| RELG 107-01 |
Jews, Christians and Pagans in the Time of Jesus
Instructor: Peter Schadler
Course Description:
Cross-listed with JDST 107-01. A critical examination and attempt to understand the New Testament as the written traditions which articulated the faith, expectations, and actions of the early Christians as they responded within Jewish and Greek culture to the historical events of their day, and especially as they responded to the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. This course is cross-listed as JDST 107.
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09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
EASTC 411 |
| RELG 109-01 |
Religion and Human Rights
Instructor: Blayne Harcey
Course Description:
This course examines varying conceptions of "human rights," "religion," and their relation, giving special attention to religious violence and terrorism, religious freedom, and the role of religion in politics and public law.
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10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
STERN 103 |
| RELG 111-01 |
From Abraham to Al-Qaeda: Jews, Christians, and Muslims from their Origins to the Present
Instructor: Peter Schadler
Course Description:
Cross-listed with HIST 219-01 and MEST 200-01. Permission of Instructor Required. Part of the Sicily Mosaic. This course will survey relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims, from their origins up to the present day, with heavy attention to the premodern period, and to those areas under the political control of Muslims. We will, however, also consider the relations between these three in the modern period, and how the beliefs of these three groups have coincided and collided to generate specific tensions between them.
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10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
EASTC 411 |
| RELG 116-01 |
Religion, Nature, and the Environment
Instructor: Jodie Vann
Course Description:
This course explores how various religious and spiritual traditions have understood, conceptualized, and interacted with the natural world. Incorporating from both conventional religions (such as Catholicism, Judaism, and Buddhism) as well as newer spiritual forms (like Contemporary Paganism), the course provides a comparative survey of the relationships between religiosity and nature. Themes under examination include notions of human dominion, stewardship, panentheism, and naturalism. Students will consider how religious ideologies have shaped conceptions of nature, and how changing understandings of the natural world have challenged religious ideas.
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10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
WEISS 235 |
| RELG 116-02 |
Religion, Nature, and the Environment
Instructor: Jodie Vann
Course Description:
This course explores how various religious and spiritual traditions have understood, conceptualized, and interacted with the natural world. Incorporating from both conventional religions (such as Catholicism, Judaism, and Buddhism) as well as newer spiritual forms (like Contemporary Paganism), the course provides a comparative survey of the relationships between religiosity and nature. Themes under examination include notions of human dominion, stewardship, panentheism, and naturalism. Students will consider how religious ideologies have shaped conceptions of nature, and how changing understandings of the natural world have challenged religious ideas.
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09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
WEISS 235 |
| RELG 215-01 |
Jewish Environmental Ethics
Instructor: Andrea Lieber
Course Description:
Cross-listed with JDST 215-01. Since the 1960's many writers on environmental issues have blamed our contemporary environmental crises in part on a so-called "Judeo-Christian" worldview, rooted in the Hebrew Bible. Such writers assert that the biblical heritage shared by these two religious traditions advocates an unhealthy relationship between humanity and nature, one in which human beings are destined to conquer the earth and master it. In this course we will explore Jewish perspectives on nature and the natural world through close readings of biblical and other classical Jewish theology, history and ritual practice, we will also examine the ways in which this motif is re-conceptualized in modern secular contexts (ie, Zionism, and the kibbutz movement). We will conclude by studying contemporary varieties of Jewish environmental advocacy. In addition to texts focused specifically on Judeo-Christian traditions, the syllabus will include other classic works of Environmental ethics foundational to the field of Environmental studies.Offered every three years in rotation with the offering of ENST 111. This course is cross-listed as JDST 215.
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11:30 AM-12:20 PM, MWF
EASTC 301 |
| RELG 240-01 |
Women, Gender and Judaism
Instructor: Andrea Lieber
Course Description:
Cross-listed with JDST 240-01 and WGSS 201-02. This course examines issues of gender in Jewish religion and culture. Starting with the representation of women in the Bible and other classical Jewish texts, we study the highly differentiated gender roles maintained by traditional Jewish culture, and examine the role American feminism has played in challenging those traditional roles. We will also study gender issues in contemporary Israeli society, such as the politics of marriage and divorce, public prayer and gender in the military. Some knowledge of Judaism and Jewish history is helpful, but not required as a prerequisite for this course. This course is cross-listed as JDST 240.
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12:30 PM-01:20 PM, MWF
EASTC 411 |
| RELG 260-01 |
Yoga in Theory and Practice
Instructor: Blayne Harcey
Course Description:
Cross-listed with EASN 205-02. Introduces students to yogic traditions originating in South Asia through primary source texts, biography, and visual culture. Students will explore the historical development of yogic philosophies in India, Nepal, Tibet, and Southeast Asia as well as reflect on the popularization of yoga as modern spiritual and wellness practice.
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09:00 AM-10:15 AM, TR
ALTHSE 204 |
| RELG 260-02 |
Buddhist Consciousness: Can one think without thinking?
Instructor: Pascal Kim
Course Description:
Whenever we think, there is always an object of thought. But what happens when the object is something unthinkable, such as emptiness?
Consider memory. In recalling, my present thinking engages with a past event. My recollection of taking the dog to the park yesterday is not the lived experience itselfwhich unfolded in the pastbut a present mental occurrence that somehow makes that past experience accessible to consciousness now. How does present consciousness recognize that this current mental occurrencemy memoryrefers to or represents an episode I once lived? What bridges the past experiences with the present remembering of them?
In meditation, what serves as the object of consciousness? If the meditative goal is objectless awareness, i.e., transcending the subject-object duality, how can awareness itself persist without violating the apparent structure of consciousness, which seems to require a subject-object distinction?
This course explores the nature of consciousness as articulated in the Yogcra school, which profoundly shaped Buddhist psychology and philosophy, particularly regarding meditation and mental experience. We begin with the historical development of Buddhist consciousness studies and epistemology, culminating in the meditative implications and thought experiments that emerge from this tradition.
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01:30 PM-04:30 PM, F
DENNY 311 |
| RELG 318-02 |
Cults and Communes
Instructor: Jodie Vann
Course Description:
(e.g., Religion and Science; Encounters with Death; Liberation Theologies) Prerequisite dependent upon topic.
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01:30 PM-04:30 PM, T
DENNY 21 |
| RELG 326-01 |
Contemplative Practices in Asia
Instructor: Blayne Harcey
Course Description:
Cross-listed with EASN 305-01. Buddhism, Hinduism, and Daoism have ancient and rich traditions of contemplative practice focused on cultivating ethical dispositions and higher states of consciousness. This course will examine various methods of mind training from across these traditions and explore the philosophical principles that undergird them. Students will also reflect on the popularization of these mind training practices in modernity Buddhism, Hinduism, and Daoism have ancient and rich traditions of spiritual practices. This course will examine methods of mind training and the philosophy that undergirds them.
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01:30 PM-04:30 PM, M
EASTC 303 |
| RELG 410-01 |
Interpreting Religion
Instructor: Blayne Harcey
Course Description:
An advanced introduction to some fundamental issues of theory and method in the academic study of religion. Selected religious phenomena will be examined using the perspectives such as those of the history of religions, psychology, sociology, anthropology, philology, philosophy, and theology. Emphasis will be placed upon methods of research and styles of writing in the study of religion. Prerequisite: One RELG course.
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| RELG 490-01 |
Senior Seminar
Instructor: Andrea Lieber
Course Description:
Advanced investigation of methods and critical perspectives for the study of religion with a focus to be determined by the instructor. Writing enriched. Prerequisite: 410 or permission of the instructor.
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01:30 PM-04:30 PM, W
EASTC 410 |
| RELG 550-01 |
Independent Research
Instructor: Peter Schadler
Course Description:
Permission of Instructor Required. Part of the Sicily Mosaic.
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