COURSES TAUGHT BY RELIGIOUS STUDIES FACULTY
Theories & Methods in the Study of Religion RELST-UA.1, McGrath
Tuesday, Thursday 11:00am-12:15pm. Class #9385. 4 pts. GCASL, Rm 261
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.
Introduction to The New Testament RELST-UA.302, Cady
Tuesday, Thursday 2:00pm-3:15pm. Class #26095. 4 pts. SILV, Rm 403
Introduces students to issues and themes in the history of the Jesus movement and early Christianity through a survey of the majority of the texts in the canonical New Testament as well as other important early Jewish and non-canonical Christian documents. No prior knowledge is required. You will be given the opportunity to read most of the New Testament in a setting in which I (as well as the secondary literature) will provide historical context, focus on significant issues, describe modern scholarly methodologies, and place the empirical material within the larger framework of ancient history.
American Religion RELST-UA.480, Baysa
Monday, Wednesday 9:30am-10:45am. Class #20867. 4 pts. SILV, Rm 407
What has been the role of religion in America? Examines themes relevant to the study of religion through key moments in American history: the relationship between spiritual revivals, political upheavals, and social change from the American Revolution through the culture wars of the twentieth century; the role of religio-racial categories in shaping communities' experience with concepts like the separation of church and state, freedom of religion, and religious pluralism; the ways theologies have both united and divided Americans around the issues of slavery, racial injustice, and immigration; and the influence of religious organizations on democracy, settler colonialism, and imperialism abroad. Considers the present-day stakes for thinking critically about religion as it has shaped and continues to shape American politics, society and culture.
Virgins, Martyrs, Monks & Saints: Early Christianity RELST-UA.846, Cady
Wednesday 11:00am-1:45pm. Class #26094. 4 pts. 726 BW, Rm. 542.
What was it about Christianity that made it so popular in the ancient world? Was it the martyrs volunteering for public execution? Monks’ sexual renunciation? The isolation of hermits living on the tops of columns in the wilderness? Or perhaps orthodoxy and its politically divisive anxieties about heretics and Jews? In fact, all these things (and more) explain how a small Jewish messianic sect from Palestine became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. This course will provide an introduction to the big questions in the history of early Christianity. The focus will be on early Christian literature, such as martyr texts, saints’ lives, and works of monastic spirituality and mysticism. Issues addressed will include the Christian reception of Greco-Roman antiquity, the origins of anti-Semitism, gender and sexuality in the early Church, and the emergence of Christian theology.
Seminar: Buddhism and Medicine RELST-UA.991, McGrath
Wednesday 2:00pm-4:45pm. Class #20868. 4 pts. 60 5th Ave., Rm C04.
This course will begin with a history of Buddhism and medicine over the past 2,500 years, focusing on early Buddhist responses to sickness and the integration of healing instructions into Buddhist scriptures. We will then consider the transmission of Buddhist medicine throughout Southeast, East, and Central Asia, concluding with the development of modern meditation therapies. By completing this course, students will learn the basic tenets of Buddhism and Asian medical traditions, while also exploring the relationship between religion, science, and medicine from the time of the Buddha down to our own pandemic world.
Internship RELST-UA.980, Staff
Permission required. Class #8287. 4 pts.
Independent Study RELST-UA.991, Staff
Permission required. Class #8288. 4 pts.
COURSES TAUGHT BY FACULTY IN OTHER DEPARTMENTS
The Bible as Literature RELST-UA.23 (Same as HBRJD-UA.23), Feldman
Tuesday, Thursday 3:30pm-4:45pm. Class #21860. 4 pts. KIMM 914
Over the past few decades, many readers have come to a fuller appreciation of the emotional and imaginative power of the Bible's narratives, which still speak with remarkable clarity to our own sensibilities, leading one critic to characterize the Bible as a "full-fledged kindred spirit" of modernism. The course pursues this "kindred spirit", using a broadly literary approach as its guide. While the focus is on narrative— the Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy) and the Former Prophets (Joshua-Kings), as well as shorter narrative books (Ruth, Jonah, and Esther)—it also studies Ecclesiastes and Job as ancient precursors to modern skepticism. Finally, it studies one modernist engagement with the Bible: Kafka's Amerika.
Topics: Monsters and Jewish Modernity RELST-UA.244.001 (Same as HBRJD-UA.90), Henig
Tuesday, Thursday 3:30pm-4:45pm. Class #10219. 4 pts. 25 W4th, Rm C-20.
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 to Frankenstein, monsters have often figured the anxieties, fantasies, and collective distress of the societies from which they hail. Jewish modernity in particular saw the rapid reproduction of monstrous figures as metaphors for the ambivalent state of European Jews vis-à-vis their surrounding societies. Whether an outcast, a dangerous force from within or a defender against external persecutions, monsters totter on the border between imagination and destruction, conveying at once a promise and a threat. This course explores monstrosity as a critical framework through which we may reflect on such issues as belonging, gender, race, abnormality and hybridity. We shall consider the monstrous as it relates to “Jewish questions”, but also as a cultural figure with a life of its own, who recurs across times, languages, and cultures, embodying different states of outsiderness and exception.
Introduction to Ancient Indian Literature RELST-UA.335 (Same as MEIS-UA.718.001), Ilieva
Wednesday 4:55pm-7:40pm. Class #9321. 4 pts. GCASL, Rm 375
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 Vedic 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.
Topics: The Ruin of Souls: A New History of Italian Religious Life RELST-UA.650 (Same as ITAL-UA.861), DiGioacchino
Monday, Wednesday 11:00am-12:15am. Class #29498. 4 pts. Casa Italiana, Auditorium
This course explores the religious life of Italian immigrants in the United States, aiming sometimes to prove true, and other times to repudiate, the general understanding of their experience outlined in the ethnic studies of the 1960s and 1970s. The time covered spans from the first preaching of Alessandro Gavazzi in New York City in 1853 to the present day. Considerable attention will be paid to the settlement of the first communities in Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia, their religious needs and strategies, their relationship with the religious hierarchies in Italy, their devotional and ecclesial practices. The course will also attempt to explore how Italian Americans have influenced and still influence religious discourse in America. In order to answer these and other questions, the course will examine religious and political materials produced by Italian communities, trying to shed light on the historic tensions and conflicts in religious history between the religious canon (the set of laws and norms produced by hierarchies at the time), and the actual practices and beliefs of the people.
The Quran and Its Interpretation RELST-UA.781 (Same as MEIS-UA.781.001), Katz
Monday, Wednesday 3:30pm-4:45pm. Class #21883. 4 pts. BOBS, Rm LL141.
The content, themes, and style of the Qur’an. Surveys the diversity of interpretive approaches to the text (legal, mystical, sectarian, literary, and politically engaged) in the medieval and modern periods.
Topics in Asian Studies: Popular Religion in Pre-modern China and Japan RELST-UA.983.002 (Same as EAST-UA.950.002), Harkness
Monday, Wednesday 3:30pm-4:45pm. Class #19409. 4 pts. 194 Mercer, Rm 306A.
This course will survey aspects of popular religion in East Asia from a sociological perspective. We will begin by examining the roots of China's best-known native religion, Daoism, its connections with pre-existing popular beliefs, and its role in the social upheavals of the late Han Dynasty and early medieval period. Our attention will then turn to the arrival of Buddhism in China and the complex process of cross-fertilization that informed developments in both Buddhist and Daoist circles. Concrete evidence from the spectacular medieval library discovered at Dunhuang will provide material for case studies in religious practice, and theme-based approaches to ritual, magical medicine, and the art of prophecy will highlight the diversity of functions played by religion in society. With some sense of the medieval Chinese context, we will then proceed to consider the case of early Japan by looking at the role of religion in international relations and the development of popular religious movements in Japan. Time permitting, we will try to view some of the related Japanese illustrated manuscripts in the New York Public Library's Spencer Collection. All course readings will be in English.
COURSES APPLICABLE TO THE MAJOR OR MINOR IN RELIGIOUS STUDIES
Texts and Ideas: Death and the Afterlife CORE-UA.400.080, Reed
Tuesday, Thursday 3:30pm-4:45pm. See Albert for Recitations. Class #10360. 4 pts. Silver, Room 206
Cultures & Contexts: Global Christianities CORE-UA.500.010, Oliphant
Tuesday, Thursday 12:30pm-1:45pm. See Albert for Recitations. Class #9743. 4 pts. 19UP, Room 102
Examines the ongoing global formation and reformation of Christianity, from its origins in a pluralistic ancient Mediterranean world and spread throughout Europe and the Middle East, to its historical and ever-transforming role in Africa, Asia, and the New World. Explores the problems and possibilities Christian texts, concepts, institutions, and narratives have posed for a diversity of populations over distinct historical periods.
The New Testament and Early Christianities HIST-UA.94, Underwood
Tuesday, Thursday 9:30am-10:45am. Class #20271. 4 pts. Silver, 101A
Explores the formative centuries of the Christian tradition from its roots as a Jewish apocalyptic movement persecuted by the Roman Empire to the institutional “Churches” that crystalized under the aegis of the Roman State in late antiquity. Although the 26 books that became the “New Testament” and later interpretations of them will center our examination of Christian beliefs and practices, we will also engage non-canonical, apocryphal, and ”heretical” texts, which illuminate numerous lost forms of Christianity including Gnosticism, Manichaeism, and Judaizing sects. In this way students will observe how early Christians formulated, debated, and policed “orthodox” modes of worship and life according to their understanding of Jesus’s gospel. Key themes will include theories of salvation and afterlife, requirements of poverty and charity, sexuality and gender roles, and lastly attitudes toward non-Christians and “deviants.”
Religion, Politics & State in Comparative Perspective RELST-UA.9613, Raviv
Monday, Wednesday 3:00pm-4:15pm. Class #9356. 4 pts. NYU TEL AVIV
Ever since the French Revolution, if not before, some of the best minds in the social sciences have been sure that the primacy of religion in modern society was entering its twilight. This view has only accentuated with the end of the Cold War, the "Third Wave of Democratization," and increasing globalization. In fact, we are still waiting for this twilight to appear; religion continues to shape individual values, social organization, state institutions, and international relations – perhaps more than ever before. As a result, the academic literature has been experiencing a revival of religious studies, but not only as its own field of study within the humanities, rather within the lens of the social sciences as well, whether in comparative politics, international relations, sociology, or even economics. The central aim of this course is to examine different theoretical approaches, analytical concepts, and empirical manifestations in the interaction between religion, state, and politics. The course is comparative in three ways, and thusly divided: In the first part of the course, we seek to understand how different social science disciplines study religion. The second part of the course presents different interactions between religion and politics, such as the secularization debate, the compatibility between religion and different types of government, and the role of religion in shaping identity and different types of political organization. The third part of the course will apply these different approaches and concepts to the study of "real world" empirical developments, both historical and contemporary, particularly within the Middle East.
Magic, Religion & Inquisition RELST-UA.9671, Duni/Bellini
Tuesday, Thursday 9am-10:15am. Class #23010. 4 pts. NYU FLORENCE
This course is made up of four sections. The first opens with an analysis of the intellectual foundations of the witch-hunt from late Antiquity to the early Renaissance. The second section concentrates on the most infamous handbook for witch-hunters, Malleus Maleficarum (“The Hammer of the Witches”) and on the roots of medieval misogyny. The third section looks at the mass witch-hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on the backdrop of the break between Protestant and Catholic Europe, and examines the connections linking witch-hunting to the momentous social, political and religious changes of the times. In the fourth part, the course will shift focus to the grassroots level, shedding light on the economic and social mechanisms which lead a community to “make a witch”.
COURSES ABROAD APPLICABLE TO THE MAJOR OR MINOR
LONDON
What Is Islam? RELST-UA.9085, Staff
Time TBA. Class #22294. 4 pts. Location TBA.
This course explores the origins of Islam and the development of its rituals and doctrines to the 21st century. It assumes no previous background in Islamic studies. Students will learn about topics such as the Koran and the Prophet, Islamic law, the encounter of East and West during the Crusades, and Islam in Britain. They will find out how Muslims in different regions have interpreted and lived their religion in past and present. Readings will include not only scholarly works but also material from primary sources, for example the Koran, biographies and chronicles. The course consists of a combination of lectures, seminar discussions, field trips and includes other media, such as film.
PRAGUE
Religion, Culture, & Politics in Central Europe RELST-UA.9360, Mucha
Tuesday, 10:30am-1:20pm. Class #19124. 4 pts. PRAG KUPKA
This course explores various religious phenomena that formed political ideas and cultural values of Central Europe in different historical periods. Religion is without doubt one of the most important elements that shaped history and contemporary face of this region and mutual interaction of these phenomena is principally evident in cultural richness of Prague. In the course we examine particularly those Central European religious figures and events that remarkably influenced the world’s history and enriched human thinking. First, we study Christianization of the Central European countries and the prominent role of religion in political and cultural transformation in medieval period. Then we follow the religious reformation process and development of relationship between Judeo-Christian tradition and the secular world in early modern period. Finally, we explore the situation of religious institutions in totalitarian societies and their struggle against communist regime. The transformation of Catholicism in the 1960s is also examined together with the role of religion in the post-communist and post-modern societies.
FLORENCE
Medieval Church: Religious Histories of Crisis & Creativity RELST-UA.9672 (Same as HIST-UA.9117 and MEDI-UA.9017), Duni
Tuesday 3:00pm-5:45pm. Class #19003. 4 pts. OFFC
Wielding nearly unlimited authority over the lives - and the after-life – of millions of Europeans, the Catholic Church was by far the most important political, as well as cultural, power of the Middle Ages. The only global institution of this era, the Church was at the same time able to nourish strong local roots: its cardinals and popes came from all over the continent and dealt with international politics at the highest level, while priests and friars brought home to the people a faith tied to the neighborhood church and confraternity, and personified by a saint’s shrine and relics.Through a combination of lectures, students’ presentations, films and site visits, this course will explore selected aspects of the Medieval Church’s history: its often rocky relations with the other supreme power of the time, the Holy Roman Empire; the rise of monasticism and its different versions; the spread of heretical movements and their repression by the Inquisition; sainthood, and how “heavenly” women and men could serve to articulate very earthly ideologies on state, society, gender roles.