168 courses with the subject REL, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
REL 100Selected Topics1-6
Exploration of a topic (to be determined) not covered by the standard curriculum but of interest to faculty and students in a particular semester.
Consideration of the globalization of religions and the rise of worldwide trends: spirituality, fundamentalism, new religious movements, and major changes in established religions.
The religious/ceremonial origins of sports; importance of sports in human culture; issues of identity, gender, race, ethnicity as defined by sports. Special emphasis on lacrosse.
Historical and conceptual overview of the relations of religions and science in Christian and Islamic cultures. Engagement with current high profile debates, e.g. evolution and stem cell research.
REL 114The Bible in History, Culture and Religion3
Jewish and Christian scriptures in their ancient Near Eastern and Hellenistic contexts, with particular attention to their literary forms, the history of their composition, and their role in the development of Western religions and cultures. Credit is not given for REL/JSP 114 and either REL/JSP 215 or REL 217.
Many religious communities claim particular books as sacred texts. This course compares scriptures from Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and other traditions. We compare their literary contents and forms, and also their cultural performances and social impacts.
Introduces students to the academic study of religion as a complex field given shape through a diversity of academic disciplines and questions. Terms, concepts, and ideas will be discussed.
A cross-cultural exploration of religious autobiographies. Understanding multiple dimensions of religious life through narratives of the self, the sacred, and society.
Roles and significances of sexuality in religious traditions. Mutual influences of religions and sexualities. Case studies from multiple traditions and locations. Attention to intersections of religious and sexual identities and practices.
REL 130A Dramatic Introduction to Studying Religion3
An introduction to studying religion by studying drama. Extended engagements with specific plays, using a variety of critical terms and a performance-based pedagogy.
Introduction to fiction by Jewish authors. Topics include modernization, rebellion against authority, alienation, childhood, superstition, and the holocaust. Some films included.
Introduction to the study of African American religious life. Theories and methods in race and religion will be discussed and particular African American religious traditions (Black Churches, Nation of Islam, Conjure, Humanism, and African Indigenous Orientations) will be explored.
Christianity's institutional forms, sacred writings, ideas and beliefs, worship practices, cultural and creative expressions, ethical and political roles in society, from antiquity to the present. How Christianity addresses human needs, concerns, and desires.
Islam as a faith and a civilization. Understanding its origins, beliefs, rituals, and the historical development of its intellectual traditions in the pre-modern and modern eras, and its geographic, cultural and theological diversity today.
Offered through SUAbroad by educational institution outside the United States. Student registers for the course at the foreign institution and is graded according to that institution's practice. SUAbroad works with the SU academic department to assign the appropriate course level, title, and grade for the student's transcript.
Religious life of contemporary Hindus in India: gods, goddesses, and other divines; worship; sectarian movements; and rituals in the home, at temples, and at other holy sites.
Buddhism as a world religion: its origin in India, its spread to other parts of Asia, and consequent changes in doctrine and practice through the ages.
Historical and systematic studies of Greek myth and cult (pre-Homeric Chthonic religion through Olympian polytheism to the decline of the polis). Interaction of religion with drama, art, architecture, philosophy, and politics.
Various aspects of religious thought and experience in the Greco-Roman world. Variety of ways in which Greco-Roman people expressed the human situation, constructed their world, and viewed salvation through myth, symbol, and ritual.
The Jewish Bible (Tanakh), called the Old Testament by Christians: its literary form, its cultural context in the ancient Near East, the history of its development, and its role in Western religions and cultures. Credit is not given for both REL/JSP 114 and REL/JSP 215.
An immersive introduction to studying religion by studying a single case: Peter Shaffer's Equus. Attention given to analyzing the category of "religion" and to exploring methods and critical terms for studying religion.
Examines how globally diverse religious groups create distinct moral systems in order to provide their members with the feeling of belonging to unique and meaningful communities.
This course surveys atheists and agnostics, from their emergence during the Enlightenment to the present day, including reasoning behind doubt or denial in God¿s existence, efforts to find meaning and purpose in a world without God, and struggles to find community with like-minded others.
An examination of ritual, in theory and practice, and its significance for religion, with particular attention to specific rituals in particular contexts.
Study of Gods in a cross-cultural context accenting forms of Gods perceived and experienced in embodied, visible, concrete form rather than as "transcendent" or "spirit."
Survey of major works in the Jewish tradition, including Hebrew and Yiddish prose in translation. Themes include nature, culture, exile, humor, satire, and talking takhlis.
Study of secular and spiritual travel narratives, both factual and fictional. Included are tales of exploration, shipwreck, and pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which played a key role in literary history.
A literary and philosophical approach to Jewish mysticism (Kabbala), combined with close reading of Hasidic stories. In addition, students learn about meditation in the Judaic tradition and have an opportunity to experiment with contemplative techniques.
Introduction to Jewish humor and satire, focusing on American and Yiddish fiction and film. Informed by Freudian theories, analysis of literary works, stand-up comedy, early Yiddish movies, and American films.
This course will take you on an exciting journey exploring Indigenous cosmologies (worldviews/cosmovision) and their philosophy of living well to understand the value of food for Indigenous peoples living in settler-colonial societies.
The connections between material life and religious life in cultures throughout the world. The diverse ways that various cultures inhabit their landscapes.
This class examines the religious formulation of white supremacy connected with colonization of America. Taking the long view of racialization, we study its consequences from an Indigenous perspective.
Ethical reflection and choice about selected moral dilemmas commonly encountered in contemporary life. Credit cannot be given for both PHI 398 and REL 252.
Study of ancient Hindu texts, the Ramayana or Mahabharata, from ancient Sanskrit tellings to premodern and modern adaptations in diverse mediums (painting, sculpture, dance, comics, film, television). Focus on social, historical, and political dimension of the narrative.
An exploration of historical roots and contemporary forms of Islamophobia. Analyzes how Islamophobia is incorporated systemically in structures of violence and inequality, producing forms of racial exclusion and discrimination.
Examines the politics of dress, gender, and sacred texts in Islam. Covers critical and literary works by Muslim feminist scholars and activists that challenge Islamic patriarchal structures and Western stereotypes of Muslim women.
Offered through SUAbroad by educational institution outside the United States. Student registers for the course at the foreign institution and is graded according to that institution's practice. SUAbroad works with the S.U. academic department to assign the appropriate course level, title, and grade for the student's transcript.
Historical and comparative study of religious practice in Africa. Diversity of traditional beliefs, developments in Christianity and Islam, and political significance of religious identity and practice. African influence on western religious practices.
Inter-secting religious worlds of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, and Christians in modern India; focus on cosmology and morality in interaction with ritual practices, religious narratives, social life, media, and politics.
Exploration of a problem, or problems, in depth. Individual independent study upon a plan submitted by the student. Admission by consent of supervising instructor(s) and the department.
Mythologies of the world, ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, Northern and Southern. Issues of nature and function, historical development and diffusion of myth.
Relationship between art, religion, and religious thought. May draw on classical religious sources, art history, literature, theology, or philosophy. Emphasis placed on Western religious/artistic traditions (Judaism, Christianity).
REL 301Ancient Near Eastern Religions and Cultures3
The social contexts of ancient religious ideas and practices. Texts, art, and other artifacts from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Israel.
Interactions of law and religion shape religions and secular states as well as economics and family life, and the meaning of "law" and "religion." This course explores their interaction across time and cultures, and with attention to important recent cases.
History and literature of Second Temple Judaism including the canonization of scripture, origins of the synagogue, apocalyptic literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other developments leading to early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism.
REL 308Ancient Judaism and the Origins of Christianity3
Offered only in Madrid. Social, cultural, intellectual, and historical conditions which surrounded the birth of this new world religion in its ancient Mediterranean cradle--from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Greece and ancient Rome.
How the Pentateuch became the Torah, the first Jewish scripture: its origins, rhetorical use, performance in various media, and ritual function as an iconic book.
Offered only in Madrid. Key historic encounters between the three versions of monotheism, with reference to the richness of past cultural and religious legacy rooted in the Mediterranean region.
Religious teachings in narrative form. Traditions include Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, African, and Native American religions. Topics include saints, miracles, gender, nature, identity, resistance, empowerment.
Offered only in London. This course examines London's perspective on global issues of religion, identity, and power. Using the city's unparalleled networks of diverse religious and faith communities, architecture and infrastructure, this class will explore the contrast between religious animosity and coexistence.
REL 326Demystifying Tech & Texts from Heavenly Books to AI3
This course demystifies AI, cloud computing, and social media by contextualizing them in the long history of idealizing and spiritualizing human writing technologies.
Consideration of yoga in the context of its origins in the Hindu tradition in India and then tracing the changes in the modern period when yoga developed anew in India and then Europe and America.
REL 328Borders in Flux: Identities and Conflict in Ireland3
Offered only in London. Students travel to Dublin, Derry, and Belfast to learn how Ireland's past is entangled with its present. Concepts of Irish and British national identities; religious conflict and peace-making attempts within Ireland; new tensions wrought by international migration and regional politics.
Readings of 20th-century fiction and drama, focusing on works by Schnitzler, Kafka, Wiesel, P. Levi, Yezierska, H. Roth, I.B. Singer, Malamud, P. Roth, and Ozick.
Students explore the Jewish textual tradition. Topics vary from year to year. Texts include Talmud, midrash, medieval philosophy and mysticism. Course can be repeated for credit.
Survey of Yiddish literature, with special attention to the classic Yiddish authors, Yiddish theater, modernism, and Yiddish women writers. Themes of minority culture, class struggle, hasidism, and the decline of the Shtetl.
Historical, literary, and philosophical representations of, and responses to, the Nazi genocide. Philosophical, theological, and ethical challenges raised by the Holocaust.
Students explore the relation between culture and religion across a diverse range of American Jews and Jewish communities. Particular attention is paid to the process of acculturation and assimilation and to the reinvention of Judaism.
REL 341Women, Abolition, and Religion in 19th Century America3
The role that religion may have played in women's understandings of themselves as abolitionists and social reformers. A selected group of women will be studied, with considerable attention given to Frances Harper.
REL 342Religion and Politics in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict3
Considers the extent to which religion matters in an enduring ethno-nationalist conflict. Approaches the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from an interdisciplinary perspective that explores the intersection of religion and politics.
Historical significance of religion for Americans of African descent. African and western forces shaping religious identity. Religious practices, beliefs, organizations, imagery, literature, theories, and activism. Historical perspectives on meanings of religion.
Interrogates the relationship of American religious and economic practices, as compared with Native American traditions, during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Examines ascendancy of religious movements; prominence of religious ideas; secularization and religion as a political force; conceptual and historical issues in relation to religious ideas and movements, including various Islamic revivals and the Christian right. Offered in London and Madrid only.
REL 356Religion and Conflicts in Contemporary Europe3
Offered only in Strasbourg. Examines continent's long history of religious conflict, especially ways in which local and global religious tensions have developed in recent years.
Intersections and interactions of religions and sexualities in historical and contemporary contexts. Materials entwine case studies and queer theories. Particular attention given to religious and sexual desires, identities, and enactments.
This course introduces students to classical/modern Islamic law by analyzing Islamic constitutionalism, criminal laws, family laws, gender, political violence, and Islamic banking, through the examination of Middle Eastern and South Asian legal systems.
The course introduces students to the study of the Muslim world. It covers relations between religion and political and legal formations beginning with the early Islamic period through the colonial and post-colonial periods.
REL 364Enchanting Words: Muslim Poets, Singers and Storytellers3
Understand the power of words and language in Muslim cultures expressed in oral and literary genres including poetry, humor, fables, folksongs and travel journals. Explore key themes such as virtue, reality, divine and human nature.
Through individual research and lectures, students learn to place current events in the Muslim world in their historical context. This information literacy-driven course allows students to build their own syllabus.
Expressions of beauty, creativity and faith in Islamic calligraphy, ceramics, textiles, architecture, miniatures and music. Unity and diversity of the visual and performing arts of Muslims in different periods, cultures and regions.
Offered through SUAbroad by educational institution outside the United States. Student registers for the course at the foreign institution and is graded according to that institution's practice. SUAbroad works with the S.U. academic department to assign the appropriate course level, title, and grade for the student's transcript.
Critical survey of human claims to have encountered entities that formerly occupied corporeal, living forms. Also explores social roles of those who claim to communicate with those entities, including spirit mediums, paranormal investigators, and "ghostbusters."
Examines how Hindu and Muslim communities express devotion for divine beings and holy persons through poetry, performance, and the visual arts. Attention to commonalities across boundaries of genre, religious tradition, time, and space, while remaining sensitive to the historical specificities.
Bollywood is the prolific Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai, India. Course employs classical Indian theories of aesthetics to explore how films from Bollywood grapple with the human condition, with the centrality of religion in these portrayals.
Interrelationship of power as female and female power in Hindu cosmology, mythology, and society. Complexities of mythic, domestic, and economic gender hierarchies.
Surveys the diversity of religious practice in mainland China and Taiwan focusing on the lived experiences of ordinary adherents both within institutionalized religions and through localized folk beliefs and practices.
Exploration of a problem, or problems, in depth. Individual independent study upon a plan submitted by the student. Admission by consent of supervising instructor(s) and the department.
Interpretations of the natural environment in the mythologies, rituals, and practices of religious traditions, including religious responses to current ecological crises.
History of witchcraft from various perspectives: its intellectual roots, the causes and dynamics of the witch-hunt, and the beliefs and self-perceptions of those who were called "witches". Offered only in Florence.
Myths and rituals of Greek mythology and religion. Ancient poets/playwrights and important mythological themes found in later Western religious/artistic traditions. Offered only in Florence.
The influence of the intersection between reason, imagination, and emotion on ethics, politics, community, and religious thought within modern Judaism.
Examines conceptions of human being in modern religious thought in Europe and America. Themes may include God and the self; God, art, and delight; and religion and despair. Figures examined may include Kierkegaard, Douglass, Dostoevsky, Dinesen, and Baldwin.
This class deals with primary texts from 14th to 21st centuries regarding religion and conquest. Known as the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, this principle is still an active legal principle. The study of the Doctrine and its impact requires theoretical sophistication.
Participation in a discipline- or subject-related experience. Students must be evaluated by written or oral reports or an examination. Limited to those in good academic standing.
Offered through SUAbroad by educational institution outside the United States. Student registers for the course at the foreign institution and is graded according to that institution's practice. SUAbroad works with the S.U. academic department to assign the appropriate course level, title, and grade for the student's transcript.
Exploring how mobile middle-class Hindus re-create and re-define religion in new urban and global environments as a context for rethinking the place of religion(s) within rapid world-wide urbanization, migration, globalization, and increasing cultural (dis)integration. Additional work required of graduate students.
In-depth exploration of a problem or problems. Individual independent study upon a plan submitted by the student. Admission by consent of supervising instructor or instructors and the department.
Ethical theories in professional, organizational, and political-economic fields in health care. Specific issues: assisted suicide, professional codes, ethics of "cost- cutting" and justice with respect to care.
Rhetoric of ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean religious texts, including parts of the Bible; role of persuasion in ancient religion and its effects on literature, power, and on conceptions of knowledge and text in antiquity.
REL 610Textual Practices in the Study of Religion3
A theoretical and practical exploration of different textual practices and ways of approaching and interpreting them, focusing on an extended consideration of a single religious text or a single genre of religious texts.
The religious, literary, and political factors that affected the development and canonization of Jewish and Christian scriptures and shaped the idea of authoritative scripture in Western religious traditions.
Survey and evaluation of major ritual theories, tested against a particular set of religious and cultural practices, such as those involving purification and pollutions, or holidays and festivals.
Theories and descriptions of how texts shape people's words, actions and experiences, both religious and secular, and how people use and perform texts for spiritual and social effects on religious objects, cultures, traditions and themselves.
REL 621Teaching World Religions in Theory and Practice3
The complexities of teaching introductory courses in world religions, especially in the context of recent debates on comparison as well as the very concept of "religion." Graduate standing.
An investigation of "sacrifice" as a name for ritual and non-ritual practices in contemporary and historical societies and in academic discourse about religions and cultures.
Historical development of multiple discourses within the Muslim world. Role of Islamic texts, institutions, and contexts on intra-Islamic politics of identity, representation, and religious authority. Hybridity and syncretism of Islams in contemporary local contexts.
REL 627Globalization and Religion: Processes and problems3
Sophisticated works in globalization theory emerge from sociology, economics, political history, and contemporary cultural studies with broad significance for the study of religion. Bringing these into conversation with religious studies is the project of this seminar. Graduate standing.
In-depth study of the main epistemological systems and theories of metaphysics developed in Islamic intellectual tradition. Explores the systems of interpretation of the Qur'an and Sunnah developed by legal scholars, mystics and philosophers.
An exploration of the intersections of texts and bodies within religious cultures texts as bodies (from literary corpus to material object), bodies as texts (inscribed and read), and above all bodies in texts.
Philosophic and religious heritage highlighted by Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, and Aquinas. Focus varies from year to year.
REL 642Critical Issues in the Study of Native Americans3
Methodological issues related to studies of indigenous traditions and develops interpretive strategies for using literature about Native American religions.
Religious thought in 19thcentury Europe and America. Themes may include God, freedom, and selfhood; Romanticism and religion; and religion, freedom, and slavery. Figures examined may include Kierkegaard, Kant, Douglass, Emerson, and others.
Ways in which corporealities are shaped by and shape religious texts and traditions, philosophically and practically. Potential topics include nudity, body, flesh, skin, and sensuality, with attention to sexuality and biopolitics.
This course introduces students to theoretical and empirical discussions about subjectivity, the socially constituted and historically contingent nature of selfhood, and relationships of the self to society and community in a variety of religious contexts.
This seminar examines a wide array of themes and issues in Kierkegaard's religious thought which may include Kierkegaard and Romanticism; Kierkegaard on Love, God and Selfhood; Kierkegaard and Politics; Kierkegaard's Existential Aesthetics.
Continental philosophers such as Husseri, Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Irigaray, and Marion. Their influence on theology, religious theory. Topics include overcoming onto-theology; phenomenology, deconstruction and theology; return of religion.
Participation in a discipline or subject related experience. Student must be evaluated by written or oral reports or an examination. Permission in advance with the consent of the department chairperson, instructor, and dean. Limited to those in good academic standing.
Readings in Jewish literature, with emphasis on allegorical, hasidic, neohasidic, and anti-hasidic writing by Nahman of Bratslav, Joseph Perl, I.L. Peretz, Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, and S. Y. Agnon.
Historical research into religions, including archival research, and also theories and examples of how archives, scriptures, oral traditions and academic histories function as repositories of collective memory and religious identity.
Explores the diversity of adaptations by Buddhist adherents to the global condition of modernity and the ways in which modernity has created what we think of as Buddhism today.
Exploring how mobile middle-class Hindus re-create and re-define religion in new urban and global environments as a context for rethinking the place of religion(s) within rapid world-wide urbanization, migration, globalization, and increasing cultural (dis)integration. Additional work required of graduate students.
Collective memory and constructions of the past as cultural phenomena; the roles religious identities, values, and institutions play as individuals, communities, and nations recollect particular moments, eras, crises, and localities.
Exploration of a problem, or problems, in depth. Individual independent study upon a plan submitted by the student. Admission by consent of supervising instructor(s) and the department.
Introduction to classic texts, methods and approaches used in the field of religion and in this department. Must be enrolled in the Religion Department M.A. or Ph.D. programs.
Explores the ways that Western studies of non- Western religions have dealt with difference. Central aim is to understand the politics of knowledge and the arts of interpretation involved in research and writing about other people's religious traditions.
Focus on the intertwining of gender and religion; emphasis on gendered visions of power in mythic, symbolic, and ritual phenomena. Readings in feminist and anthropological theory as well as cultural cases in ethnography and history of religions.
Exploration of a problem, or problems, in depth. Individual independent study upon a plan submitted by the student. Admission by consent of supervising instructor(s) and the department.
