INTRO TO JUDAISM
A historical overview of Jewish belief and practice as these have crystallized and changed over the centuries. Special attention to ritual and worship, the forms of religious literature, central concepts, religious leadership and institutions, Israel among the nations.
- TR 8:40 a.m.-9:55 a.m.
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Instructor:
Beth A Berkowitz
CULPA: 2 h-index: 6 Info - 4 points
Intro to Judaism- Discussion
A historical overview of Jewish belief and practice as these have crystallized and changed over the centuries. Special attention to ritual and worship, the forms of religious literature, central concepts, religious leadership and institutions, Israel among the nations.
- R 1:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
- W 6 p.m.-7 p.m.
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Instructor:
Catherine M Otachime
Info -
Instructor:
Millie Forman
Info - 0 points
More than Real: Dreams, Imagination, and
More Than Real
This course is thematic, though a loose history of dreaming, imaginative praxis, and virtual reality environments across South Asia will emerge through the networked conversations across texts. The advantage of a thematic course allows us to cover various genres such as: ritual manuals; epic; poetry; philosophical argument; biographical accounts; prophecies; conversion stories; and medical textbooks to name a handful. At the end of the course, we will see how the texts encountered in the first part have been repurposed to speak to social justice movements around caste - both within South Asia and the diaspora population in the U.S. The thematic of dreaming and imagination also provides flexibility in method: because students will have the opportunity to study conversations between different historical actors across religious traditions about dreams, they will also have the opportunity to revise problematic accounts of religious pluralism and communalism in South Asia. Students will read primary texts from Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, and Sikh traditions to name a handful. Students can look forward to reading about worlds within rocks; falling asleep and waking up as another person only to die in the dream world, wake up and then realize your dream-life family is somehow real and looking for you; how to finally interpret those pesky dreams about teeth falling out; dismembered bodies generating the universe; daydreaming about a cloud that thinks mountain peaks look like nipples; how to build a mind-temple that Shiva prefers to the physical one with fancy rock; and much more!
- R 10 a.m.-11:50 a.m.
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Instructor:
Meghan E Hartman
Info - 4 points
RELIGION IN EARLY AMERICA
This course examines religion in North America from the 1500s through the early 1800s with a focus on colonial projects, race and slavery, and gender. We begin with comparing Spanish and French Catholic and English Protestant colonies, missionary efforts, and systems of enslavement as well as how religion factored into Native Americans and African people’s survival and resistance. The second part of the class turns to the 1700s and the emergence of religious revivals and evangelicalism alongside increasing religious variety in the British colonies of North America. Finally, we examine the early United States (1790s-1850s) and ask how disestablishment, imperial ambitions, new religious movement, and debates over the “slavery question” transformed the religious landscape. While focused on religious history (and primarily different Christian traditions), the category of “religion” itself and theoretical frameworks for studying religion are also integral to the class.
- MW 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
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Instructor:
Gale L Kenny
CULPA: 5
Info
- 4 points
Religion In Early America- Discussion
RELIGION IN EARLY AMERICA
This course accompanies RELI UN3203: Religion in the Modern US to examine the history of religion in the United States from the Civil War to the present through thematic units focused on the legal structures of religious freedom; race, religion, and nationality; healing, aesthetics, and embodiment; and, finally, religion and politics. Over the course of the semester, students will explore various religious communities as well as the ways social, political, and economic factors have shaped those traditions – and how religious communities have in turn shaped US society, politics, and culture. Students will also be introduced to key themes and debates in the field of American religious studies.
- R 10:10 a.m.-11 a.m.
- R 4:10 p.m.-5 p.m.
- 0 points
Religious Histories of New York City
Religious Histories of NY
This class examines different religious histories of New York City from the early 1800s through the 1950s. We will explore how different religious traditions were shaped by the city and its diversity, and how those people and institutions left their imprints on the city we live in today. The first half of the semester focuses on intersecting themes of religion and capitalism, religion and gender and sexuality, and on the social dynamics of the city’s symbolic meanings as place of refuge and liberation (for domestic and foreign migrants) or as a locus of sin in need of moral reform. The second half of the semester turns to case studies of different neighborhoods including Harlem, the Lower East Side, Williamsburg, and Flushing. How did different religious communities conceptualize “the neighborhood” in relation to the larger city, and how did they grapple with diversity and change? Students will also be introduced to archival collections of the East Harlem Protestant Parish and several settlement houses located at the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary and at Butler Library.
- R 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
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Instructor:
Gale L Kenny
CULPA: 5
Info
- 4 points
Early Modern Indigenous Thought
EARLY MOD INDIGENOUS THOU
What is the source of truth and authority? What is the origin of the world and how does that determine the social order? Who ought to rule, why, and how? What are the standards for measuring justice and injustice? What is our relationship to the environment around us and how should its resources be distributed among people? How do we relate to those who are different from us, and what does it mean to be a community in the first place? Historically, the answers to these questions that have been described as “religious” and “political” have been the restricted to a specific tradition of Western European Christianity and its secular afterlives. However, these are questions that every society asks, in order to be a society in the first place. This course analyzes how indigenous peoples in the Americas asked and answered these questions through the first three centuries of Western European imperial rule. At the same time, this course pushes students to question what gets categorized as uniquely “indigenous” thought, how, and why.
- F 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Timothy Vasko
CULPA: 3
Info
- 4 points
The Doctrine of Discovery: Religion, Law
THE DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY
How did European-Christians justify the colonization of the Americas? Did these justifications vary between different European empires, and between the Protestant and Catholic faiths, and if so, how? Do these justifications remain in effect in modern jurisprudence and ministries? This class explores these questions by introducing students to the Doctrine of Discovery. The Doctrine of Discovery is the defining legal rationale for European Colonization in the Western Hemisphere. The Doctrine has its origins in a body of ecclesiastic, legal, and philosophical texts dating to the late-fifteenth century, and was summarized by Chief Justice John Marshall of the United States Supreme Court, in the final, unanimous decision the judiciary issued on the 1823 case
Johnson v. M’Intosh.
Students will be introduced to the major, primary texts that make up the Doctrine, as well as contemporary critical studies of these texts and the Doctrine in general.
- W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Timothy Vasko
CULPA: 3
Info
- 4 points
SENIOR RESEARCH SEMINAR
Working research seminar devoted to helping students produce a substantive piece of writing that will represent the culmination of their work at the College and in the major.
- T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
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Instructor:
Najam I Haider
CULPA: 8
Info
- 4 points
RELIGION LAB
In their research, scholars of religion employ a variety of methods to analyze texts ranging from historical documents to objects of visual culture. This course acquaints students with both the methods and the materials utilized in the field of religious studies. Through guided exercises, they acquire research skills for utilizing sources and become familiarized with dominant modes of scholarly discourse. The class is organized around a series of research scavenger hunts that are due at the start of each week's class and assigned during the discussion section (to be scheduled on the first day of class). Additional class meeting on Thursdays.
- W 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
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Instructor:
Meghan E Hartman
Info - 4 points
Islam vs. Music: From Qawwali to Hip Hop
This course interrogates seminal issues in the academic study of Islam through its representation in various forms of popular musical expression. The class is structured around key theoretical readings from a range of academic disciplines ranging from art history and anthropology to comparative literature and religion.
The course begins with an exploration of the links between religion and popular culture (hooks). This is followed by an exploration of the connection between Muslim Sufi-inflected practices in South Asia and the ubiquity of Qawwali across Pakistan and India. The course then shifts to Orientalism frameworks (Said) through a case study involving the songs in two competing versions of
Aladdin
. These frameworks are then tied to the racial scaffolding thar informed the converion (to various forms of Islam) of a wave of mid 20th century American Jazz musicians. The second half of the course examones Hip Hop through the lens of race, immigration, and colonialism. Finally, the class examines the spread of Hip Hop to a global audience as a powerful means for expressing the marginalization of immigrant/colonized Muslim communities.
- R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
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Instructor:
Najam I Haider
CULPA: 8
Info
- 4 points
CRIME/PUNISHMENT-JEWISH CULTRE
CRIME/PUNISHMNT JEWISH CULTRE
Jews have stood on every imaginable side of criminal justice: accuser and accused; prosecutor, defendant, and defender; judge and judged; spectator; storyteller; journalist; critic; advocate. How did Jews approach these various roles, and what notions of crime, criminality, punishment, and justice did they bring with them? This course crosses chronological eras, geographical regions, and academic disciplines to explore configurations of crime and punishment in Jewish cultures. It strives to achieve a balance in its coverage of Ashkenaz vs. Sefarad; ancient, late ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary Judaisms; the specific and historical vs. the philosophical and theoretical; and varieties of sex, race, and gender. The role of classical Jewish texts, theology, and community in shaping Jewish approaches to criminal justice will all be considered.
- T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Beth A Berkowitz
CULPA: 2 h-index: 6 Info - 4 points
Directed Readings
More Than Real: VR in SA
Topics chosen in consultation between members of the staff and students. It may be used for grad students to enroll for an additional credit for enrollment in a 3000 level course.
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Instructor:
Meghan E Hartman
Info - 1-4 points