The following are all courses offered by the Department of Religious Studies including meeting days and times, professors, course description and Common Course of Studies attributes
REL 101 Religions in World Cultures
01: TH 8:00 – 9:15 am Professor Patel
02: TH 9:30 -10:45 am Professor Patel
This course introduces students to the academic study of religion through a consideration of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and traditional African religions. Different forms of religious experience and belief are examined along with the myths, rituals, concepts, and symbols that convey them. Various methodologies and source materials are used. [H,V//GM2,HAH]
REL 105 Special Topics: Death and Dying in Global Perspective
MWF 9:30-10:20 am Professor Selke
This course introduces students to religion in the topics of death and dying. It investigates the psychological aspects of facing death and dealing with dying persons; cross-cultural religious and philosophical interpretations of death (as new life, resurrection, rebirth, etc.); and medical, ethical, and legal issues such as physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. This course will especially investigate themes of dying, death, afterlife, eschatology, reincarnation, memorialization, and the paranormal as they relate to the study of religion as a human phenomenon. The course uses videos, guest speakers, readings, class discussions, and individual reflection papers to gain an understanding of the multiple meanings death has in our world. [GP//HAH]
REL 201 Biblical Imagination
MW 2:45-4:00 pm Professor Selke
Introduction to the religion of ancient Israel; examination of biblical perspectives on the great questions through close reading of selected texts; interpretation of the book as ”scripture” as the Old Testament by Christian communities and as the Tanakh or written Torah by Jewish communities; methods of scholarly inquire. [H,V//HAH]
REL 209 Sacred and Scared:
MW 11:40 am-12:55 pm Professor Ma
Strange Tales and Popular Religions in East Asia
Exploring the rich tradition of ghost stories and fantasy tales of the oddities (zhiguai) in East Asia, this course provides a comprehensive overview of folk religions and cultic practices in China, Taiwan, and Japan. Intensively reading zhiguai stories, relevant modern scholarship and visual adaptations, students consider and compare Eastern and Western conceptions of self and other, body and soul(s), death and afterlife, and better understand the popular culture, folklore, and religious secularism and syncretism in East Asia. [GM1, H// GP, HAH]
REL 215 Islam
TH 11:00 am-12:15 pm Professor Patel
An introduction to Islam, a religion that flowered into a world civilization. It covers the vast and dynamic range of Muslim religious life from Muhammad’s time to the present. The broad survey spans the foundational texts of the Quran and prophetic traditions as well as later Islamic thought, including jurisprudence, theology, and mysticism. The course highlights modern debates within and about Islam. Topics include political Islam, religious pluralism, the limits of jihad, and the possibilities of Islamic feminism. [H,V//GP,HAH]
REL 216 Religion in Africa: Historic Expression
TH 1:15-2:30 pm Professor Blunt
This course is an introduction to the study of traditional African religious systems, thought, and experience and explores the way African religions are related to different forms of social organization and conflict, notions of authority, and power. It also explores how African religious thought and practice have been affected by and transformed through colonization, missionary activity, and the continent’s integration into the global economy. [H,V,SS,GM2//HAH]
REL 218 Confucianism: Self and Society (Cross-listed with PHIL 218)
MW 1:15-2:30 pm Professor Ma
Revolving around the themes of self and society, this course explores the philosophical and cultural history of the Confucian tradition from inception to present day. Probing cultural, religious, gender, and sociological aspects of Confucianism, students develop a systematic understanding of the intersections and interactions of individual, community, and society in countries under a Confucian tutelage. Course materials are primarily canonical texts and modern scholarship, supplemented by literary narratives and movies. [ GM1, GM2, H, V // GP, HAH]
REL 226 Jewish-Christian Relations: From Enmity to Dialogue?
TH 9:30-10:45 am Professor Rice
Judaism and Christianity claim common roots, yet historically defined themselves often as adversaries. Throughout most of history, Christianity relegated Judaism to a status of tolerated minority. This course explores complicated Jewish-Christian interactions since the “parting of the ways” to medieval persecutions of the Jews, to processes of modernization and emancipation, to recent attempts at dialogue spurred by the tragedy of the Holocaust. While not free from controversies, these attempts do often result in interfaith reconciliation. [GM,H,V//CECS,HAH,WRIT]
REL 231 Religion in American History & Culture
MWF 10:35-11:25 am Professor Selke
From the religious traditions of Native Americans to the religions brought to this continent by Europeans, Africans, and Asians, there is a rich tapestry of religious belief, practice, and culture in the U.S. This course focuses on the history of religious life in North America, the cultural aspects of religions in this region, and the diversity of religious expression. The course also considers how relates to group, regional and national identity. [GM1,H//CECS,HAH]
REL 240 Theories of Religion
MW 2:45-4:00 pm Professor Rinehart
What is religion? What is the nature of religious belief? What roles does religion play in society? How can we study and understand religion? There have been many attempts to answer these questions from sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, comparative religion, and the feminist critique of religion. This course examines representative theories of the nature and study of religion, paying close attention to the contexts within which these theories arise, and how effective they are in leading to an understanding of religious beliefs and practices. [H,SS//WRIT,HAH]
REL 250 Anthropology of Religion
TH 2:45-4:00 pm Professor Blunt
As the United States and European colonial powers expanded into places like Africa, Native North America, Melanesia, and Australia (to name a few), different national traditions of anthropology developed an ever-evolving toolbox of approaches and techniques for understanding the religious lives of Euro-American Others. This course is an introduction to this ”toolbox” of anthropological theories and methods of studying religion from the Victorian era to the present. The course will also attend to voices in the discipline critical of the way anthropology constructs ”religion” as an object of analysis. [SS//GP,SSA,WRIT]