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Course Criteria
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
In this course we will read the representative "classics" in the study of religion. We will see that "religion" has been approached in a number of different ways, and that these different approaches are relatively recent because, in some significant respects, the notion of "religion" is no older than its study in the "West." This modern western concept then is the subject of this course. The course is not an introduction to "world religions" nor is it a methods course. Students are invited to think critically about religion as a subject of academic inquiry.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
This course surveys the development of Buddhism from its beginnings in India through some of its later forms in East Asia, Tibet, and the West. Attention will be given to continuity and diversity within Buddhism, its modes of self-definition as a religious tradition, the interplay of its practical and trans-worldly concerns, and its transformations in specific historical and cultural settings.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
A thematic introduction to the history of Chinese religion. Topics include cosmology, ancestors, gods, mythology, ethics, shamanism, divination, gender, and mortuary ritual. Readings drawn from a wide range of sources, including sacred scriptures, philosophical texts, popular literature, and modern ethnography.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
A critical introduction to the Hebrew Bible in its historical, ideological and intellectual setting within the ancient Near East will be offered. Central problems in Biblical studies will be addressed, e.g., the historical value of Biblical narrative, the documentary hypothesis, and the process of canonization. A selection of texts from the Hebrew Bible will be read in class (in translation) from a broader, comparative point of view, including the narratives of the Deluge and of Samson and Delilah, the pentateuchal dietary laws, and the poetry of Song of Songs.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
This introductory course provides a thematic overview of Islamic beliefs, rituals and practices. We will study both majority Muslim societies and Muslim minority communities in the past and present. The course will highlight commonalities among Muslims but will also focus on historical, geographical and cultural diversities. Course materials include primary sources in translation, academic articles and books, feature and documentary films, fiction in translation, internet sites and power point presentations. Students will be required to participate in at least one of two possible field trips in the New York/New Jersey area.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
The course will examine two interrelated topics in the study of ancient Israelite religion--purity and sacrifice--from a wide range of perspectives, including text-historical, archeological, anthropological, and cognitive. The course will try to answer such questions as: Is impurity evil? Are there universal patterns in ritual? And do rituals have meaning? Our primary sources will be the Hebrew Bible, the Qumran Scrolls, and early rabbinic literature. The value of comparative research in these fields will be demonstrated through the examination of texts on purity and sacrifice from the ancient Near East and from India.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
This course offers an introduction to the development of ancient Judaism during the eventful millennium plus from the establishment of the Torah as the constitution of the Jewish people in the fifth century BCE--an event that some have seen as marking the transition from biblical religion to Judaism--to the completion of the other great canonical Jewish document, the Babylonian Talmud, in perhaps the sixth century BCE. The weekly lecture and assigned readings will provide historical context, but the focus of the course will be on primary texts that reflect the major developments in ancient Judaism, to be treated during a two-hour precept.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
This course introduces students to the various documents now collected together in the New Testament, the second section of the Christian Bible. The course's approach is historical, asking questions about the people who wrote the texts, the social and political circumstances in which they wrote, and what they hoped to achieve by writing. The goal is to critically examine the texts as historical witnesses to the earliest followers of Jesus and the development of what eventually became Christianity. Special emphasis is placed upon the diversity of perspectives represented in the collection.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
A broad survey of religion in American society from the colonial era to the present. Emphasis on religious encounter and conflict; the relationship between religious change and broader social and political currents; religious innovations and transformations; immigrant religions; secularization, resurgence, and pluralism. Mix of primary and secondary source readings.
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0.00 - 4.00 Credits
An introduction to Christian ideals of conduct, character, and community, and to modern disputes over their interpretation and application. Are Christian virtues and principles fundamentally at odds with the ethos of liberal democracy oriented toward rights, equality, and freedom? What do Christian beliefs and moral concepts imply about issues related to feminism, racism, and pluralism? What is the relationship between religious convictions, morality, and law? Special emphasis on selected political and economic problems, sexuality and marriage, bioethics, capital punishment, the environment, war, and the role of religion in public life.
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