THEORY
An exploration of alternative theoretical approaches to the study of religion as well as other areas of humanistic inquiry. The methods considered include: sociology, anthropology, philosophy, hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, structuralism, genealogy, and deconstruction. (Previous title: Juniors Colloquium)
- T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Beth A Berkowitz
CULPA: 2 h-index: 6 Info - 4 points
INTRODUCTION TO HEBREW BIBLE
INTRO TO HEBREW BIBLE
Introduction to the literature of ancient Israel against the background of the ancient Near East.
- TR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
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Instructor:
Beth A Berkowitz
CULPA: 2 h-index: 6 Info - 3 points
Religion Salon: New Directions
The Religion Salon is a one-point course in the Religion department, designed to offer students an introduction to new areas of the academic study of religion and/or new approaches to the field. The Religion Salon will be offered as a supplement to an existing course offered in the same semester and will be open to (but not required of) the students in that existing course as well as to students who wish to take the Salon as a stand-alone one-point course. The Religion Salon will feature guest scholars whose research and teaching extend into new areas and/or engage in new approaches to the academic study of religion.
- W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
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Instructor:
Gale L Kenny
CULPA: 5
Info
- 1 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.
- M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Gale L Kenny
CULPA: 5
Info
- 4 points
CURATING ISLAM IN NEW YORK CITY
CURATING ISLAM IN NYC
This course focuses on the ways in which museums conceptualize, contextualize, curate and display Islamic art. In the process, it interrogates the degree to which the orientalist past and the secular present shapes our understanding of the Muslim world. Students will not just engage with material objects from Muslim societies but also consider the choices museums make about their display and presentation. These choices, in turn, speak to the role of museums in defining a specific understanding of the “sacred.” Finally, students will learn to thoughtfully and critically pose questions about the roles that museums as public institutions play in sharping public and private understandings of Islam.
The course begins with a general discussion of material objects in the study of religion. This is followed by a broad survey of Islamic Art which both describes and critiques the category as it has been framed in the Academy. Students then visit a number of museums to learn about the style and content of their Islamic collections. The course concludes by engaging a different kind of curation, namely oral histories in the Brooklyn Museum.
- R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
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Instructor:
Najam I Haider
CULPA: 8
Info
- 4 points
Confession
This seminar explores the idea and practice of “confession” in a range of manifestations (in legal and judicial contexts, in religious practice, in memoir/autobiography, in political and personal reckoning with the past, in art and popular culture, among others) and from a variety of disciplinary perspectives (media studies, history, theology, literature, psychoanalysis, art history, and journalism). As the sacramental practice of confession recedes from significance within traditional religious contexts, the social practice of confession expands into new arenas. This seminar is devoted to theorizing this shifting terrain through the critical examination of a variety of primary sources and scholarly interventions.
- T 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
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Instructor:
Elizabeth Castelli
CULPA: 17 Wikipedia Info - 4 points
KRISHNA
Study of a single deity in the Hindu pantheon as illuminated in art, music, dance, drama, theological treatises, patterns of ritual, and texts both classic and modern. Special attention to Krishna's consort Radha, to Krishna's reception in the West, and to his portrayal on Indian television.
- M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
John S Hawley
CULPA: 28
Info
- 4 points
World Religions
(1) We begin with a study for the Parliament of the World’s Religions (PWR), held at the Columbian Exhibition at Chicago in 1893, because it is so often regarded as one of the great annunciatory moments for the field. A number of the 19th-century European “founding fathers” were invited or present, as was Swami Vivekananda, who has been at least as significant as any of them for the development of the field as a global idea. The PWR’s American location broadens Tomoko Masuzawa’s magisterial description of the “invention of world religions” by initially shifting attention away from its European base. It also introduces us to the element of display involved in announcing this idea and to one of its most important institutional partners: the University of Chicago.
(2) In the second part of the course we investigate the consolidation/invention of the conceptual entities that comprise “world religions,” as well as debates about just how many of them they are, and by what principle of accounting: To exemplify the production of “isms” that are said to comprise the world religions, we investigate the conceptual origins of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, the Judeo-Christian Tradition, and most recently The Indigenous.
(3) At the end we consider an institution founded around the idea of World Religions—Harvard’s Center for the Study of World Religions—and wonder how it compares to what has been done at Columbia and its neighbor institutions in New York: the Interfaith Center of New York, the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Union Theological Seminary.
(4) The course includes a workshop (2/21) in which we discuss various materials we might use if we ourselves were asked to teach a “world religions” course. We conclude with a mini-conference (4/24) in which you present your work and respond to that of others. There are two possibilities for the sort of work you might do, as listed below. Whichever you choose, please discuss your intentions with me by Friday, February 23. A two-page proposal and draft bibliography are due by midnight that day. OPTIONS:
(a) You can do a research paper on some aspect of the course—possibly
- W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
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Instructor:
John S Hawley
CULPA: 28
Info
- 4 points
Islam in Popular Culture
This course interrogates seminal issues in the academic study of Islam through its popular representation in various forms of media from movies and television to novels and comic books. 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 by placing the controversies surrounding the visual depiction of Muhammad in historical perspective (Gruber). This is followed by an examination of modern portrayals of Muslims in film that highlights both the vilification of the “other” (Shaheen) and the persistence of colonial discourses centered on the “native informant” (Mamdani). Particular emphasis is given to recent pop cultural works that challenge these simplistic discourses of Islam. The second half of the course revisits Muhammad, employing an anthropological framework (Asad) to understand the controversies surrounding Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. The obsession with a gendered depiction of Islam is then examined through an anthropological framework that sheds light on the problems of salvation narratives (Abu Lughod). The course ends with a look at the unique history of Islam in America, particularly the tension between immigrant and African-American communities.
- T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
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Instructor:
Najam I Haider
CULPA: 8
Info
- 4 points
RELIGION AND THE INDIAN WARS
The frontier is central to the United States’ conception of its history and place in the world. It is an abstract concept that reflects the American mythology of progress and is rooted in religious ideas about land, labor, and ownership. Throughout the nineteenth century, these ideas became more than just abstractions. They were tested, hardened, and revised by U.S. officials and the soldiers they commanded on American battlefields. This violence took the form of the Civil War as well as the series of U.S. military encounters with Native Americans known as the Indian Wars. These separate yet overlapping campaigns have had profound and lasting consequences for the North American landscape and its peoples.
This course explores the relationship between religious ideology and violence in the last half of nineteenth century. Organized chronologically and geographically, we will engage with both primary sources and classic works in the historiography of the Indian Wars to examine how religion shaped U.S. policy and race relations from the start of the Civil War through approximately 1910.
- R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Tiffany Hale
CULPA: 4
Info
- 4 points
GLOBAL INDIGENOUS RELIGIOUS HISTORIES
GLOBAL INDIGENOUS RELIG H
Nomads, natives, peasants, hill people, aboriginals, hunter-gatherers, First Nations—these
are just a handful of the terms in use to define indigenous peoples globally. The names these groups
use to describe themselves, as well as the varying religious practices, attitudes, and beliefs among
these populations are far more numerous and complex. For much of recorded history however,
colonial centers of power have defined indigenous peoples racially and often in terms of lacking
religion; as pagan, barbarian, non-modern, and without history or civilization.
Despite this conundrum of identity and classification, indigenous religious traditions often
have well-documented and observable pasts. This course considers the challenges associated with
studying indigenous religious history, as well as the changing social, political, and legal dimensions
of religious practice among native groups over time and in relationship to the state. Organized
thematically and geographically, we will engage with classic works of ethnohistory, environmental
history, indigenous studies, anthropology, and religious studies as well as primary sources that
include legal documentation, military records, personal testimony, and oral narrative.
- W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Tiffany Hale
CULPA: 4
Info
- 4 points