Sample Course Descriptions
Religion 471 GRADUATE SEMINAR:
EMBODIMENT/MATERIALITY/AFFECT
Michelle Molina
This seminar explores theoretical approaches to the problems of embodiment/materiality/affect. One aim of the course is to examine various methodological approaches to embodiment, materiality and affect, making use of sociology and philosophy (Pierre Bourdieu, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Spinoza, Massumi). The second and closely related aim is to situate bodies in time and place, that is, in history. Here we look to the particular circumstances that shaped the manner in which historical actors experienced their bodies in the Christian west (Peter Brown, Caroline Bynum, Mary Carruthers, Michel de Certeau, Michel Foucault). Ultimately, we will be examining theoretical tools while we put them to work. The goal: how to use these thinkers to write more dynamic, creative, interesting scholarship?
REL 468 GRADUATE SEMINAR:
CRITICAL THEORY AND RELIGION
Christine Helmer
This course explores the central place the concept of “religion” hasoccupied in the development of critical theory and, in turn, the rolecritical theory has played in reframing “religion” in modernity and in thecontemporary geopolitical moment. We take up the question, “Is critiquesecular,” as we consider the contributions, potential and actual, of“religion” to social transformation.
REL 473 GRADUATE SEMINAR:
TIBETAN BUDDHIST TANTRA
Sarah Jacoby
Not a how-to course, this class will explore the significance of tantra in Tibetan history, doxography, and scholarship. The course will pay particular attention to placing tantra within its broader religious and social context(s) in Tibet, as well as to a range of issues pertaining to the ethics and politics of translating tantric texts into non-Tibetan cultural and linguistic spaces, such as varying understandings of secrecy, initiation, the guru-disciple relationship, the roles and representations of women, the body as a site of spiritual realization, consort practices, and interpretations of antinomian rhetoric.
REL 471 GRADUATE SEMINAR:
RELIGION, RACE AND POLITICS
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd
This seminar is an experiment in studying the intersections of religion, race, and politics in global and imperial perspective. We discuss how particular understandings of religion and race inform contemporary scholarship and shape national and international legal and governmental practice.
Landscapes of the Sacred
Sarah McFarland Taylor
This course explores the multifaceted connections between place and the construction of personal and spiritual identities in American culture. What is the idea of “place”? What are the tensions between American notions of “space” and “place”? How are certain places deemed “sacred” in America, and how are these places contested over time, by whom, and to what ends? How are mythical landscapes recreated in physical landscapes, and what drives such recreations? How are “sacred places” symbolically represented over time? What is the relationship between sacred narratives and the “storied landscape” for a variety of native peoples in North America? How are certain religious experiences understood “through place” in diverse communities (urban, suburban, rural, etc.)? And how do displacement, alienation from place, and the fragmentation of place affect spiritual understandings of self, nature, and nationhood? Theoretical perspectives for this course will be drawn from religious studies, landscape studies, and cultural studies. We will analyze a series of case studies (derived from primary and secondary sources) throughout the quarter.
Religion and American Popular Culture
Sarah McFarland Taylor
This seminar is geared to graduate students in Religious Studies, but advanced undergraduates in Religious Studies, American Studies, and related areas are welcome.; Admission for undergraduates is by instructor approval, and Religion majors and American Studies majors will receive priority. In this course, we will examine religion and popular culture in theoretical perspective, self-reflexively considering what counts as "religion" and what counts as “popular culture” in America and why. How might these definitions change over time, and who has the authority to decide what kind of phenonmena falls into which category? What is the purpose of studying popular culture and what methodologies might be most useful and appropriate for doing so? What might the study of popular culture contribute to our understanding of how Americans experience the “religious”? Students will be asked to problematize "high culture" versus "low culture” distinctions, theoretical divisions between what is labeled "religious" and "secular," and classifications of “religion” and “culture.” Examining a series of case studies drawn from film, television, popular music and art, consumer items, kitsch, and other sources, we will explore different scholarly approaches to the study of religion and popular culture. Students then compare and evaluate these approaches, choosing their own approach as they conduct original research for the final seminar project.
REL 481-1 GRADUATE SEMINAR:
THEORIES OF RELIGION
Mark McClish
This course explores key works on religion from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with a view to understanding the historical foundations of the academic study of religion. We will read works from "canonical" theorists of religion, such as Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and Otto, as well as from contemporaries whose work on religion engaged subjects such as race, indigeneity, and gender. Taking a historical-critical perspective, we will explore the significance of these thinkers in their own time as well as the afterlife of their theories, methods, and frameworks.
*Not all courses listed here will be offered every quarter
Back to top