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Course Criteria
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3.00 Credits
The growth of religious and spiritual movements, both imported from other societies and originating in the United States, has implications for the way in which Americans address the sensibilities of spirituality and religiosity. This course offers several theoretical models for understanding the categories of new religions and provides a context for inquiry into why new religions are prominent in American society today. In addition, each student will select one new religious movement (NRM) to study in depth. Students will learn how todescribe and analyze new religions demographically, ethnographically, and phenomenologically. Qualitative methods of interview, narrative, and questionnaire will be examined, and each student will gain familiarity with one or more of these methods. Each student will learn how to research an NRM by conducting an ethnography of the movement, including its beliefs, organization, any controversies surrounding the group, the experiences of members, the literature on the NRM, and how the NRM functions in the current religious milieu of the United States. Throughout the course, students will be required to examine their own assumptions, beliefs, and personal stances regarding NRMs. At the end of the semester, each student will have grounding in the literature on NRMs, some sophistication in conducting online research, and a capacity for reporting others' religious experiences.
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3.00 Credits
Contemporary spiritual leaders demonstrate diverse styles of leadership and meaning making in an age of increasing cross-cultural communication. This course will examine the contributions of several leaders from Eastern, Western, and indigenous spiritual traditions to our notions of what is real, how we know what we know, what is of value, and what the nature of inquiry is. Through the study of biography, leadership styles, and thought systems, students will come to appreciate how individuals and groups make meaning of the world, through innovation as well as accumulation. We will question how we can learn more about ourselves through the study of leaders who offer distinct paths to knowledge of ourselves and the cosmos.
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3.00 Credits
In the face of growing religious pluralism and spiritual eclecticism, religious groups with powerful, even authoritarian, leaders are growing in number, while groups with little control over their members are declining in number. Sectarian, even fundamentalist, movements are increasing in many world religions. Accusations of "brainwashing," "undue influence," improper sexual behavior, and imprisonment are levelagainst authorities in all sorts of spiritual organizations, from established churches to small cults. This course will examine the creation and perpetuation of legitimate authority and leadership in spiritual communities, and how the attribution of charismatic power to leaders can lead to the development of illegitimate authority. We will analyze the nexus of sacred influence and secular power in a number of spiritual communities in order to understand how spiritual communities are associated with a number of social problems.
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3.00 Credits
This course examines the relationship between self and society in a planetary context. It will address the nature of interconnectedness, examine new ways of understanding our planetary predicament, and introduce interpretive frameworks from the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of social change, and the study of cultures. Throughout the course, students will be invited to look at their own research inquiry through these particular lenses.
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3.00 Credits
This course provides a general introduction to research methods, models of research, and research design. It includes an overview of the epistemological and ontological foundations of research, a survey of research methods, and the basics of research design. Students will reflect on the way the human sciences have addressed very basic philosophical questions that have a profound influence on our research and our everyday existence. Students will learn how inquiry questions and values are related to specific methods and research designs.
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0.00 - 3.00 Credits
Learning Community serves multiple purposes. It is designed to develop a community of online learners; to foster dialogue, reflection, and exploration about the coursework and its relationship to individual and collective interests; to develop or improve basic scholarly skills; and to integrate the material from the coursework. It also serves as an online "homeroom."
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3.00 Credits
This course explores the revolutionary transformations in the Western worldview from the early Middle Ages to the present day-including pre- Renaissance worldviews; the rise of science with Bacon, Descartes, and Newton; the world of chaos theory; and the complementary postmodern vision of literature and society-and introduces the ideas of David Bohm, who believed that underlying the appearances of the world lies a deeper "implicate order." The course also explores the implications for individuals and society of this transformation from "certainty" "uncertainty."
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3.00 Credits
Thinkers like Gregory Bateson and Edgar Morin have suggested that a key to humanity's progress is a new way of thinking, a thinking that does not polarize, decontextualize, and mutilate the fundamental complexity of life in search of "simple" answers. We will explore the profound worksof Bateson and Morin, and address both their philosophical significance in the development of a new worldview and the relevance of their work for a wide range of issues, from ecology to education to politics to spirituality. Through the study of these authors, we will also explore the meaning and significance of wisdom and its embodiment in daily life.
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3.00 Credits
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote that we all wake up in the morning and are "in the red" to people all over the world by the time we've had breakfastThis course is about uncovering this debt: becoming aware of our global interdependence, our "planetary citizenship"; understanding it as theresult of historical global interaction and creativity; and exploring the implications for who we are, how we relate to others, and what we can do to see our global pluralism as an opportunity for tremendous creativity. Students are asked to follow Dr. King's suggestion and take a day in their own life to excavate their own global interdependence, studying the roots of what they take for granted in everyday life-their clothes, food, ideas, housing, and cultural roots-and explore how the whole world is "inside them." This course develops an understanding of the social ancultural dimensions of creativity in a global context. It also examines diversity as a naturally occurring phenomenon in all systems and explores the dynamics (interpersonal, structural, social) of diversity within the framework of scientific discoveries. Students study creative interaction in different times and places, and develop a new perspective on issues of diversity and identity from a knowledge base drawn on multidisciplinary research on creativity, global history, globalization, and hybridity. The final project is a publishable research paper illustrating one case study of global creativity related to the student's own area of interest.
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3.00 Credits
How do we know that what we believe is "true" How reliable is the knowledge we base our actions on How do we get trapped in limited andlimiting ways of seeing the world, and how can we mobilize our creativity to break out of habits of mind The focus of this course is how we know what we know and the radical implications that this subject has for our daily lives. It addresses issues of epistemology, developing an understanding of "post-formal thought," complexity and systems theory, and multiple ways of knowing, including feminist and transpersonalperspectives. The stress is on learning to think contextually and relationally. How can we learn to think about complex, interrelated issues when we have traditionally been taught to break things down into the smallest of parts and eliminate the complexity Can our understanding of the world be considered an act of co-creation What are we to make of profoundly subjective, "mystical," and "transpersonal" experiences Whkind of knowledge do they provide-and how can they be explored What are the implications of epistemological reflection for our academic work, and for our daily lives
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