Courses

Courses

Spring 2008 Courses

  • Visit Bearings to search for courses by title, instructor, department, and more.
  • Login to Blackboard. Instructional materials are available on a course-by-course basis.
101. Introduction to the Study of Religion
Elizabeth Pritchard T 10:00 - 11:25, TH 10:00 - 11:25
Basic concepts, methods, and issues in the study of religion, with special reference to examples comparing and contrasting Eastern 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.

204. Science, Magic, and Religion
Dallas Denery M 9:30 - 10:25, W 9:30 - 10:25, F 9:30 - 10:25
Traces the origins of the scientific revolution through the interplay between late-antique and medieval religion, magic, and natural philosophy. Particular attention is paid to the conflict between paganism and Christianity, the meaning and function of religious miracles, the rise and persecution of witchcraft, and Renaissance hermeticism

208. Islam
Jorunn Buckley M 11:30 - 12:55, W 11:30 - 12:55
Furnishes a non-apologetic outline of Islam while tackling anti-Islamic prejudices common in general American culture. Selected themes include the religion’s own terminological apparatus and categories of understanding, ritual and ethics, religious and secular leadership, mystical traditions, and modernity issues. In the interest of balance, there is an emphasis on including works by Muslims, especially regarding central topics in modern Islam.

224. Religiosities of South Asia
Sunil Goonasekera T 1:00 - 2:25, TH 1:00 - 2:25
Focuses on varieties of indigenous religious expressions in South Asia and covers salvation religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikkhism, Yoga, and Tantra, as well as minor religions such as astrology, demonology, spirit possession, sorcery, witchcraft, and magic specific to the region. Includes discussions of monastic traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. South Asian religious traditions prescribe a variety of monastic practices ranging from rigorous self-mortification culminating in death to the middle path recommended by Buddhism to complete rejection of monasticism in orthodox Hinduism. Explores the connection between these religious ideals and the everyday life of their adherents, as well as their relationships with nationalistic political movements.

230. Anthropology of Religion
Sunil Goonasekera T 8:30 - 9:55, TH 8:30 - 9:55
Explores the anthropological perspectives on religious ideas and practices in a wide variety of cultures: the way various cultures define the nature of the world, the place of human beings, the senses of time and space, and how life must be lived. The context for this study includes “salvation religions” such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism as well as “micro-religions” like magic, sorcery, witchcraft, and spirit possession that address the everyday concerns of the believers. Investigates the classical and contemporary anthropological theories about the origins of religiosity and the relationships between religion, politics, economics, psychology, and other areas of culture, and with anthropological methods for studying religious phenomena.

252. Marxism and Religion
Elizabeth Pritchard T 11:30 - 12:55, TH 11:30 - 12:55
Despite Karl Marx’s famous denunciation of religion as the “opiate of the masses,” Marxism and religion have become companionable in the last several decades. Examines this development through the works of thinkers and activists from diverse religious frameworks, including Catholicism and Judaism, who combine Marxist convictions and analyses with religious commitments in order to further their programs for social emancipation. Included are works by liberation theologians Hugo Assmann, Leonardo Boff, José Miguez Bonino, and philosophers Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, and Cornel West.

310. Gnosticism
Jorunn Buckley M 2:30 - 3:55, W 2:30 - 3:55
The term “gnosticism,” from the Greek “knowledge,” encompasses a variety of religious movements and texts, dating to the first Christian centuries. Most forms of Gnosticism are now extinct, but were closely related to Judaism and Christianity, posing alternative views of the supreme divinity in those traditions. Places the Gnostic phenomenon in its religious-cultural context and highlights Gnostic mythologies, rituals, and ethics. Texts are drawn from the Nag Hammadi, the early Christian Church fathers, Mandaeism, and Manichaeism.

321. Medieval Drama
Mary Edsall M 1:00 - 2:25, W 1:00 - 2:25
A seminar on medieval English drama focusing on Mumming Plays, liturgical drama, the Mystery Cycles, and Morality Plays. Engages with different scholarly approaches to the study of medieval drama, discusses how the drama of the Middle Ages differed from modern conceptions of the theater, and reflects on how drama functioned in a society with a very different sense of the boundary between the secular and the sacred. Topics include the ritual aspects of religious drama, the mapping of sacred space within the secular, and the drama’s dialogue with social and political contexts. Participation in a production of a Mumming play and of a medieval play is one of the course requirements.