This course explores the history of religions among people of African descent from the period of the development of the transatlantic slave trade (1440s) to the present. Its aim is to introduce students to the complex ways religion has shaped their lifeworlds. Such study involves, among other things, encounters with the religious cultures of slaves and slaveholders in the antebellum South; the development of independent Black churches, the effects of emancipation, migration, and urbanization upon Black religious life; new black religious movements (e.g., Nation of Islam, Father Divine's Peace Mission Movement, Black Hebrews); the emergence of Black secularism/humanism; the impact of Black religious expressive culture (e.g., music, sermon, song, and film); the religious dimensions of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements; as well as contemporary developments and transformations in Black religious life. All of which requires attentiveness to how we tell the story of Africana religions, and how scholars have developed and pursued the modern study of Africana religion.

Full details for RELST 2060 - Introduction to Africana Religions

Jewish men and women in early modern Europe lived their lives within a gendered social order inherited from the Talmudic period. The relationship between sex and power remained fundamental to Jewish communal discipline until the eighteenth century. The explosion of vernacular publishing, increasing economic and geographic mobility and the coming of emancipation challenged existing gender norms and liberated Jewish desire - well, almost. As we will see, modernity has an ambiguous effect on Jewish sexual expression and Jewish sexual politics. It is not clear that the emancipation of Jewish men had the same emancipatory effect on Jewish women. Jewish patriarchy proved unexpectedly resilient. In this course, we will explore why - despite Judaism's reputation for liberal attitudes to sex - neither most Jewish men nor many Jewish women embraced the possibilities of personal liberation from a reproductive regime of rigid self-control and near compulsory heterosexual monogamy. (HIST-HEU)

Full details for RELST 2154 - Sex and Power in Jewish History

This course will explore the Buddhist tradition from its origins in ancient India to its migrations throughout Asia and eventually to the West. The first part of the course will deal with Indian Buddhism: the Buddha, the principal teachings and practices of his early followers, and new developments in spiritual orientation. We will then turn to the transmission of Buddhism to Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, where at least one of the early schools has been preserved. Next we will look at Mahayana Buddhism as it moves north and east, encompassing China, Japan, and Tibet. While much of the course will be devoted to developments in traditional times, we will also look at some of the ways Buddhist cultures have responded to modernity. (ASIAN-RL)

Full details for RELST 2299 - Buddhism

This course offers an anthropological approach to the study of religious traditions and practices in South Asia: India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. The course begins with a short survey of the major religious traditions of South Asia: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Islam. We look to the development of these traditions through historical and cultural perspectives. The course then turns to the modern period, considering the impact of colonialism, nationalism, and globalization upon religious ideologies and practices. The primary focus of the course will be the ethnographic study of contemporary religious practices in the region. We examine phenomena such as ritual, pilgrimage, possession, devotionalism, monasticism, asceticism, and revivalism through a series of ethnographic case studies. In so doing, we also seek to understand the impact of politics, modernity, diasporic movement, social inequality, changing gender roles, and mass mediation upon these traditions and practices. (ASIAN-RL)

Full details for RELST 2546 - South Asian Religions in Practice: The Healing Traditions

This course explores the history of medicine and other sciences in the ancient Near East, broadly defined. In addition to medicine, the other scientific disciplines covered in this course include mathematics, astrology, astronomy, alchemy, zoology, among others. Geographically, the course traces the transmission of scientific knowledge in ancient Babylonia, Iran, Egypt, Israel, Turkey, and beyond. As such, the course offers students a tour of different ancient civilizations and corpora. Students read selections from cuneiform Akkadian tablets, Egyptian Christian Coptic spellbooks, rabbinic sources such as the Talmud, among many other works. At the same time, students will be required to critically engage recent scholarship in the history of science and medicine as a way to help frame their analyses of the ancient materials. The course interrogates how ancient civilizations transmitted and received scientific knowledge, as well as the relationship between what we today tend to call science, medicine, magic, and religion. This course is intended not only for students in the Humanities and Social Sciences, but also for those majoring in science or medicine.

Full details for RELST 2599 - Medicine, Magic and Science in the Ancient Near East

This course is an introduction to the study of Islam and Islamic history. Organised historically, the lecture series will begin with the career of the Prophet Muhammad, before charting the course of the Islamic Conquests, the establishment, zenith and collapse of various Islamic Empires, ending with European colonialism. Along the way, this geopolitical and historical overview will provide a backdrop to our exploration of changes and developments in Islamic thought and practice. In particular, we will focus on the emergence of the Sunni-Shi'i conflict, the rise of Sufism and Salafism, as well as how scholars across time and space thought and wrote about questions of ideal Islamic governance, the religious authority of the caliph, women's role in society and public space, slavery, the ethics of living under non-Muslim rule and the place of non-Muslims in Islamic society. (HIST-HGS)

Full details for RELST 2627 - Introduction to Islam

From the poet-kings of medieval Persia to the trading networks of the famed ?Silk Road? to the wandering mystics of Herat to the constitutional revolution of Iran to the colonial and post-colonial occupations of contemporary Afghanistan, this course offers a broad cultural and political history of Iranian and Turkic Central Asia. In addition, we will explore the highly complex intellectual, artistic, and architectural trends and ?cross-cultural? exchanges that formed the backbone of many disparate Iranian-Turkic cultures. (ASIAN-SC)

Full details for RELST 2722 - Of Saints, Poets, and Revolutionaries: Medieval and Modern Iran and Central Asia

Did ancient Egyptians believe in the existence of souls? Why did they mummify the dead? Was the body of a pharaoh different from that of an ordinary person? This course sets the famous mortuary practices of ancient Egypt alongside treatments of living bodies and their immaterial components. We will read translated excerpts from ancient Egyptian texts?from magical spells recited for ancestors, to poetry on sex and death?while learning about items taken to the grave and monuments set up for posterity. In the process, we will reflect on contemporary representations of the past and evaluate the assumptions behind modern treatments of ancient artifacts and human remains. (ARKEO-RMNE)

Full details for RELST 2772 - Body and Spirit in Ancient Egypt

Most people think of Christianity as the daughter religion of Judaism. In this course, we will see that what we now know as Judaism and Christianity both claimed ownership of the same textual tradition and emerged together from the same set of historical circumstances, shaped by political crisis, a radical transformation of the social order and the challenge of Graeco-Roman culture. Through close reading of the principal sources of Christian literature, such as Paul's letters to the first communities of gentile believers and the accounts of the life and death of the messiah, known collectively as the gospels, we will explore how and why the followers of Jesus first came to think of themselves as the New Israel and how a polemical engagement with their controversial interpretation of Hebrew prophecy shaped the development of the rabbinic movement in Roman Palestine. (HIST-HEU, HIST-HPE)

Full details for RELST 2852 - Judaism and the Origins of Christianity

This course will explore the development of and variety in the academic discipline of Religious Studies. We will consider the emergence of secular approaches to the study of religion arising out of the European Enlightenment, and more particularly, the methods in the academic study of religion based upon different theoretical approaches. We will be particularly concerned to reflect upon the category of religious experience in modern discourses from historical, social scientific, hermeneutical, and psychological points of view. (ASIAN-RL)

Full details for RELST 3049 - History, Theory, and Methods in the Academic Study of Religion

This course explores past and contemporary theories of emotions and different kinds of emotions like wonder, grief, anger, and fear, all with an eye toward the study and practice of religion, and its relationship to race, gender, class, and politics. We will also explore how the academic study of religion and different religious tradition impact our understanding of emotions. We will draw from philosophy, anthropology, sociology, literature, political science, affect theory, gender studies, psychology, and neuroscience. We will examine several questions related to emotions and its rise. First and foremost, what is an emotion? How is it different from affect, feeling, or passion? How are emotions investigated across disciplines? Can we study emotion historically? How are certain emotions racialized or gendered? What is a religious experience? How identifying as religious or otherwise impact one's understanding and experience of emotions? How do emotions lend force to ideas and ideologies, to causes such as the recent surge of White (Christian) nationalist sentiment in the U.S. and other countries? Finally, what do emotions (and affect theory) bring to the study of religion?

Full details for RELST 3060 - Emotions, Religion, and Race

This course introduces students to significant stories in the Quran. It is a language course in which students engage with stories about the prophets, women, righteous people, and animals. The course strengthens all four language skills—reading, writing, listening, and speaking—while building key vocabulary and grammar to help students comprehend and discuss the texts. Students will discuss the stories and related Quranic verses, their interpretation, and the values and lessons learned from them. The content will be mainly in Arabic, supplemented by some English. The course is designed to support Arabic language learning through close reading and discussion of selected texts and welcomes all learners with the appropriate language background.

Full details for RELST 3297 - Quranic Stories for Arabic Language Development

This course explores the intentional removal of oneself from society as expressed in East Asian Buddhist literature, through the acts of hermits and pilgrims. We read the diaries, essays, autobiographies, and poetry of recluse monks and nuns from China, Korea and Japan, and the musings of pilgrims through the ages in these countries, with special attention to Japan. Last, we examine how the actions of many of these writers influenced the American counter-culture movement in the 1960?s and into the present. We inquire what light these writings can shed on ?the great resignation? of recent years, and ?quiet quitting? as a response to late capitalism, ecosystem collapse and climate change and social upheaval in our current times. Many of the figures we read were directly critiquing social excess and materialism, and these writings offer surprising assessments of our current age. (ASIAN-RL)

Full details for RELST 3331 - Opt Out, Tune In: Hermits, Pilgrims and Dharma Bums, from East Asia to Ithaca

This course offers an introduction of Christianity from the apostle Paul through the seventeenth century, with an emphasis on the diversity of Christian traditions, beliefs, and practices. We explore the origins of Christianity within Judaism in the eastern Mediterranean world, the spread of Christianity, the development of ecclesiastical institutions, the rise and establishment of monasticism, and the various controversies that occupied the church throughout its history. The course draws on primary literary sources (from biblical literature to council proceedings, monastic rules, sermons, theological treatises, and biographies) as well as Christian art, inscriptions, music, and manuscripts.

Full details for RELST 3695 - History of Christianity

This course explores the interactions between Jews, Christians, and other religious groups in late antiquity, especially in Sasanian Persia circa the first through seventh century C.E. Students pay particular attention to the portrayals of Christians in Jewish rabbinic literature, including Midrash and Talmud, but also draw from early Christian, Zoroastrian, Manichaean, and other sources. There will be an emphasis on the reading of primary texts in translation in their appropriate historical contexts, and in comparison with one another. Students engage such questions as: How did Jews define themselves in relation to Christians, and vice versa? In what ways did Jews and Christians part ways with one another, as scholars often maintain, and what were the factors at play in their separation? And, lastly, what role did other religious and political groups, such as Gnostics, Zoroastrians, Romans, Mandaeans, Manichaeans, and early Muslims play in these developments?

Full details for RELST 3888 - Jews, Christians, and Others in Late Antiquity

This course explores the Buddhist tradition of Zen through a focus on the major figures in its Japanese context who have contributed to its foundational practices and promulgation and its revitalization after periods of decline. We begin with the introduction of Buddhism into Japan in the 6th century and the issues surrounding the establishment of the ?six schools? of Buddhism in the 8th century and the prestige and dominance of the Tendai School on Mt. Hiei. This allows us to see the uniquely Japanese context of religious debates. We then turn to an exploration of the Zen thinkers Eisai, D?, Keizan, and Hakuin and see how these thinkers all introduced ideas to Japanese Zen practice that led the tradition into new directions from its Chinese origins: tea cultivation, work practice, and monastic reform. Last, we study how Zen came to be regarded as the ?way of the warrior? and a symbol of Japanese uniqueness and militarism. The course ends with an exploration of Zen expansion in the US in the 20th century and the ?D? boom? in American literary theory. (ASIAN-RL)

Full details for RELST 4021 - Zen Buddhism and its Japanese Context: Major Thinkers

Buddhist ideas, practices, and institutions play many roles in the political life of South and Southeast Asia, in the present day and throughout the long history of these regions. This course approaches ?politics? broadly. Thus, the course explores how persons invoke Buddhist concepts and understandings of Buddhist traditions when acting for and against state and sovereign powers, but also how Buddhist ideas and institutions are drawn into other social projects that shape the flow and accumulation of social capital, economic benefit, and authority. Case studies and theoretical works address historical, modern, and contemporary materials. Assignments include the opportunity for students to focus on a contemporary regional location of their choice. (ASIAN-RL)

Full details for RELST 4023 - Buddhism and Politics in South and Southeast Asia

Reading and translation of Latin philosophical texts.

Full details for RELST 4100 - Latin Philosophical Texts

An introduction to belief systems in ancient Mexico and Central America, emphasizing the blending of religion, astrology, myth, history, and prophecy. Interpreting text and image in pre-Columbian books and inscriptions is a major focus. (ARKEO-RLAC)

Full details for RELST 4256 - Time and History in Ancient Mexico

Topic: Writing Through the Forest in Search of Trees. Hello, Humanities Student! Are you a plotter or a pantser? Not sure? Come and join us to find out, and to gain valuable insight into what kind of a writer you are, and how to manage that writer most effectively and productively. This theme-centered methods seminar, through a communal focus on trees, woods, glens, and copses in the pre-modern world, will hone in on the most indispensable tool in the humanist's belt: writing. From the generation of ideas, to their organization into an outline (or a blueprint, or whatever euphemism we, as a group or as individuals, decide to apply to the initial, tangled pile of yarn) to the first draft. Followed by frank and constructive criticism of the initial draft as a group and in pairs, and then on to the part that all students-really, all humanists?okay, all writers-find to be the greatest struggle: Your paper has some good ideas, but it really needs a rewrite. Now what do you do? As we write, and rewrite, we will also read widely. In addition to primary sources, scholarly articles and essays, we will include criticism, personal essay, theory, excerpts from fiction, and more, in an effort to open students' writing up to a myriad of possibilities for persuasive and compelling written communication.

Full details for RELST 4310 - Methods in Medieval

Sufism, the mystical tradition in Islam, has exerted considerable influence on modern European and American thought. Much like the adoption of yoga and other Eastern spiritual practices in the modern West, Sufism has been shorn of much of its medieval and Islamic origins in its transmutation into broader Western neo-spiritual and theosophic frameworks for understanding the human’s relationship to God, the world, the self and the body. In this course, we will explore Islamic mysticism through its adoption in modern Western literature. What about Sufism attracted Western spiritual seekers? How did they understand Sufi thought and ideas? How did they come to learn about Sufi practices and literature? In this course we will read deeply from the work of three significant Sufi-inspired authors. Beginning with the work of the extremely controversial Sufi psychologist Idries Shah, we will explore how Sufi stories were brought to bear on the field of psychotherapy and in European spiritualist circles. After this, we will explore the influence of Sufism on André Gide’s phantasmic celebrations of earthly sensuality, before turning to Doris Lessing’s speculative Sufi space fiction.

Full details for RELST 4488 - Islamic Mysticism and the West

Moses Maimonides who was born in Cordoba (1138), moved to Fez as a youth and died in Cairo (1204) is regarded by Jewish, Islamic, and Christian tradition alike as the most important Jewish religious intellectual of the classical age of Islam/the High Middle Ages. This seminar will examine Maimonides as the product of his time and place including his complex relationship with Arabo-Islamic culture and, because of his stature as a communal figure, rabbinic scholar, court physician and philosopher, his role as a catalyst for cultural developments. For comparative purposes we also consider Maimonides' Andalusi contemporary, Ibn Rushd, the philosopher, Muslim jurist, physician and scholar of Islamic law.

Full details for RELST 4540 - Moses Maimonides

For undergraduates who wish to obtain research experience or do extensive reading on a special topic. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course.

Full details for RELST 4990 - Directed Study

RELST 4995 is the first course in the Honors two-part sequence. The Honors Program is open to Religious Studies majors who have done superior work and who wish to devote a substantial part of their senior year to advanced, specialized, independent research and writing of a thesis. Successfully completing an honors thesis will require sustained interest, exceptional ability, diligence, and enthusiasm. While admissions to the Honors Program and completion of a thesis do not guarantee that students will be awarded honors in Religious Studies, most students find the experience as intellectually rewarding as it is rigorous.

Full details for RELST 4995 - Senior Honors Essay I

RELST 4996 is the second course in the Honors two-part sequence. The Honors Program is open to Religious Studies majors who have done superior work and who wish to devote a substantial part of their senior year to advanced, specialized, independent research and writing of a thesis. Successfully completing an honors thesis will require sustained interest, exceptional ability, diligence, and enthusiasm. While admissions to the Honors Program and completion of a thesis do not guarantee that students will be awarded honors in Religious Studies, most students find the experience as intellectually rewarding as it is rigorous.

Full details for RELST 4996 - Senior Honors Essay II

Reading and translation of Latin philosophical texts.

Full details for RELST 6020 - Latin Philosophical Texts

Buddhist ideas, practices, and institutions play many roles in the political life of South and Southeast Asia, in the present day and throughout the long history of these regions. This course approaches ?politics? broadly. Thus, the course explores how persons invoke Buddhist concepts and understandings of Buddhist traditions when acting for and against state and sovereign powers, but also how Buddhist ideas and institutions are drawn into other social projects that shape the flow and accumulation of social capital, economic benefit, and authority. Case studies and theoretical works address historical, modern, and contemporary materials. Assignments include the opportunity for students to focus on a contemporary regional location of their choice. (ASIAN-RL)

Full details for RELST 6023 - Buddhism and Politics in South and Southeast Asia

This course will explore the development of and variety in the academic discipline of Religious Studies. We will consider the emergence of secular approaches to the study of religion arising out of the European Enlightenment, and more particularly, the methods in the academic study of religion based upon different theoretical approaches. We will be particularly concerned to reflect upon the category of religious experience in modern discourses from historical, social scientific, hermeneutical, and psychological points of view.

Full details for RELST 6049 - History, Theory, and Methods in the Academic Study of Religion

Topic: Writing Through the Forest in Search of Trees. Hello, Humanities Student! Are you a plotter or a pantser? Not sure? Come and join us to find out, and to gain valuable insight into what kind of a writer you are, and how to manage that writer most effectively and productively. This theme-centered methods seminar, through a communal focus on trees, woods, glens, and copses in the pre-modern world, will hone in on the most indispensable tool in the humanist's belt: writing. From the generation of ideas, to their organization into an outline (or a blueprint, or whatever euphemism we, as a group or as individuals, decide to apply to the initial, tangled pile of yarn) to the first draft. Followed by frank and constructive criticism of the initial draft as a group and in pairs, and then on to the part that all students-really, all humanists?okay, all writers-find to be the greatest struggle: Your paper has some good ideas, but it really needs a rewrite. Now what do you do? As we write, and rewrite, we will also read widely. In addition to primary sources, scholarly articles and essays, we will include criticism, personal essay, theory, excerpts from fiction, and more, in an effort to open students' writing up to a myriad of possibilities for persuasive and compelling written communication.

Full details for RELST 6310 - Methods in Medieval

Sufism, the mystical tradition in Islam, has exerted considerable influence on modern European and American thought. Much like the adoption of yoga and other Eastern spiritual practices in the modern West, Sufism has been shorn of much of its medieval and Islamic origins in its transmutation into broader Western neo-spiritual and theosophic frameworks for understanding the human’s relationship to God, the world, the self and the body. In this course, we will explore Islamic mysticism through its adoption in modern Western literature. What about Sufism attracted Western spiritual seekers? How did they understand Sufi thought and ideas? How did they come to learn about Sufi practices and literature? In this course we will read deeply from the work of three significant Sufi-inspired authors. Beginning with the work of the extremely controversial Sufi psychologist Idries Shah, we will explore how Sufi stories were brought to bear on the field of psychotherapy and in European spiritualist circles. After this, we will explore the influence of Sufism on André Gide’s phantasmic celebrations of earthly sensuality, before turning to Doris Lessing’s speculative Sufi space fiction.

Full details for RELST 6688 - Islamic Mysticism and the West

This course explores the interactions between Jews, Christians, and other religious groups in late antiquity, especially in Sasanian Persia circa the first through seventh century C.E. Students pay particular attention to the portrayals of Christians in Jewish rabbinic literature, including Midrash and Talmud, but also draw from early Christian, Zoroastrian, Manichaean, and other sources. There will be an emphasis on the reading of primary texts in translation in their appropriate historical contexts, and in comparison with one another. Students engage such questions as: How did Jews define themselves in relation to Christians, and vice versa? In what ways did Jews and Christians part ways with one another, as scholars often maintain, and what were the factors at play in their separation? And, lastly, what role did other religious and political groups, such as Gnostics, Zoroastrians, Romans, Mandaeans, Manichaeans, and early Muslims play in these developments?

Full details for RELST 6888 - Jews, Christians, and Others in Late Antiquity

Explores the ways Mesoamericans understood the world and their place in it, and the ways they constructed history as these are reflected in the few books that have survived from the period before the European invasion. Examines the structure of writing and systems of notation, especially calendars, and considers their potential for illuminating Mesoamerican world views and approaches to history. Primary focus is detailed analysis of five precolumbian books: Codex Borgia, a central Mexican manual of divinatory ritual; Codex Boturini, a history of migration in central Mexico; Codex Nuttall, a Mixtec dynastic history; and two Maya books of astrology and divination, Codex Dresden and Codex Madrid. (ARKEO-RLAC)

Full details for RELST 7250 - Time and History in Ancient Mexico