| | Description: | Nearly everyone has had some experience with something they would call "religion," from at least a passing familiarity through the media to a lifetime of active participation in religious communities. But what do we actually mean when we use the word? What is a religion? What does it mean to call something a religion, or "religious"? And what does it mean to study religion, given the slipperiness of the concept itself?
This course offers an introduction to the academic study of religion through a consideration of these questions: What is religion, and how can we study it? Do we need an answer to the first question to pursue the second? Why, and toward what ends, might we undertake such study? We will also consider what is at stake in our investigation and inquiry into religion-for the inquirers, for the subjects of inquiry, and for society more broadly-and what kind of lens the study of religion offers us on ourselves, our neighbors, and society, in turn. To these ends, we will discuss major theoretical approaches to the study of religion and significant work on religions and religious phenomena, toward a better understanding of what "religion" might be and how it might be studied today. No prior knowledge or experience of religion, religions, or anything religious is expected or required. This course is required for Religious Studies majors and minors. |
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| | 01 | M-W-F-- | 10:00A-11:00A | Simon / 017 | Kravchenko | Paper/Project/TakeHome | 35 | 34 | 0 | | | Actions: | | Books | | Syllabus | | Syllabi are provided to students to support their course planning; refer to the syllabus for constraints on use. |
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| 02 | M-W-F-- | 12:00P-1:00P | Mallinckrodt / 303 | Kravchenko | Paper/Project/TakeHome | 35 | 33 | 0 | | | Actions: | | Books | | Syllabus | | Syllabi are provided to students to support their course planning; refer to the syllabus for constraints on use. |
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| | Description: | While liberal democracies have historically protected the 'liberty of conscience,' the proper role of conscience in politics remains deeply contested. This first-year seminar interrogates the (conflicting) meaning of conscience by examining several classic accounts of the politics of conscience in the Western tradition. This seminar will begin by examining ancient accounts of conscience in Antigone, Apology of Socrates, and the writings of Christian theologians, Luther and Calvin. Next, we will turn our attention to early modern portrayals of conscience by Shakespeare, as well as several influential early modern philosophers and poets, including John Milton, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Roger Williams. Lastly, we will examine modern accounts of conscience as a form of civil disobedience in the writings of Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In conclusion, we will look at the politics of conscience in two prominent Supreme Court cases in order to address the (secular and religious) legacy of conscience in contemporary American politics. While this course examines conscience from a philosophic, historical, and legal perspective, it primarily aims to equip students with fundamental skills in the discipline of political theory, such as interpretive analysis and critical thinking. |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 4:00P-5:30P | Eads / 203 | Gais | Default - none | 12 | 10 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | Prize-winning novels and novelists form the entire reading list for this class, which is interested in how writers from multiple perspectives (Christian, Jewish, pluralist, atheist, and others) have viewed the function of religion and the meaning of spirituality. This course is designed for non-English majors as well as potential English majors. As we read some of the best, most influential, and most controversial writers of the last hundred years, we'll discuss not just the competing claims about religion and spirituality, but also the functions, forms, and multiple ways of interpreting literature. Studying the topic of religion and spirituality, this class will thus also serve as introduction to the discipline of English and literary studies. All are welcome: no religious background of any kind is necessary. NOTE: This course is open only to freshmen. |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 11:30A-1:00P | Busch / 100 | Yucesoy | Paper/Project/TakeHome | 100 | 72 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | Vulnerability seems to present a paradigmatic form of ethical imperative: if we know that something bad might happen, we should act now to prevent or mitigate its effects. But in what ways, to what ends, and at what cost? Should we protect ourselves even if it prevents us from pursuing other goods? Who gets to decide what kinds of protection and preparation are necessary? These questions are complicated by the fact that we often see our vulnerabilities most vividly when they have been realized in wounds, and so the conversation proceeds from situations of trauma, mourning, and the immediate needs of caregiving and recovery. Do these occasions aid the discussion, or obscure it? This course examines the concept of vulnerability in contemporary discussions of trauma, mourning, terrorism, gun violence, violence against women, and racially motivated violence to consider this critical question of ethical thought: what does our past experience have to do with our preparation for the future?
The course draws on recent work in religious ethics, political philosophy, feminist thought, critical race theory, and Christian thought to examine this concern. No prior experience in religious studies, philosophy, political science, or gender studies is required, nor is any knowledge of religious traditions. |
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| | 01 | -T-R--- | 1:00P-2:30P | Eads / 116 | Bialek | Paper/Project/TakeHome | 25 | 24 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 11:30A-1:00P | Seigle / 104 | Cyrus O'Brien | Paper/Project/TakeHome | 25 | 20 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 11:30A-1:00P | Eads / 205 | Barmash | Paper/Project/TakeHome | 15 | 13 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 10:00A-11:30A | Eads / 205 | Barmash | Dec 17 2018 10:30AM - 12:30PM | 15 | 10 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | -T----- | 4:00P-7:00P | Busch / 14 | Pegg | Paper/Project/TakeHome | 15 | 7 | 0 | | Desc: | THE STUDY OF THE MIDDLE AGES: This course concerns itself with addressing and familiarizing students with some of the major issues, debates, problems, themes, and methods, adopted and adapted by historians of the Middle Ages. As such, a great deal is not only learned about the Middle Ages themselves, from around 300 to just after 1500, but also about the history of medieval history, from the the seventeenth century up to the twenty-first. Each week we will explore the various methodologies for discovering and reading primary sources of various kinds, whether a chronicle, a poem, a land contract, inquisition records, and even textual fragments that nevertheless that help us imagine the past. How an historian writes is as important as what he or she says and so this course will pay close attention to the art and craft of the historian. Is history a science as was argued in the nineteenth century? What, ultimately, is truth for the historian? Topics to be explored are the Christianization in the early Middle Ages, the relationship of popes to kings, of cities to villages, of Jews to Christians, of vernacular literature to Latin, of knights to peasants, of the sacred to the profane. Along the way, our attention will be directed to things as various as different forms of religious life, the establishment of frontier communities, the crusading movement, heresy, magic, witchcraft, the shift from a penitential culture to a confessional one, the beginnings of the inquisition, Gothic art, the devil, chivalry, manuscript illumination, definitions of feudalism, female spirituality, and the Black Death. Finally, the question of "medievalism" will be thought about - in other words, how ideas about the Middle Ages, whether bizarre or not, have shaped nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century Europe and America. Students will participate in weekly discussions and write two historiographic essays. PREREQUISITE: NONE. Pre-Modern, Europe. This section is crosslisted with L23 301R. |
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| | Description: | This course offers an introduction to the history, practices, and worldviews of the various traditions known under the umbrella term of Daoism. Although central to the development of Chinese medicine, ghost stories, martial arts, Qigong, Chinese landscape paintings, meditation, and many other cultural practices, the Daoist traditions have been marginalized in both Mainland China and by scholars over the last century. Through both secondary scholarship and primary texts, we will explore the continuities and discontinuities of the religion's concepts, rituals, visual cultures, and scriptures. After an introduction to formative, proto-Daoist texts and practices, we will focus on the social forces that have driven the development of Daoism as an identifiable social movement from the 2nd century to the modern day. Special consideration will be given to specific Daoist groups and their textual and liturgical traditions: the Celestial Masters (Tianshi), Great Clarity (Taiqing), Upper Clarity (Shangqing), Numinous Treasure (Lingbao), and Complete Perfection (Quanzhen). |
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| | 01 | -T-R--- | 4:00P-5:30P | Seigle / 303 | DIALLO | Dec 19 2018 6:00PM - 8:00PM | 20 | 11 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | The goal of this course is to explore the multiple ways in which Christian traditions are practiced globally. In addition to exploring the historical origins of Christian traditions, this course focuses on the practices of contemporary Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox Christians in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Italy, Indonesia and Ghana, among other places. This course asks: how do diverse Christian theologies and practices as well as social needs shape practitioners' understanding of conversion, salvation, eschatology, as well as form their attitudes towards materiality, agency and freedom? Why do some Christians frame freedom to pray as an ability to pray in one's own words and others as an ability to use scripts from a prayer book? Why do some Christians insist that engaging icons is essential for experiencing God, while others claim that avoiding visual guides is the key to achieving the same goal? Why do some practitioners see submission to priestly authority as a positive and others as a negative force?
This course also explores how and with what results different Christian groups have negotiated the differences between their particular ways of practicing Christianity. It attends to the power of some Christian communities to draw upon these differences in order to make political statements, such as marking one group's belonging to modernity against and over another. In short, this course asks and answers questions that help to bring to the fore specific social, political, and cultural factors that contribute to the particular shape of each Christian tradition at a particular point in time, and a specific geographical location. |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 2:30P-4:00P | Rudolph / 282 | Kravchenko | Paper/Project/TakeHome | 15 | 9 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | This course examines the concept, history, and culture of American exceptionalism-the idea that America has been specially chosen, or has a special mission to the world. First, we examine the Puritan sermon that politicians quote when they describe America as a "city on a hill." This sermon has been called the "ur-text" of American literature, the foundational document of American culture; learning and drawing from multiple literary methodologies, we will re-investigate what that sermon means and how it came to tell a story about the Puritan origins of American culture-a thesis our class will reassess with the help of modern critics. In the second part of this class, we will broaden our discussion to consider the wider (and newer) meanings of American exceptionalism, theorizing the concept while looking at the way it has been revitalized, redefined and redeployed in recent years. Finally, the course ends with a careful study of American exceptionalism in modern political rhetoric, starting with JFK and proceeding through Reagan to the current day, ending with an analysis of Donald Trump and the rise of "America First." In the end, students will gain a firm grasp of the long history and continuing significance-the pervasive impact-of this concept in American culture.
American Culture Studies (AMCS) is a multidisciplinary program that provides both a broader context for study in different fields and a deeper understanding of American culture in all of its complexities. |
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| | Description: | This class is a comparative survey of religion, magic, and witchcraft as they are related to concepts of the body, health, healing and death across cultures. As such, students in this class will be expected to simultaneously learn details from particular magical and healing traditions studied in class, as well as to relate these details to theories about within the discipline of Anthropology (medical, cultural, psychological) and the field of Religious Studies. Special themes addressed in the class are the reasonableness of belief in magic, religion and religious practice as "magical," the body and definitions of health, healing, and illness and disease as symbolically, culturally, even magically constructed and experienced. |
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| | Description: | This interdisciplinary course, co-taught by a law school professor and an American historian, concerns the intersection of religion, liberty, and law in American culture. It introduces students to the major texts and historical issues concerning religious liberty, using legal history and case law, intellectual and social history, and political philosophy. It will address issues of significant contemporary debate-from the role of religious groups on college campuses to bakers and gay weddings--along with the deep historical background, from English settlement of North America and the making of the Constitution, through the Civil War, to the Cold War and the recent political developments. |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 10:00A-11:00A | Seigle / L006 | Inazu, Valeri | Paper/Project/TakeHome | 100 | 65 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M------ | 2:30P-5:30P | Umrath / 116 | Bialek | Paper/Project/TakeHome | 15 | 9 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | Evangelical Christians hold a massive influence on American culture and politics as issue setters, voting blocs, and media producers. Despite their pervasive and powerful presence, defining evangelicals has proven to be a complex and highly contested task. In this course, our route will follow evangelical music as we learn to listen our way to better understanding the motivations, identities, and fractures of one of the most important social and cultural movements of our time. Through encounters with hippie Jesus rockers and fundamentalist anti-rock critics, world-famous gospel artists and mostly forgotten glam rock evangelists, as well as holy hip hop and retuned hymnologists, we map the constellation of evangelical identities and surrounding cultural politics. Drawing our tools from the methodologies of musicology, ethnomusicology, and religious studies, our work will equip us to critically engage with both popular and religious cultures of American society. An ability to read music is not required for participation in this course.
American Culture Studies (AMCS) is a multidisciplinary program that provides both a broader context for study in different fields and a deeper understanding of American culture in all of its complexities. |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 11:30A-1:00P | Seigle / 305 | Kinney | Dec 18 2018 10:30AM - 12:30PM | 20 | 7 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | -T----- | 2:30P-5:30P | Umrath / 116 | Schmidt | Paper/Project/TakeHome | 15 | 4 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | This course introduces students to anthropolocial and sociological scholarship on Muslim societies. Attention will be given to the broad theoretical and methodological issues which orient such scholarship. These issues include the nature of Muslim religious and cultural traditions, the nature of modernization and rationalization in Muslim societies, and the nature of sociopolitical relations between "Islam" and the "West." The course explores the preceeding issues through a series of ethnographic and historical case studies, with a special focus on Muslim communities in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Case studies address a range of specific topics, including religious knowledge and authority, capitalism and economic modernization, religion and politics, gender and sexuality, as well as migration and globalization. |
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| | 01 | -T-R--- | 1:00P-2:30P | Eads / 103 | Nakissa | Dec 18 2018 1:00PM - 3:00PM | 40 | 17 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | -T-R--- | 10:00A-11:30A | Simon / 1 | Martin | Paper/Project/TakeHome | 110 | 109 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 2:30P-4:00P | Eads / 216 | Lawton | No final | 25 | 23 | 0 | | |
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| | 01 | -T-R--- | 4:00P-5:30P | Cupples I / 111 | Jenott | Paper/Project/TakeHome | 15 | 11 | 0 | | | Actions: | | Books | | Syllabus | | Syllabi are provided to students to support their course planning; refer to the syllabus for constraints on use. |
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| | Description: | Magic is perhaps not one of the first words one associates with Greco-Roman antiquity. Yet for most individuals living in the ancient Mediterranean, including philosophers, businessmen, and politicians, magic was a part of everyday life. Casting spells, fashioning voodoo dolls, wearing amulets, ingesting potions, and reading the stars are just some of the activities performed by individuals at every level of society. This course examines Greco-Roman, early Christian, and Judaic "magical" practices. Students read spell-books which teach how to read the stars, make people fall in love, bring harm to enemies, lock up success in business, and win fame and the respect of peers. Students also look at what is said, both in antiquity and in contemporary scholarship, about magic and the people who practiced it, which helps illuminate the fascinating relationship between magic, medicine, and religion. |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 11:00A-12:00P | Seigle / L006 | Jenott | Dec 18 2018 10:30AM - 12:30PM | 50 | 46 | 0 | | |
| A | ----F-- | 11:00A-12:00P | Simon / 020 | Jenott | Default - none | 25 | 24 | 0 | | |
| B | ----F-- | 11:00A-12:00P | Simon / 022 | Jenott | Default - none | 25 | 22 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | This course examines the work of three church councils that put their stamp on the Catholic Church at key moments in its history, making it what it is today. The first section is dedicated to the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which defined the high medieval church as an all-encompassing papal monarchy with broad powers over the lives of all Europeans, Christian and non-Christian alike. In the second section we turn our attention to the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which responded to the threat posed by the Protestant Reformation by reforming the Catholic church, tightening ecclesiastical discipline, improving clerical education, and defining and defending Catholic doctrine. We conclude with a consideration of the largest church council ever, Vatican II (1962-1965), which reformed the liturgy and redefined the church to meet the challenges of the modern, multicultural, post-colonial world. |
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| | 01 | -T-R--- | 1:00P-2:30P | Duncker / 3 | Bornstein | Paper/Project/TakeHome | 30 | 8 | 0 | | | Actions: | | Books | | Syllabus | | Syllabi are provided to students to support their course planning; refer to the syllabus for constraints on use. |
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| | Description: | The capstone course for Jewish, Islamic, & Near Eastern Studies majors, Arabic majors, and Hebrew majors and an advanced seminar in History. Today's newpapers, magazines, and websites are filled with images and sweeping characterizations of Islam and its adherents. Many of these messages are embedded with symbolic associations designed to provoke concern and even fear in their readers and listeners. One reads and hears that Muslims cannot be--or refuse to be--integrated into European or American society; that Islam has no conception of democratic citizenship; that Islamic law produces anti-social behavior; indeed, that Islam poses a severe threat to Western security and values. To anyone who has studied the history of Jewish-Christian relations in the West since the Middle Ages, many of these charges will appear eerily familiar. Each of these claims, in one form or another, has been directed toward Jews and Judaism in the past, as recently as the 20th century though less so today. One wonders then, whether these are merely recycled tropes, to which identical meanings have been attached, or distinct responses to fundamentally different historical situations? To what extent should the Jewish historical experience influence how we assess and understand the contemporary encounter of Islam with the West? At the same time, Jewish communities and individuals have had their own history of relations with the Islamic world, at times distinct from those of the West, at times deeply entwined. This course, then, has two intersecting goals: The first is to survey Western, mainly Christian, conceptions of Jews and of Muslims--Judaism and Islam--since the Middle Ages, being alert to common patterns but also to important distinctions between the two phenomena. The second is to examine some key episodes in Jewish-Muslim encounters: e.g., medieval Iberia; the early-modern Ottoman empire; Zionism and Arab nationalisms; and the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One of our major challenges will be to examine how a body of images and symbolic associations can be deployed against different cultures and social groups, in distinct historical settings, and whether the differences in chronology and context render the two situations incomparable. |
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| | 01 | M-W---- | 1:00P-2:30P | Busch / 202 | Kieval | Dec 19 2018 1:00PM - 3:00PM | 15 | 9 | 0 | | |
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| | Description: | This course will explore the diversity of women´s writing in the Middle Ages: from religious lyrics to love poems, romance to autobiography, mystical treatise to history, letters to literary criticism. We will consider the methods women used to gain authority as writers, the way they participated in and transformed traditionally male genres, and the way specific cultural conditions inhibited or allowed female literary expression. We will also explore the kinds of religious instruction and advice literature that were directed at female audiences, and which often became popular among lay readers more generally. Both the usefulness and the problems of conceiving a category of "women´s writing" will be explored throughout the course. Authors will likely include Hildegard of Bingen, Heloise, women troubadours, Catherine of Siena, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and Christine de Pizan. Satisfies the Medieval requirement. |
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