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Course Criteria
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3.00 Credits
Intensive study of a topic or problem leading to the writing of an honors thesis. Requires RLGN 102 plus 9 RLGN credits and department approval. Prereq: RLGN 102 plus 9 RLGN credits.
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3.00 Credits
Intensive study of a topic or problem leading to the writing of an honors thesis. By department approval only. Prereq: RLGN 394 and by departmental approval.
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3.00 Credits
Capstone course primarily for majors and minors in religious studies. Allows students to interact with peers and faculty, reflect critically, and integrate their learning experiences. Prepares students to continue their learning in the discipline and in the liberal arts. Subject matter varies according to student and faculty needs and perspectives. May be repeated once for up to six credit hours. Prereq: RLGN 299.
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3.00 Credits
Structured as an Independent Study, this course is meant to familiarize the student with the major classical works and thinkers that have shaped the modern field of Religious Studies. Students will meet on a regular basis with the Instructor to discuss the theories and methods described in the literature.
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3.00 Credits
This course introduces theories and methods in the cognitive science of religion. Particular emphasis is placed on applying cognitive scientific concepts and theories to such religious issues as belief in deities, religious ritual, and morality. We examine such topics as the relationship of religious studies to evolution and cognition, cognitive theories or religious ritual, anthropomorphism and religious representation, religion as an evolutionary adaptation, and cognitive semantics and religious language. Course work includes student-led discussions, a research-intensive journal-length essay on a topic chosen in consultation with the Instructor, and presentation of research findings to the class. Course readings are taken from the humanities, the social sciences, and natural sciences.
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3.00 Credits
In this course we will explore cinematic representations of black religion in the Americas and the Caribbean. Each week we will view a film representing diverse religious traditions such as Christianity, Candomble, Santeria, Vodou, and Islam. Films will include Cabin in the Sky, The Color Purple, Black Orpheus, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Malcolm X, Eve's Bayou, and The Princess and the Frog. Throughout the course we will analyze the ways in which notions of gender, the history of colonialism, modern notions of race, and geographical landscapes have informed representatives of black religion in film. In addition, we will discuss how these representations, in turn, have influenced cultural ideas of black religion in the Americas. Offered as RLGN 311, ETHS 311, and RLGN 411.
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3.00 Credits
A departmental "topics" seminar focused on advanced textual analysis and interpretation of particular biblical (including apocryphal) texts and the critical issues of method, theory, theology, and history that pertain to those texts. Reading assignments will be divided between close, exegetical analysis of small units of texts and the study of scholarly criticism of the same texts (commentaries, journal articles, critical notes). Evaluation will be based on class preparation and participation, weekly short papers, an exegetical paper focused on a particular pericope of the student's choice, and an interpretive paper based on exegesis of several related passages. Graduate students enrolled in the course as RLGN 413 will have the following additional requirements:(a) preliminary academic reading on the biblical material; (b) leadership/teaching of one seminar session on an academic theoretical or theological approach to the biblical text, including an additional meeting with the professor in preparation for that session; and (c) a longer final paper that critical engages the approach that was the focus of the seminar session s/he leads (15-20 pages, suitable for publication at an academic conference). Offered as RLGN 313 and RLGN 413.
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3.00 Credits
The anthropological study of religion attempts to understand individual religions as social constructs. As such, it investigates the phenomenon of religion as a general pattern of human behavior. It asks, among other things, why there are religions at all and what common characteristics, if any, religions share. Among the central concepts are notions of the sacred and the way the sacred is marked through individual behaviors and communal structures. This course introduces the philosophical and cognitive background to the anthropological study of religion and traces the ways in which this method has evolved and been applied over the last century and a half. Special emphasis will be placed on more recent developments, such as Structuralism, which focuses especially on the underlying structures of religions and religious organizations.
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3.00 Credits
Concepts of otherness pervade recent theories of religion. More or less related to one another, many of these concepts are borrowed from fields other than academic religious studies. This seminar explores the genealogies of otherness in theoretical discourse as they relate to religion. In the course of this seminar, our researches and discussions will address several key issues in academic religious studies, including: psychological and sociological processes of projection and their roles in the construction and deconstruction of religious identity; the significance of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity to these projections; concepts of otherness in mystical religious thought and experience; and the interrelations of order and chaos, figuring and disfiguring within religious ideas, institutions, and practices, interrelations that challenge common theoretical perspectives that treat religion primarily if not exclusively as a means of establishing order against chaos and as a force of social and ideological structure legitimation.
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3.00 Credits
Topics include: classical and contemporary arguments for God's existence; divine foreknowledge and human freedom; the problem of evil and theodicy; nature and significance of religious experience; mysticism; varieties of religious metaphysics; knowledge, belief and faith; nature of religious discourse. Readings from traditional and contemporary sources. Recommended preparation for PHIL 433 and RLGN 433: PHIL 101 or RLGN 102. Offered as PHIL 333, RLGN 333, PHIL 433, and RLGN 433.
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