The College Catalogue

First-Year Seminars

These introductory courses focus on the study of a specific aspect of religion, and may draw on other fields of learning. They are not intended as prerequisites for more advanced courses in the department unless specifically designated as such. They include readings, discussion, reports, and writing. Topics change from time to time to reflect emerging or debated issues in the study of religion. For a full description of first-year seminars, see the First-Year Seminar section.

[14 {1014} c. Heresy and Orthodoxy.]

[25 {1025} c. The Islamic Revolution of Iran.]

27 {1027} c. Astral Religion in the Near East and Classical Antiquity. Fall 2013. Robert Morrison.

Introductory Courses

101 {1101} c - ESD. Introduction to the Study of Religion. Fall 2012. David Howlett. Spring 2013. Jorunn Buckley.

Basic concepts, methods, and issues in the study of religion, with special reference to examples comparing and contrasting Asian and Western religions. Lectures, films, discussions, and readings in a variety of texts such as scriptures, novels, and autobiographies, along with modern interpretations of religion in ancient and contemporary, Asian and Western contexts.

105 {1105} c. Native American Religions: Continuity and Change. Spring 2013. David Howlett.

A study of Native American religious experience in diverse contexts, from the American Southwest to the Great Plains and from the far Pacific Northwest to the American Southeast. Explores specific religious rituals practiced by groups like the Lakota, the Navajo, and the Yupik. Analyzes how historical experiences, such as cultural genocide, the dispossession of tribal lands, and the reclamation of traditions, have affected ritual practices over time. Additional topics include Native American struggles for religious freedom, Native American access to sacred spaces, Native Americans and Christianity, and the commodification of Native American spirituality.

116 {1116} c. Christian Sexual Ethics. Fall 2012. Elizabeth Pritchard.

An examination of the themes, varieties, and conflicts of Christian teachings and practices regarding sex and sexuality. Source materials include the Bible, historical analyses, Church dogmatics, legal cases, and ethnographic studies. Topics include celibacy and marriage, the development and status of sexual orientations, natural law, conversion therapy, reproductive rights and technologies, and comparative religious ethics. (Same as Gay and Lesbian Studies 116 {1116} and Gender and Women’s Studies 117 {1117}.)

125 {1125} c - ESD, IP. Entering Modernity: European Jewry. Fall 2012. Susan L. Tananbaum.

Explores Jewish life through the lenses of history, religion, and ethnicity and examines the processes by which governments and sections of the Jewish community attempted to incorporate Jews and Judaism into European society. Surveys social and economic transformations of Jews, cultural challenges of modernity, varieties of modern Jewish religious expression, political ideologies, the Holocaust, establishment of Israel, and American Jewry through primary and secondary sources, lectures, films, and class discussions. (Same as History 125 {1180}.)

142 {1142} c. Philosophy of Religion. Fall 2012. Scott Sehon.

Does God exist? Can the existence of God be proven? Can it be disproven? Is it rational to believe in God? What does it mean to say that God exists (or does not exist)? What distinguishes religious beliefs from non-religious beliefs? What is the relation between religion and science? Approaches these and related questions through a variety of historical and contemporary sources, including philosophers, scientists, and theologians. (Same as Philosophy 142 {1442}.)

Intermediate Courses

Asian Religions (219–229 {2219–2229}), Bible and Comparative Studies (205 {2205}, 215 {2215}, 216 {2216}, 275 {2275}), Christianity and Gender (249–259 {2249–2259}), Islam and Post-Biblical Judaism (207 {2207}, 208 {2208}, 210 {2210}, 232 {2232}.)

201 {2201} c - ESD, VPA. Black Women, Politics, Music, and the Divine. Fall 2014. Judith Casselberry.

Seminar. Examines the convergence of politics and spirituality in the musical work of contemporary Black women singer-songwriters in the United States. Analyzes material that interrogates and articulates the intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality, generated across a range of religious and spiritual terrains with African diasporic/Black Atlantic spiritual moorings, including Christianity, Islam, and Yoruba. Focuses on material that reveals a womanist (Black feminist) perspective by considering the ways resistant identities shape and are shaped by artistic production. Employs an interdisciplinary approach by incorporating ethnomusicology, anthropology, literature, history, and performance and social theory. Explores the work of Shirley Caesar, the Clark Sisters, Me’shell Ndegeocello, Abby Lincoln, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Dianne Reeves, among others. (Same as Africana Studies 201 {2201}, Gender and Women’s Studies 207 {2207}, and Music 201 {2591}.)

202 {2202} c. Judaism in America. Spring 2013. David Howlett.

An exploration of Judaism in the United States from colonial times to the present. Topics include the immigrant experience, suburbanization, mass consumption, transnational push and pull factors, sacred spaces, communal boundary maintenance strategies, gender and sexuality, the evolution of rituals and holy days, and divisions within Judaism. Readings include historical monographs, primary source documents, ethnographic accounts, and novels.

[205 {2205} c. Evil in Religious Contexts.]

[207 {2207} c - ESD. Introduction to Judaism.]

208 {2208} c - IP. Islam. Fall 2012. Naseem Surhio.

With an emphasis on primary sources, pursues major themes in Islamic civilization from the revelation of the Qur’an to Muhammad until the present. From philosophy to political Islam, and from mysticism to Muslims in America, explores the diversity of a rapidly growing religious tradition.

209 {2209} c - ESD. Gender and Islam. Spring 2013. Jorunn Buckley.

Explores categories for interpreting female symbolism in Islamic thought and practice, and women’s religious, legal, and political status in Islam. Attention is given to statements about women in the Qur’an, as well as other traditional and current Islamic texts. Emphasis on analysis of gender in public versus private spheres, individual vs. society, Islamization vs. modernization/Westernization, and the placement/displacement of women in the traditionally male-dominated Islamic power structures. Students may find it helpful to have taken Religion 208, but it is not a prerequisite. (Same as Gender and Women’s Studies 206 {2209}.)

215 {2215} c - ESD. The Hebrew Bible in Its World. Fall 2012. Jorunn Buckley.

Close readings of chosen texts in the Hebrew Bible (i.e., the Old Testament), with emphasis on its Near Eastern religious, cultural, and historical context. Attention is given to the Hebrew Bible’s literary forerunners (from c. 4000 B.C.E. onwards) to its “successor,” The Dead Sea Scrolls (c. 200 B.C.E. to 200 A.C.E.). Emphasis on creation and cosmologies, gods, and humans, hierarchies, politics, and rituals.

[216 {2216} c - ESD. The New Testament in Its World.]

217 {2217} c - ESD. Gnosticism. Fall 2012. Jorunn J. Buckley.

Gnosticism is a term for a certain “family” of religions in late antiquity. These religions are Bible-based, in most cases, but represent radical re-evaluations of Biblical teachings. Therefore, the religions furnished a real threat to Judaism and Christianity in the first Christian centuries, and almost all of them are now extinct. Furnishes an example (mainly from the world of the Hellenistic Middle East) of how and why opposition groups arise in religious contexts, what the issues and costs are, and how appeals to “sacred scripture” become an arena for power struggles, for the “right to correct interpretation.”

219 {2219} c. Religion and Fiction in Modern South Asia. Spring 2013. John Holt.

A study of the Hindu and Buddhist religious cultures of modern South Asia as they have been imagined, represented, interpreted, and critiqued in the literary works of contemporary and modern South Asian writers of fiction and historical novels. (Same as Asian Studies 219 {2550}.)

221 {2221} c - IP. Hindu Cultures. Fall 2012. John Holt.

A consideration of various types of individual and communal religious practice and religious expression in Hindu tradition, including ancient ritual sacrifice, mysticism and yoga (meditation), dharma and karma (ethical and political significance), pilgrimage (as inward spiritual journey and outward ritual behavior), puja (worship of deities through seeing, hearing, chanting), rites of passage (birth, adolescence, marriage, and death), etc. Focuses on the nature of symbolic expression and behavior as these can be understood from indigenous theories of religious practice. Religion 220 is recommended as a previous course. (Same as Asian Studies 241 {2553}.)

222 {2222} c - ESD, IP. Theravada Buddhism. Fall 2012. John Holt.

An examination of the major trajectories of Buddhist religious thought and practice as understood from a reading of primary and secondary texts drawn from the Theravada traditions of India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Burma. (Same as Asian Studies 242 {2554}.)

223 {2223} c - IP. Mahayana Buddhism. Spring Spring 2013. John Holt.

Studies the emergence of Mahayana Buddhist worldviews as reflected in primary sources of Indian, Chinese, and Japanese origins. Buddhist texts include the Buddhacarita (“Life of Buddha”), the Sukhavati Vyuha (“Discourse on the ‘Pure Land’”), the Vajraccedika Sutra (the “Diamond-Cutter”), the Prajnaparamitra-hrdaya Sutra (“Heart Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom”), the Saddharmapundarika Sutra (the “Lotus Sutra”), and the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, among others. (Same as Asian Studies 223 {2551}.)

[232 {2232} c - IP. Approaches to the Qur’an.]

[237 {2237} c. Judaism Under Islam.]

[250 {2250} c. Modern Christian Thought.]

[251 {2251} c. Christianity.]

253 {2253} c - ESD. Gender, Body, and Religion. Spring 2013. Elizabeth Pritchard.

A significant portion of religious texts and practices is devoted to the disciplining and gendering of bodies. Examines these disciplines including ascetic practices, dietary restrictions, sexual and purity regulations, and boundary maintenance between human and divine, public and private, and clergy and lay. Topics include desire and hunger, abortion, women-led religious movements, the power of submission, and the related intersections of race and class. Materials are drawn from Christianity, Judaism, Neopaganism, Voudou, and Buddhism. (Same as Gender and Women’s Studies 256 {2256}.)

259 {2259} c. Religious Toleration and Human Rights. Spring 2013. Elizabeth Pritchard.

Is toleration a response to difference we cannot do without, or is it simply a strategy for producing religious subjectivities that are compliant with liberal political rule? Is toleration a virtue like forgiveness or a poor substitute for justice? Examines the relationship between early modern European arguments for toleration and the emergence of universal human rights as well as the continuing challenges that beset their mutual implementation. Some of these challenges include confronting the Christian presuppositions of liberal toleration, accommodating the right to religious freedom while safeguarding cultural diversity by prohibiting proselytism, and translating arguments for religious toleration to the case for nondiscrimination of sexual orientations and relationships. In addition to case studies and United Nation documents, readings include selections from Locke, Marx, Heyd, Walzer, Brown, Pellegrini, and Richards.

271 {2271} c - ESD. Spirit Come Down: Black Women and Religion. Spring 2014. Judith Casselberry.

Explores issues of self-representation, memory, material culture, embodiment, and civic and political engagement through autobiographical, historical, literary, anthropological, cinematic, and musical texts. Primarily focused on Christian denominations: Methodist, Baptist, and Pentecostal. Examines the religious lives of black women in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. (Same as Africana Studies 271 {2271} and Gender and Women’s Studies 270 {2270}.)

[275 {2275} b - ESD. Comparative Mystical Traditions.]

289 {2289} c - IP. Construction of the Goddess and Deification of Women in Hindu Religious Tradition. Fall 2013. Sree Padma Holt.

Focuses include (1) an examination of the manner in which the power of the feminine has been expressed mythologically and theologically in Hinduism; (2) how various categories of goddesses can be seen or not as the forms of the “great goddess”; and (3) how Hindu women have been deified, a process that implicates the relationship between the goddess and women. Students read a range of works, primary sources, biographies and myths of deified women, and recent scholarship on goddesses and deified women. (Same as Asian Studies 289 {2501} and Gender and Women’s Studies 289 {2289}.)

291–294 {2970–2973} c. Intermediate Independent Study in Religion. The Department.

299 {2999} c. Intermediate Collaborative Study in Religion. The Department.

Advanced Courses

The following courses study in depth a topic of limited scope but major importance, such as one or two individuals, a movement, type, concept, problem, historical period, or theme. Topics change from time to time. Religion 390 is required for majors, and normally presupposes that four of nine required courses have been taken.

[333 {3333} c. Islam and Science.]

[344 {3344} c. Religious Culture and Politics in Southeast Asia. (Same as Asian Studies 344 {3550} and Government 393 {3900}.]

390 {3390} c. Theories about Religion. Fall 2012. Elizabeth A. Pritchard.

Seminar focused on how religion has been explained and interpreted from a variety of intellectual and academic perspectives from the sixteenth century to the present. In addition to a historical overview of religion’s interpretation and explanation, the focus also includes consideration of postmodern critiques and the problem of religion and violence in the contemporary world.

Prerequisite: Religion 101.

401–404 {4000–4003} c. Advanced Independent Study and Honors in Religion. The Department.

405 {4029} c. Advanced Collaborative Study in Religion. The Department.