Religion Courses
Goals: To examine both general theories about religion and autobiographical accounts of individual religious lives in an effort to define “religion,” to understand what it might mean to lead a religious life, to appreciate the various ways of being religious, and to explore the role of religion in society.
Content: A variety of religious traditions will be explored through various literary genres, autobiography in particular, as well as through films, field trips, and guest lecturers.
Taught: Every semester.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To introduce religious expressions of women and their role in religion; to analyze the roles religion plays in women’s lives; to explore ways women influence as well as rethink religious traditions and shape them.
Content: Cross-cultural examination of how religions function in women’s lives and the leadership roles women take in religion; analysis of gender structures in religion; and examination of such concepts as spirituality, community, authority, relationship, and images of the divine. The specific religious traditions and the cultural contexts of the women may vary in different years.
Taught: Alternate years.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To survey the Jewish Scriptures/Christian Old Testament in historical context, exploring both the material’s literary characteristics—such as narrative plot and theme, poetic form and rhetoric—and its key theological emphases—such as the concept of God and the mission and destiny of Israel.
Content: Samples from the three main portions of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, Prophets, and Writings (Psalms and wisdom literature).
Taught: Annually.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To develop an acquaintance with the literary and theological characteristics of the New Testament, and to understand the process of its formation. A student should develop skill as an interpreter (exegete) of the biblical text.
Content: The literature of the New Testament, using the methods of historical-critical analysis, answering questions such as: By whom written? To whom written? When written? Meaning to authors and to the Christian community to whom they were/are addressed?
Taught: Annually.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To introduce the student to theological language and argument through critical examination of historical and contemporary thinkers as well as schools of thought.
Content: Close reading and discussion of primary and secondary theological texts that explore central doctrinal claims as to the nature of God, Jesus Christ, creation, humanity, the church, sin, suffering, evil, and salvation. The literature surveyed will include both dominant and marginal (such as feminist and liberationist trajectories) of the Christian tradition.
Taught: Annually.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To provoke reflection on, and understanding of, the basis, nature, content, and consequences of Christian moral thinking. To appreciate the variety of viewpoints of moral issues within the Christian tradition and their relation to the larger society.
Content: Close reading and discussion of various approaches to Christian ethics followed by analysis of selected moral issues such as war, euthanasia, abortion, homosexuality, and racism.
Taught: Annually.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To introduce students to the Jewish world by putting them in touch with authentic Jewish texts, experiences, values, and insights, and by enabling them to compare Judaism with their own ways of living and believing.
Content: Analysis of the uniqueness and tragedy of Jewish history, issues of Jewish identity, the role of Jewish law in the life of the community.
Taught: Annually.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To study the nature of the good in Judaism; to analyze such contemporary issues as war and peace, individual responsibility, sexuality, women’s issues, and related topics.
Content: Historical context and authority, including Bible, Talmud, Responsa, and Codes; classic and modern religious literature; contemporary Jewish bioethics texts.
Taught: Alternate years.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To understand the social, cultural, and political realities that comprised the world of Jesus, and to see him as an embodiment of that milieu.
Content: Movements in contemporary Judaism—Sadducees, Pharisees, Zealots, Essenes—as well as institutions like Temple, Torah, and Synagogue will be studied, along with the opportunities they presented to Jesus. Special emphasis will be placed on Jewish responses to Greek and Roman imperialism and culture, and to the ways in which these responses shaped Jesus’ environment.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To gain an understanding of the history, texts, beliefs and practices of Islam. To explore the ways the commitment to the tradition is understood and expressed in the lives of Muslims from a variety of places and backgrounds. To gain an appreciation for both diversity and unity within the tradition.
Content: Close reading of portions of the Qur’an and other sacred writings, such as the Hadith; survey of the history of Islam; exploration of Islamic philosophy, law, art and literature. Special topics will include an examination of Sufism, the mystical tradition, and an analysis of contemporary issues relating to Islamic politics, the tension between tradition and modernization, and the growth of Islam in America. Teaching Methods: Lecture, small and large group discussion, videos; possible field trips and guest lectures.
Taught: Annually.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To provide an introduction to the religious traditions of China, Korea and Japan. To examine continuity and diversity within each tradition and among the various traditions. To explore how religious themes and values are expressed in texts, rituals, symbols, art and architecture.
Content: We will look at both the indigenous religions of each culture (e.g. Chinese Daoism, Korean Shamanism, Japanese Shinto) as well as those traditions that all share in common (Confucianism and Buddhism). We will discuss beliefs and practices, major thinkers and texts, historical contexts, institutional developments and popular religious movements. Topics include Chinese cosmology, Zen meditation, Korean Christianity, religion and Communism, and Confucian capitalism in contemporary East Asia.
Taught: Annually.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To provide an introduction the religious traditions of South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh). To examine continuity and diversity within each tradition and among the various traditions. To explore how religious themes and values are expressed in texts, rituals, symbols, music, art and architecture.
Content: We will look at the Brahmanical, Jain, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic and Sikh traditions. Topics will include yoga, renunciation, Hindu deities, caste and social structure, and women in Hinduism. The last part of the course will explore trends in the 19th and 20th century, during which the religious traditions of South Asia were connected with nationalism and the birth of modern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. We will conclude by looking at the role that Hindu traditions, teachers and practices have played in modern America.
Taught: Annually.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To show both how imaginative secular literature can be religious—e.g., communicate a religious vision, help shape one’s character and inform one’s deepest self-understanding, legitimate or de-legitimate social forms and practices—and how the study of such literature has become a key element in the field of religious studies.
Content: The specific topic and genre will vary from year to year. The focus may be plays, novels, short stories, poetry, or auto/biography. It may range in scope from an exhaustive study of a single literary work (e.g., Melville’s Moby Dick), to the works of a single author (e.g., Margaret Atwood, Jon Hassler, Flannery O’Connor), to a comparison of different authors (e.g., C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers and P. D. James). Or it may be thematically arranged: e.g., Jewish Stories of Wonder; The Poetry of Prayer (Donne, Herbert, Hopkins, Dickinson, Berryman); Love and the Novel: A Critique of Power; How We Die; Modern Apocalyptic Literature; or Living With the Land: An Ecology of Fiction.
Taught: Annually.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To study in depth some portion of the narrative literature of the Jewish Scriptures/Christian Old Testament, with special attention to the issue of relevance posed by the antiquity of the texts, and to the issues posed by a sacred “literature-in-translation.” Emphasis will be given to developing close reading skills, a working acquaintance with critical methods of biblical studies, and intercultural competence.
Content: Course content may shift from year to year. It may focus on a large block of narrative, the Deuteronomic History (Joshua-2 Kings), for example, or on an individual book (e.g., Genesis), or on a piece of a book (e.g., the Jacob cycle). Alternatively, the course may adopt a thematic approach: e.g., “family, friend, and stranger,” “holy war and peace,” or yet other topics.
Taught: Alternate years.
Prerequisites: REL 1200 or REL 1220, or permission of the instructor.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To study in depth a selection of the poetic literature of Jewish Scripture/Christian Old Testament with particular attention to poetic form, function, and transformative power. Students will learn to recognize interpretations embedded in translations, will develop close-reading skills, and will be challenged to deepen their vision of the world and open the self to transformation.
Content: Course content may vary from a sampling of psalms, prophetic oracles, and proverbial wisdom to a closer focus on a single book (e.g, Isaiah), or on a comparison-contrast of two books (e.g., Proverbs and Ecclesiastes), or on some specific theme (e.g., protest and praise).
Taught: Alternate years.
Prerequisite: One of the following: REL 1200, REL 1220, or permission of the instructor.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To understand the process by which the Gospels were formed, the intentions of the Gospel writers in recording the tradition from their perspectives, and the appropriate interpretation of these texts for today.
Content: The four Gospels of the New Testament using a “parallel” of the texts by which the student can see the “variations on the theme” of the message and ministry of Jesus presented through the Gospels.
Taught: Alternate years.
Prerequisite: One of the following: REL 1200 or REL 1220, or permission of instructor.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To explore the mind, method, and impact of the first Christian writer. To develop students’ abilities to read and interpret religious literature with critical appreciation.
Content: The Pauline Epistles, both those of Paul’s direct authorship and those of associates and later followers in the Pauline tradition. The letters will be analyzed and interpreted in their historical, social, and theological contexts. Secondary readings assessing Paul’s impact on the shape of Christianity and his contribution to the intellectual and social development of Western civilization will be included.
Taught: Alternate years.
Prerequisite: One of the following: REL 1200 or REL 1220; or permission of the instructor.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To chart the variety of biblical responses to the experience of suffering. To study in depth one of the key voices in that response. To reflect critically on the place of suffering in one’s own value system.
Content: Selected Old and New Testament texts, with special attention to the Book of Job. Views of suffering as demonic vengeance, just punishment, divine instruction, or occasion for communion with God will be inspected in their biblical contexts and evaluated in the light of contemporary experience.
Taught: Alternate years.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: This course will examine death and dying from a range of perspectives and multiple methodologies.
Content: The texts we will read include a) philosophical and theological reflections on the meanings(s) of death, how we should live in the face of death, and the possibility and desirability of immortality; b) psychological analyses of death anxiety, grief, and mourning; c) anthropological and sociological examinations of death rituals, suicide, and institutions surrounding death; d) accounts from Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist, and Christian traditions about the nature of death and the after-life; and e) debates on controversial issues including euthanasia, war and pacifism, capital punishment and factory farming. We will also read literary treatments (short stories, poems, excerpts from novels) on many of these issues, and view films that focus on these topics.
Taught: Alternate years
Prerequisites: Any religion course
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To explore the development primarily of Christian thought and practice in its relationship to culture from the first century B.C.E. through the medieval period.
Content: Persecution of the early church, formation of doctrine, Augustine and Constantinian Christianity, Monasticism, Thomas Aquinas and the medieval church, Martin Luther and the Reformation.
Taught: Alternate years.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To understand the persons and movements within Christianity that contribute to an ever-evolving and reforming understanding of faith, faith-based organizations, and social change movements, through biography to get in-depth glimpses of the challenges and opportunities that religious leaders face, and to think broadly about the concepts of reform and revolution within a religious context.
Content: Luther, Calvin, Wesley, 19th-century United States religious movements with special emphasis on African-American and women’s contributions, Martin Luther King, feminist/womanist theology, the challenges to and within Christianity in the last 500 years that have led to both reform and revolution.
Taught: Alternate years.
Credits: 4 credits
Crosslisted
Listed under Philosophy as PHIL 3320.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To trace the changing landscape of religion in North America, uncovering patterns and beliefs from the past in order to better understand current issues and trends.
Content: The value and ethics of indigenous peoples, colonization and mission, the development of Protestantism and its particular role in the shaping of the United States, African American religious expression, and recent diversity in faith expression.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To understand how race in America—particularly the Black/White relationship—impacts religious thought in America; to encourage greater sensitivity to the ways in which religion is inextricably bound to culture, to politics, to economics, to American society as a whole.
Content: Pre-World War II to the present—from the non-violent, prophetic voices of Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr., through the turbulent late 1960s with Malcolm X and the rise of Black Power—the influence of the protest movements on the creation of Black Theology and subsequently, of womanist theology; and the more recent critiques of capitalism by Cornel West and others.
Taught: Annually.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To examine the ways in which religious traditions have been transformed as they move into new cultural and national contexts, and how religions, in turn, transform cultures and nations. To study different forms of globalization in a range of historical periods and to reflect on how religion can act as an agent of, or an obstacle to, globalization.
Content: Theories of globalization and its relationship to religious traditions. In-depth studies of a number of traditions including Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To explore the thought of the founder of modern existentialism, with particular attention to his understanding of Christianity and what it means to have a self. To develop close-reading skills along with an appreciation of the literary, imaginative scope of Kierkegaard’s authorship.
Content: Selections from the following works will be studied in the context of Kierkegaard’s biography, 19th century Danish Lutheranism, and the task of becoming an individual in a mass society: Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Sickness Unto Death, Training in Christianity, and Works of Love. Note: When the course is taught in winter term, it will focus on only one of Kierkegaard’s works.
Taught: Alternate years.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To achieve a greater appreciation of the major approaches and sources utilized by contemporary Christian ethicists, and to apply that knowledge to in-depth research into one current ethical dilemma.
Content: The influence of scripture, philosophy, social, and natural science on the shape of Christian ethics in relationship to specific ethical issues such as sexuality, health care, politics, environment, economics.
Taught: Alternate years.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To explore the traditional theological claims in light of feminist and womanist critiques and reformulations.
Content: Close reading and discussion of a variety of feminist and womanist theological works, especially focused on how gender, race, and class have affected religious language and imagery regarding God, Christ, power, sin, love, and redemption.
Taught: Alternate years.
Prerequisites: REL 1330 or REL 1400 or instructor permission.
Credits: 4 credits
Crosslisted
Listed under Anthropology as ANTH 3570.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To study in depth the most significant thinkers and texts of the classical period in China (6th-2nd century BCE), one of the liveliest and most important periods of philosophical debate in Chinese history. The schools of thought that emerged during this period had a profound effect on Chinese philosophy, religion, culture and politics that continues to the present day.
Content: We will focus primarily on the Confucian and Daoist traditions, although we will also look at the Mohist and Legalist traditions. While we will be thinking about these texts and philosophers, we will also be thinking along with them about the topics that concerned them. These are some of the most important topics that we as human beings must grapple with: What is human nature? What is a good person and how does an individual become one? How do we gain knowledge and how do we know when we have it (and what kind of knowledge is worth gaining)? What is a good death? We will see how the classical Chinese thinkers answered these questions and then look at how modern philosophers in the West have tried to understand, analyze and evaluate their positions. We will alternate between reading primary texts and reading secondary texts that interpret and critique the primary texts.
Taught: Alternate years.
Recommended: Previous religion course.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: To engage in an in-depth study of the Buddhist tradition, focusing on its origin in India, its development in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Tibet, and the spread of Buddhism to America. We will look at both continuity and diversity within Buddhism, examining the different forms the tradition takes in various cultures and at the threads that run through all of them.
Content: We will examine various facets of Buddhism—e.g. meditation, ritual, ethics, devotion—and different types of Buddhist lives—e.g. Monastic and lay, contemplative and activist. We will read both primary texts (e.g. Sutras) and modern secondary literature, and will examine Buddhist thought and practice at the “elite” level as well as the popular level. A number of sub-themes and questions will run through the course: How has each culture been shaped by Buddhism, and how has Buddhism been shaped by the various cultures? What has been the interaction of Buddhism with other aspects of culture, and with the sociopolitical sphere, in each country? Special topics include women in Buddhism, conceptions of Nirvana, the ethics of Karma, Buddhist-Christian Dialogue, and Buddhism in contemporary America.
Taught: Alternate years.
Recommended: Previous religion course.
Credits: 4 credits
Goals: The course will meet monthly to examine significant topics and developments pertinent to the formation, history, expression, and study of religion. It is designed to stimulate ideas for honors projects among junior majors in the class and to support the work of seniors who are undertaking honors projects.
Content: The idea of “service” as a religious concept will provide a unifying theme for the course, but monthly topics will depend on the interests of the student (or occasionally faculty person) who is presenting for the day.
Taught: Annually.
Required of majors: Two semesters of the junior and/or senior year, although more would be permitted.
Credits: 1 credit
Goals: To examine the concept of religious vocation in the contemporary context.
Taught: Annually.
Prerequisites: Two 3000-level religion courses.
Credits: 2 credits
Goals: The course will meet monthly to examine significant topics and developments pertinent to the formation, history, expression, and study of religion. It is designed to stimulate ideas for honors projects among junior majors in the class and to support the work of seniors who are undertaking honors projects.
Content: The idea of “service” as a religious concept will provide a unifying theme for the course, but monthly topics will depend on the interests of the student (or occasionally faculty person) who is presenting for the day.
Taught: Annually.
Required of majors: Two semesters of the junior and/or senior year, although more would be permitted.
Credits: 1 credit