Winter 2022 Class Schedule
Winter 2022 Course PostersCourse | Title | Instructor | Day/Time | |
---|---|---|---|---|
REL 170-20 | Introduction to Religion | Molina | TTH 11-12:20pm | |
REL 170-20 Introduction to ReligionReligion: we think we recognize it when we see it, and yet it is always changing. How does one study a moving target? In the first weeks of the course, we look back in time to understand how the ideas about religion that are familiar to us today are rooted in history. The emergence of the concept of "religion" as an object of comparison and study grew out of early modern European sectarian violence and colonial overseas expansion. We then turn to study some thinkers from the 19th and 20th centuries who developed theories about the best ways to study religion. These scholars developed and honed the fields of sociology, anthropology, and psychology by testing their methods on case studies about religion. To know this history is to know our present, as well as to understand the methodologies that shape the university curriculum. What do we do with this legacy? Are these methods adequate to understanding religion today? In the second half of this class, we critically evaluate these methods by putting them to work to analyze religion in the world, both past and present. We will focus on how religion moves people. People are rooted in space and place by their religious practices, while simultaneously being moved by religion. As will have become clear in the first half of the course, religion is a moving target because people themselves do not stay the same. Throughout the course, we track the tension between rootedness and mobility by examining three themes: "conversion," "borderlands," and "death/afterlives." (Winter 2022, Professor Michelle Molina) | ||||
REL 210-20 | Introduction to Buddhism | Buckelew | MW 12:30-1:50pm | |
REL 210-20 Introduction to Buddhism | ||||
REL 240-20 | Introduction to Christianity | Chalmers | MW 11-12:20pm | |
REL 240-20 Introduction to Christianity | ||||
REL 264-20 / HIS 200-28 | American Religious History from 1865 to the Great Depression | Orsi | TTH 9:30-10:50am | |
REL 264-20 / HIS 200-28 American Religious History from 1865 to the Great Depression | ||||
REL 318-22 / ASIAN_LC 300-21 | Religion and Politics in the People's Republic of China (RLP) | Terrone | MW 3:30-4:50pm | |
REL 318-22 / ASIAN_LC 300-21 Religion and Politics in the People's Republic of China (RLP)This course will examine the role of religion in post-1980’s China with an emphasis on the political implications of the practice of religion in the People’s Republic of China. Students will read various forms of literature and policy documents to assess the extent to which Marxist theory is central to the interpretation of “religion” in Communist China. Primary sources will include Chinese constitutional articles, white papers, and editorials in English translation. Secondary sources will cover a wide range of interpretations and perspectives on the position of religious institutions and religious practices in the PRC. The first part of this course will investigate the expression of religiosity under Communism in China; the rehabilitation of Confucian values; the constitutional protection of religion and religious belief in China; the relationship between ethnicity and religious policies; the Sinicization of religion; and the administration of the five officially accepted religious traditions in the People’s Republic of China (Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Islam). The second part of the course will focus on the recent cases related to the Muslim Uyghurs of Xinjiang and the Tibetan Buddhists of Western China. The class will explore some of the most controversial issues related to these two ethnic minorities including terrorism, religious violence, nationalism, assimilation, foreign influence, and soft power. The course format will consist of both lectures and discussions, during which students will be encouraged to exercise critical thinking and lead in-class presentations. Students will analyze various types of documents, critically evaluate content and concepts, and endeavor to synthesize the information and communicate it effectively and thoroughly.Counts towards Religion, Law, and Politics (RLP) major concentration. (Winter 2022, Professor Antonio Terrone) | ||||
REL 318-24 / ASIAN_LC 390-21 | Fate, Fortune, and Karma in East Asia | Buckelew | MW 9:30-10:50am | |
REL 318-24 / ASIAN_LC 390-21 Fate, Fortune, and Karma in East Asia | ||||
REL 319-20 / ASIAN_LG 390-20 | Buddhist Cultures and the Rhetoric of Violence | Terrone | TTH 3:30-4:50pm | |
REL 319-20 / ASIAN_LG 390-20 Buddhist Cultures and the Rhetoric of ViolenceThis course investigates the intersections between religion and violence in the context of Buddhist Asia while also considering why in many religious traditions there seem to be a link between the two. The course will be structured in two parts: in the first part students will be encouraged to build expertise in the basic concepts, definitions, and general academic consensus (as well as debates) about categories including “religion,” “violence,” “sacrifice,” “ritual,” “martyrdom,” and also “nationalism,” “politics,” and “terrorism” through reading both primary sources (in English translation) and secondary sources (scholarly writings). We will then move into an analysis of case studies that focus on specific circumstances where Buddhist rhetoric, scriptural authority, and religious practices have played a role in violence including suicide, terrorist-related actions, and self-immolation predominantly in pre- and modern Asia. Some of the provocative questions that this course asks include: Why and how is religion involved in politics? Is Buddhism a pacifist religion? How does religion rationalize violence? How can some Buddhist leaders embrace terror as a political tool? Are the recent practices of self-immolation in Tibet acts of violence? Can non-violence be violent? | ||||
REL 339-20 | Modern Judaism, Race, and Racism | Rosenblatt | TTH 2-3:20pm | |
REL 339-20 Modern Judaism, Race, and Racism | ||||
REL 339-22 | Introducing the Talmud | Wimpfheimer | MW 9:30-10:50am | |
REL 339-22 Introducing the TalmudThe Talmud is one of the most important works of Jewish literature. For the last millennium, Talmud study has been a central part of Jewish religious and cultural practice. Despite the splintering of Judaism into different denominations, Jews the world over are unified by their commitment to studying Talmud. The Talmud is an unusual work of literature, and it has been credited as an influence on codes of law, sermons, modern works of Jewish literature, and even Seinfeld. This course will explain the Talmud’s import and durability within Jewish culture while introducing students to the rigors of legal analysis that lie at the heart of most talmudic passages. The course is ideal for those interested in religion, law, logic games and questions of textual interpretation. The course will study the Talmud entirely in English translation; there is neither a language prerequisite nor an expectation of prior experience reading the Talmud. (Winter 2022, Professor Barry Wimpfheimer) | ||||
REL 364-20 / AMER_ST 310-20 | American Teenage Rites of (RSG) | Taylor | TH 2-4:50pm | |
REL 364-20 / AMER_ST 310-20 American Teenage Rites of (RSG) | ||||
REL 369-20 / HUM 325-5-30 | Religion in the Digital Age (RSG) | Uca | MW 2:00-3:20pm | |
REL 369-20 / HUM 325-5-30 Religion in the Digital Age (RSG)What happens when religion goes digital? In this course we examine how religions are adapting to an increasingly digital world and how digital environments are shaping old and new religious practices. Through a series of case studies, we will consider how religious practitioners and the “spiritual but not religious” are using digital media to challenge established religious authority, create community, innovate devotional practices, and theorize their experiences. We will examine, for example, collage and hip hop, virtual pujas, mindfulness apps, user-generated gods, emoji spells, tulpamancy, transhumanism, and Slender Man. Through these case studies we will explore how digital natives and adopters are reimagining religious presence, mediation, community, ethics, and ontology. This class centers BIPOC, queer, and feminist voices, digital arts, memetics, lived religion, and social justice. Students will practice skills for digital humanities research, engage in ethical reflection, and apply course learning to creating their own digital artifacts. Counts towards Religion, Sexuality, and Gender (RSG) religious studies major concentration. (Winter 2022 Eda Uca) | ||||
REL 374-20 | God After the Holocaust | Sufrin | MW 11-12:20pm | |
REL 374-20 God After the HolocaustTimes of crisis and collective suffering give rise to theological innovation and creative shifts in religious expression as people seek to understand their traditions in light of their experiences. In the wake of the Holocaust, Jews and Christians faced such a need for religious rethinking. In theological terms, they asked: where was God and should we expect God to act in human history? What does this event indicate about God's existence? In human terms, they asked: how do we live as Jews today? As Christians? As human beings? Focusing on theological and literary texts, in this course we will explore how Jews and Christians reshaped their thinking about God and religion in response to the Holocaust and the experience of suffering in the modern world. (Winter 2022, Professor Claire Sufrin) | ||||
REL 379-21 / POLI_SCI 382-20 | Politics of Religious Diversity (RLP) | Hurd | TTH 9:30-10:50am | |
REL 379-21 / POLI_SCI 382-20 Politics of Religious Diversity (RLP)(Winter 2022, Professor Elizabeth Shakman Hurd) | ||||
REL 395-20 | Theories of Religion | Taylor | T 2-4:50pm | |
REL 395-20 Theories of Religion | ||||
REL 473-21 / ASIAN_LC 492-21 | Graduate Seminar: Buddhist Studies: State of the Field | Jacoby | F 10-1:00pm | |
REL 473-21 / ASIAN_LC 492-21 Graduate Seminar: Buddhist Studies: State of the FieldThis course will survey the state of the field of Buddhist Studies by examining a broad range of monographs, with an emphasis on a selection of recent scholarship on Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. Topics covered in this course will include Buddhist ritual, cosmology, literature, philosophy, society, politics, and intellectual history. We will attend not only to the range of subject matter covered in Buddhist Studies scholarship, but also to the methodologies and theoretical approaches that scholars have used in the past and those in favor today to get a sense of the shifting terrain of this field. Through engaging in what we can call a type of “reverse engineering process” in which we analyze the parts that comprise the whole of recent monographs in the field of Buddhist studies, our goal will be not only to critique, but to consider how others have put together recent projects with an eye toward preparing students for their own research and writing. All required course readings are in English; this is a graduate seminar but motivated undergraduates with a background in Buddhist Studies courses are welcome to request permission from the professor to register. (Winter 2022, Professor Sarah Jacoby) | ||||
REL 482-20 | Graduate Seminar: Theories and Methods | Molina | W 3-5:50pm | |
REL 482-20 Graduate Seminar: Theories and Methods |