal literature, belief in resurrection and final judgment, Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish sects, and emergence of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Explores issues relating to law and religion. Focuses on the legal doctrines that have arisen in cases under the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment. Topics include religion and public schools, government aid to religious institutions, including school vouchers, government endorsement of religious symbols, freedom of religious expression, and freedom of religious practice. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Explores the history of Christianity around the world in the context of political and social structures as well as religious beliefs and practices. Limited to three attempts.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Selected topics on either the comparative study of religion, study of a particular kind of religion or aspect of religion, or engagement of religion and other topic (e.g., art, history, culture, politics, etc.). May be repeated within the term for a maximum 12 credits.
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2 Sections Currently Scheduled
Senior seminar on a specific topic of relevance to religious studies. Content varies. Notes: May be repeated when topic varies. Students with other majors may be take the course if the topic is sufficiently close to their field of study. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 12 credits.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Senior seminar on a specific topic of relevance to religious studies. Content varies. Notes: May be repeated when topic varies. Students with other majors may be take the course if the topic is sufficiently close to their field of study. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 12 credits.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Graduate
Explores contemporary religious thought on the morality and ethics of environmental responsibility. Begins with an exploration of this issue in Western Christian thought and examines religious approaches to the environment in the traditional and contemporary thought of other major world religions, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and the Chinese traditions. May not be repeated for credit.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
Introduces foundational Islamic texts; scholarly traditions of commentary, criticism and analysis on these texts; and application and significance of these texts in contemporary Islamic discourses. May not be repeated for credit.
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1 Section Currently Scheduled
