RELIG-ST 5500      Special Topics In Religious Studies
Special topics in religious studies. The focus of the course will vary by semester and instructor.
Credits: 1,3 hours
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RELIG-ST 5501      Religion In America
An in-depth examination of selected aspects of the history of religions in America from the colonial period to the present. Special emphasis will be given to methodological issues in the study of American religious history. Offered: On Demand
Credits: hours
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RELIG-ST 5502      Religion & Colonialism in Latin America
The study of selected aspects of the history of religions in the Americas. Primary focus is on the complex ways that European, Native American Africans religions helped to structure and negotiate the experiences and the significance of cultural contact and colonialism through lived worlds of meaning.
Credits: 3 hours
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RELIG-ST 5503      Visions, Dreams, and Prophesies as Religious Phenomena
This course explores the way visions, dreams, and prophesies have acquired religious significance in Western and non-western contexts from the ancient to the present.
Credits: 3 hours
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RELIG-ST 5504      Gender and Religion
Cross-cultural and comparative study of how religious groups create and transmit gender roles and expectations.
Credits: 3 hours
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RELIG-ST 5506      The History of Christianity to the Middle Ages
This course examines the historical and theological development of Christianity from its origins to the the High Middle Ages The main themes follow the mechanisms and conditions shaping Christianity's expansion into a major social, institutional and intellectual force with a focus on patterns of crisis and reform. This course is based on the study of primary sources ( both texts and objects) and modern scholarship. Cross-listed as HISTORY 5506A
Credits: 3 hours
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RELIG-ST 5507      The History of Christianity from the Middle Ages to the Present
This course examines the historical and theological development of Christianity from the High Middle Ages to the present. The main themes follow the mechanisms and conditions shaping Christianity's expansion into a major social, institutional and intellectual force with a focus on patterns of crisis and reform. This course is based on the study of primary sources ( both texts and objects) and modern scholarship.Cross-listed as HISTORY 5507A
Credits: 3 hours
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RELIG-ST 5508      Anthropology of Religion
This course explores the ways anthropologists have gone about studying religion from the opening decades of the 20th century to present. The course introduces students to the diversity of human religious expression and experience through anthropological literature and to the diversity of anthropological expression especially as it has been revealed in social scientific studies of religious life. The course is designed to generate a critical dialogue about the special role that religion has played in the ongoing anthropological engagement with ""other"" societies and cultures over time.
Credits: 3 hours
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RELIG-ST 5510      Religions Of The World
This course is designed to introduce graduate students to the major religions of the world, as well as to selected small-group religions. Our goal will be to learn to appreciate the similarities and differences in the structure and history of these religions. A primary focus will be on using the categories of the history of religions to examine and analyze the various dimensions of religion (e.g., historical, sociological, ritual, mythological, aesthetic). In addition, methodological issues of comparison will be addressed.
Credits: 3 hours
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RELIG-ST 5567      Myth and Ritual
Myth and ""ritual"" have long been fundamental categories in the study of religion. This course will briefly survey some of the major theories and approaches to the study of myth and ritual from the Enlightenment to the present. Will not only trace the shifting meanings of ""myth"" and ""ritual,"" but will critically evaluate the utility of diverse approaches to the study of religious phenomena designated by these terms. Reading will include theoretical works, as well as selected case studies.
Credits: 3 hours
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RELIG-ST 5584      Sacred Narratives And Texts
This course will study the "social lives" of sacred narratives and texts as they circulate within religious communities. Among the topics to be studied are methods of exegesis in different religious traditions, orality and literacy (including the reoralization of written texts), the canonization process, the emergence of interpretive specialists, text as amulets, reading and meditative practices and techniques, and narratives and the arts. The course is comparative, cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary in nature.
Credits: hours
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RELIG-ST 5586      Methodological Approaches To The Study Of Religion
This course examines the various disciplines that undertook the critical, objective study of religion beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century and continuing into the present. The course examines how the disciplines of the social sciences and humanities emerged in the last century and how the study of religion emerged from its roots in Jewish scholarship and Christian theology to be included under the umbrella of the humanities and social sciences. The historical development of religious studies as a historical and intellectual contexts.
Credits: hours
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RELIG-ST 5587      Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion
A survey of major scholars and theorists of religion from 1950 to the present, with an emphasis on significant shifts in the field.
Credits: 3 hours
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RELIG-ST 5592      Cults Sects, And New Religious Movements
In this course, students will experience: (a) a variety of methods for analyzing and understanding new religious movements in society: sociological, historical, and textual; (b) an introduction to the broad spectrum of religious beliefs which exist (and flourish) outside the cultural mainstream; and (c) an introduction to some of the means by which dominant religious and secular culture has confronted the presence of NRMs-e.g., deprogramming exit counseling, and theologically oriented countermovement. Offered: On demand
Credits: 3 hours
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RELIG-ST 5593      Sex And Religion
The course is designed to highlight issues related to the various ways in which religions of the world have integrated, embraced, or repressed one of the basic human experiences sexual expression. This is an elective course designed for graduate students with Religious Studies either as their coordinating or co-discipline. This is an advanced seminar, and as such does assume a certain measure of theoretical familiarity and background of study. Offered: On demand
Credits: 3 hours
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RELIG-ST 5594      Death In The History Of Religions
As a biological "fact," death would appear to be a human universal. Yet, human beings have imagined--and, thus experienced--the meaning of death in many diverse ways in different cultures and over time. This course explores the conceptualization and representation of death and dying, as well as the ritual activities surrounding death, found in selected religious communities. The goals are to gain insight into how people have sought to (re) create a world of meaning in the face of death and to gain a critical perspective on our own contemporary situation.
Credits: hours
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RELIG-ST 5595      Time And Space In The History Of Religions
Time and space are essential components of the lived worlds of human beings, yet the cultural and historical constructions of these are remarkably diverse and, moreover, are subject to change. This course is a cross-cultural, interdisciplinary, and comparative exploration of the constructions and experiences of time and space found in selected religious communities and historical periods. In addition, it investigates the pivotal role the categories of "sacred and profane time and space" have played in theorizing religion and in the study of religious myths and rituals in the modern period. Time and space are essential components of the lived worlds of human beings, yet the cultural and historical constructions of these are remarkably diverse and, moreover, are subject to change. This course is a cross-cultural, interdisciplinary, and comparative exploration of the constructions and experiences of time and space found in selected religious communities and historical periods. In addition, it investigates the pivotal role the categories of "sacred and profane time and space" have played in theorizing religion and in the study of religious myths and rituals in the modern period.
Credits: hours
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RELIG-ST 5596      Body In The History Of Religions
The human body is the site of extensive imaginal and ritual activities in all religious traditions. This course explores some of the diverse ways religious communities have imagined and experienced the human body, as well as how the body had been manipulated and worked on in an effort to transform the human situation in the world.
Credits: hours
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RELIG-ST 5597      Non-Thesis Research/Reading
Individual direction of student reading or research by selected, consenting faculty. This course can be taken only when faculty supervision is unavailable in colloquia or seminars.
Credits: hours
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RELIG-ST 5598      Seminar In The History Of Religions
Advanced graduate seminar on a selected topic or problem in the History of Religion. Topic varies, but the seminar will have a methodical or theoretical focus. May be repeated for credit when topic is different.
Credits: hours
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