COURSES TAUGHT BY RELIGIOUS STUDIES FACULTY
Theories & Methods in the Study of Religion RELST-UA.1, Reed
Tuesday, Thursday 11:00am-12:15 pm. Class #10064. 4pts. 25 W4 Rm. C-20
Fundamental theoretical and methodological issues pertaining to the academic study of religion. Theories of the origin, character, and function of religion as a human phenomenon. Understanding and interpretation of religious phenomena through psychological, sociological, anthropological, historical, and hermeneutical perspectives.
Seminar: St. Augustine's City of God RELST-UA.270 (Same as CLASS-UA.650), Becker
Wednesday 11:00am-1:45pm. Class #21999. 4pts. 726 Silver Rm. 500.
This seminar will focus on St. Augustine’s City of God. Brief lectures will set out the historical, literary, and intellectual context. However, a work such as this allows for questions and conversation that go well beyond its original setting. Our focus will be the text itself and the dialogue it provokes. Topics addressed include: Augustine’s critique of Roman religion, his relationship to Virgil and other Classical authors, his engagement with Greek philosophy, Christian political theology, the Christian understanding of history, the problem of suffering, demonology, the origin of evil, the creation of the human being, Original Sin, war and peace, judgment and punishment, eschatology (the end time), envisioning God, and Augustine’s doctrine of the two cities.
Seminar: Religion and Medicine RELST-UA.313, McGrath
Monday 11:00am-1:45pm. Class #25080. 4pts. 726 Broadway, Rm 542.
Explores religious and medical approaches to health and disease. Questions the very relationship between scientific and ritual approaches to healing by tracing didactic narratives and theoretical assumptions in the medical instructions and scriptures of diverse times, spaces, and cultures. Concludes with the role of religious approaches to health and disease in the United States during our own age of industrialized healthcare and pandemic disease.
American Religion RELST-UA.480 (Same as HIST-UA.117), Krutzsch
Monday, Wednesday 9:30am-10:45am. Class #9748. 4pts. Silver Rm. 403.
This course explores the relationship between religion and American identity. We will analyze the role of religion in American culture, politics, and law and question if the United States has a secular government, what the separation of church and state means, and if religious freedom exists for everyone. The class will consider the role of religion within slavery, settler colonialism, Native American and immigrant assimilation, and how religion has influenced the U.S. political system. The class will also examine the role of religion within movements for racial justice, reproductive choice, and LGBTQ equality.
Intro to Buddhism RELST-UA.832 (Same as EAST-UA.832), McGrath
Tuesday, Thursday 3:30pm-4:45pm. Class #9244. 4pts. Silver Rm. 414.
An introduction to this complex religion, emphasizing its history, teachings, and practices. Discusses its doctrinal development in India, then emphasizes certain local practices such as Buddhism and the family in China; Buddhism, language, and hierarchy in Japan; the politics of Buddhist Tibet; Buddhist art; and Buddhism in the United States.
Internship RELST-UA.980
Permission required. Class #8707. 1-4pts. Staff.
Independent Study RELST-UA.997
Permission required. Class #8708. 1-4pts. Staff.
COURSES APPLICABLE TO THE MAJOR OR MINOR IN RELIGIOUS STUDIES
Topic: Utopias and Dystopias CORE-UA.400, Becker
Monday, Wednesday 9:30am-10:45am. Class #8920. 4pts. 12WV G08
CROSS-LISTED COURSES TAUGHT BY FACULTY IN OTHER DEPARTMENTS
Sex, Gender & The Bible RELST-UA.19 (Same as HBRJD-UA.19), Stahl
Tuesday, Thursday 11:00am-12:15pm. Class #26864. 4pts. KJCC Rm. B01
This course investigates the constitution of male and female -- both human and divine -- in the Hebrew Bible through close readings of selected biblical texts. We probe the difference between biblical gender roles and their analogues in the Greco-Christian tradition and its 20th-century heir – Freudian psychoanalysis. We also ask what light biblical views on sexual difference can shed on contemporary feminist demands for equal-rights. No prerequisites.
Topics: Monsters and Jewish Modernity RELST-UA.244 (Same as HBRJD-UA.90), Henig
Tuesday, Thursday 2:00pm-3:15pm. Class #24181. 4pts. 25 W4 Rm. C-13.
What is a monster? How does it come into being? Why do monsters capture modern imagination and at what historical junctions do they tend to reappear? From the Golem of Prague to Frankenstein, monsters have figured the anxieties, fantasies, and distress of the societies from which they hail. Jewish modernity in particular saw the rapid reproduction of monstrous figures as allegories and metaphors for the ambivalent state of Jews vis-à-vis their surrounding societies. This course explores monstrosity as a critical framework through which we may reflect on such issues as belonging, gender, and race. By examining films, short stories, plays, essays, and pop culture, we shall consider the monstrous as it relates to “Jewish questions”, but also as a cultural figure with a life of its own that recurs across times, languages, and cultures, embodying different states of outsiderness and exception.
Intro to Ancient Indian Literature RELST-UA.335 (Same as MEIS-UA.718), Illieva
Tuesday 4:55pm-7:35pm. Class #9949. 4pts. 35 5th Ave. Rubin Hall 109.
An introductory course designed to acquaint students with the great works of the ancient Indian literary tradition, a major part of which was written in Sanskrit. The earliest form of that language, called Vedic Sanskrit, is the language of the Vedit hymns, especially those of the Rig Veda. Sanskrit has had an unbroken literary tradition for over 3,000 years. This rich and vast literary, religious, and philosophical heritage is introduced in this course. In addition, students work with excerpts from the Jain and Buddhist canons written in Prakrits and examples of Tamil poetry. Selections from the Vedic literature, classical drama, epics, story literature, and lyric poetry are studied in English translation.
Living a Good Life: Greek and Jewish Perspectives RELST-UA.422 (Same as HBRJD-UA.422, Gottlieb
Monday, Wednesday 11:00am-12:15pm. Class #26835. 4pts. Silver 408.
Does living well require acquiring knowledge and wisdom? What is the place of moral responsibility in the good life? Is the good life a happy life, or does it require sacrificing happiness? Does religion lead to living well or does it hinder this? Study of primary texts by Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Avot, Maimonides, Spinoza, and Hermann Cohen.
Modern Jewish History RELST-UA.681 (Same as HBRJD-UA.103), Engel
Monday, Wednesday 12:30pm-1:45pm. Class #21551. 4pts. Online.
Major developments in the history and culture of the Jews from the 16th to the 20th centuries, emphasizing the meanings of modernity in the Jewish context, differing paths to modern Jewish identity, and internal Jewish debates over the relative merits of modern and traditional Jewish values.
Sufis: Mystics of Islam RELST-UA.863 (Same as MEIS-UA.863), Alatas
Monday 2:00pm-4:45pm. Class #23119. 4pts. 194 Mercer Rm. 210.
Since the emergence of Sufism in the ninth century, the shrines, brotherhoods, and doctrines of the Sufis have had vast influence in almost every corner of the Muslim world. This course offers a general, interpretive narrative tracing of Sufism from its perio of origin until recent times. It observes the development and spread of the so-callded "Islamic mysticism" through the Middle East, Asia, Africa and ultimately Europe and the United States. Moving beyond a focus on doctrines and practices, however, this course situates Sufism in its social, cultural and historical contexts. Over the course of the semester, we will learn how Sufi holy personages gained followers, not only among tribesmen and pessants, but also emperors, merhcants, and bureaucrats. We will then look at how such alliances made leading Sufis powerful even at the zenith of the European imperialism and in today's globalized world.
What is Islam? RELST-UA.9085 (Same as MEIS-UA.9691, ANTH-UA.9072), Wirtz
Monday 1:00pm-4:00pm. Class #19832. 4pts. NYU London.
Introduction to the life of the Prophet Muhammad and the origins of Islam; the beliefs and practices of the Islamic community; differences between Sunni and Shi’ite Islam; Sufism; the spiritual, intellectual, and artistic life of the Islamic commonwealth; and modern Islamic revival.