Course Offerings

Winter 2025▲

See complete information about these courses in the course offerings database. For more information about a specific course, including course type, schedule and location, click on its title.

Secularity, Disenchantment, and Religion

REL 104 - Kosky, Jeffrey

A study of the decline, transformation, and/or displacement of religious thought and practice in the west. Students explore depictions of religion and secularity in the modern west from the perspective of a variety of disciplines, including some or all of the following: sociology, psychology, philosophy, theology, literature, art. These explorations address the disenchantment that is supposed to have pervaded modern secularity, and they ask if secularity offers alternatives to such disenchantment.

Religion and Conflict in Asia

REL 130 - Lubin, Tim

This course surveys the historical and social dynamics that have contributed to the formation of religious identities in the Middle East and South Asia. These identities, shaped over many centuries by the rise, spread, and interaction of religious ideas, peoples, and institutions, become important factors in socio-political movements and conflicts. The course takes a long view of the historical roots of these religious identities, their shifting boundaries and significance in the era of European colonialism, and their role in the formation of post-colonial nations. Particular emphasis is placed on the cultural linkages between the various Middle Eastern and South Asian cultural spheres, and broader patterns of Identity-formation and cultural influence through forms of globalization, both modern and pre-modem

Approaches to the Study of Religion

REL 210 - Filler, Emily

A study of approaches to understanding religious life and thought as found in selected writings in anthropology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, theology, and comparative religion.

Law and Religion

REL 222 - Lubin, Tim

Drawing on examples from diverse periods and legal cultures, this seminar addresses "law" and "religion" as two realms of life that have much shared history and continue to intersect in the modern world. Several important topics in comparative law and jurisprudence are covered, including authority and legitimacy, the relation between custom and statute, legal pluralism, church-state relations, and competing models of constitutional secularism. A selective survey of legal systems and practices rooted in particular religious traditions is followed by an examination of how secular legal systems conceptualize religion and balance the protection of religious freedom with their standards of equity and neutrality.

Gender and Sexuality in Islam

REL 284 - Atanasova, Kameliya

How have issues of gender and sexuality in Medieval and Modern Islamic societies been debated across the Middle East, South Asia, and the West? Students examine scholarly and public discussions of gender and Islam, and they build a vocabulary in which to talk about women. queer, and intersex history as they concern Muslim societies and their foundational sources in their regional and historical contexts.

Special Topics in Religion: Liberation and Faith

REL 295G - Clark, Jawanza

This course examines the innovative expressions of Christianity known as Liberation Theology as it takes form in Black, Feminist, Ecofeminist, Womanist, and Latin American authors. Students consider how these theologies reconstruct traditional symbols of God, sin, the bible and biblical authority, the human being, salvation, and others in light of the experience of oppressed peoples. Consideration is also given to how these thinkers understand race, blackness and whiteness, masculinity and femininity, poverty, and sexuality.

Special Topics in Religion: Religion and Toleration

REL 295I - Filler, Emily

This seminar-style course considers the virtues and limitations of "tolerance" as a mode of engaging religious diversity. What does tolerance mean, and what does it require of both religious and non-religious people? When might tolerance be a problematic way of responding to religious claims or practices? How are tolerance and intolerance regulated – both within communities and by the state? This course will take up these questions, as well as a variety of theories of interfaith engagement and invitations to religious co-existence in political and cultural conflict.

Directed Individual Study: Senior Capstone

REL 403A - Kosky, Jeffrey

A course devoted to the writing of an independent research project.

Honors Thesis

REL 493 - Kosky, Jeffrey

Honors Thesis.

Fall 2024▲

See complete information about these courses in the course offerings database. For more information about a specific course, including course type, schedule and location, click on its title.

Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

REL 101 - Filler, Emily

An introduction to the history, literature and interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament).

FS: First-Year Seminar: Race, Resistance, and Religion in America

REL 180A - Clark, Jawanza

First-year seminar.

Special Topics in Religion: Religion in America

REL 195D - Clark, Jawanza

An investigation of the role of religion(s) in the development of American society from the colonial era to the present with attention to indigenous cultures, African-American religious experience, religion and political conflict,  and the diverse identities, institutions, and practices that continue to define American experience.

Special Topics in Religion: Meditation and Self-Knowledge

REL 195E - Lubin, Tim

How do religious and scientific explanations and methods of inquiry differ? What are the roles of reason and authority in each case? This course draws together materials from antiquity to the present, from the West and from Asia, to illustrate a variety of types of systems of "knowledge." Theoretical readings are balanced with diverse case studies from diverse contexts: religious doctrines, mystical practices, alchemy, astrology, sorcery, "traditional medicines," and modern religious movements. Students research a system of their choice and analyze its claims and methods in comparison with those of other traditions covered in the course.

God and the Holocaust

REL 275 - Filler, Emily

This seminar-style course considers the impassioned responses to the Holocaust using a variety of sources: autobiography, philosophy and theology, political analysis, theater, and film. Our particular focus will be on Jewish ethical and theological struggles to define Jewish observance, prayer, and communal political responsibility in the wake of the Holocaust.

Senior Seminar

REL 399 - Kosky, Jeffrey

This course begins with consideration of the nature of the study of religion. The remainder of the course is devoted to the writing of an independent research project. Students will continue to meet for discussion of work in progress and instruction in the craft of researching and writing a long, multi-source independent research project.

Spring 2024▲

See complete information about these courses in the course offerings database. For more information about a specific course, including course type, schedule and location, click on its title.

Special Topics in Religion: Religion and Tourism

REL 295F - Kang, Samantha

This class interrogates the supposed distinction between travel, pilgrimage, tourism, and mission trips. It utilizes a variety of disciplinary approaches to explore the ways in which authenticity and sacrality are commodified and performed in the modern world. Students will be asked to put theory to work in the exploration of media and material culture, analyzing everything from souvenirs to selfies, postcards to prayer books. Coursework may entail visits to local museums, monuments, and tourist traps.