Love Your Enemies?
We all have enemies, individual and collective, private and public, ephemeral or persistent. This seems increasingly true. But do we choose our enemies or do our enemies choose us? Do we invent the enemy? Is the enemy a “social construction,” a fiction or is the enemy a “fact”? Do we need to believe in the enemy or is it better to know the enemy? And once there are enemies, is it really possible to love them? All enemies? Is that a religious commandment? Does religion have a special relationship to enemies? And what about frenemies? This course will explore different kinds of enemies such as they appear in sacred texts (the Bible, the Qur’ān), novels, films and
popular culture. And yes, we will try to learn whether we can love our enemies.
- MW 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
-
Instructor:
Gil Anidjar
CULPA: 22 Info - 4 points
ISLAM-DISCUSSION
- R 9 a.m.-9:50 a.m.
- R 1 p.m.-1:50 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Jessica R Spencer
Info - 0 points
ISLAM
An introduction to the Islamic religion in its premodern and modern manifestations. The first half of the course concentrates on “classical” Islam, beginning with the life of the Prophet, and extending to ritual, jurisprudence, theology, and mysticism. The second half examines how Muslims have articulated Islam in light of colonization and the rise of a secular modernity. The course ends with a discussion of American and European Muslim attempts at carving out distinct spheres of identity in the larger global Muslim community.
- MW 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Aziza Shanazarova
Info - 4 points
BUDDHISM: EAST ASIAN
Lecture and discussion. An introductory survey that studies East Asian Buddhism as an integral , living religious tradition. Emphasis on the reading of original treatises and historiographies in translation, while historical events are discussed in terms of their relevance to contemporary problems confronted by Buddhism. There is a mandatory weekly discussion session.
- MW 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Kelly Carlton
Info - 4 points
BUDDHISM: EAST ASIAN-DISC
- F 10 a.m.-10:50 a.m.
- R 9 a.m.-9:50 a.m.
- R 2 p.m.-2:50 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Tianxin Chen
Info -
Instructor:
Catherine M Otachime
Info -
Instructor:
Gabriella Lee
Info - 0 points
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)
- M 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Courtney Bender
CULPA: 10
Info
- 4 points
RELIGION IN THE CITY
- TR 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Courtney Bender
CULPA: 10
Info
- 4 points
RELIGION IN THE CITY Discussion
RELIGION IN THE CITY Diss
Discussion section for Religion in the City. Students must register for main lecture course UN3604 to be added to discussion section.
- F 10 a.m.-10:50 a.m.
- F noon-12:50 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Cella Masso-Rivetti
Info - 0 points
Christianity and Culture
This course provides an introduction to Christianity through the lens of culture and culture theory. Which aspects of Christian faith and practice can we understand as universal or shared, and which are conditioned by the specificities of time and place? Does Christianity itself have a culture, or shape particular understandings of the self and society? Readings are drawn from a range of sources, including primary texts, anthropology, history, philosophy, theology, and fiction. The majority of our focus will be on the modern period, with particular attention to Catholicism and Pentecostalism in the global South (including Africa and Melanesia). Topics covered will include the comparative study of virtues and values (salvation, grace, sincerity), as well as Christianity’s many and varied relationships to the realms of politics, economics, and society.
Students should come away from this course with a solid grounding in major features of Christianity, especially its Catholic and Protestant forms. The course will also provide students with an introduction to culture theory. Critical writing and reading skills will also be a focus, along with class participation. The course will also encourage students to think of ways in which the issues and authors surveyed might provide models for their own interests and research. This course is geared toward graduate students and upper-level undergraduates. Some background in religious studies and/or anthropology or literary criticism is helpful but not required.
- R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Matthew Engelke
CULPA: 3 Wikipedia h-index: 25 Info - 4 points
BUDDHISM & DAOISM IN CHINA
In recent decades, the study of the so-called “Buddho-Daoism” has become a burgeoning field that breaks down the traditional boundary lines drawn between the two Chinese religious traditions. In this course we will read secondary scholarship in English that probes the complex relationships between Buddhism and Daoism in the past two millennia. Students are required not only to be aware of the tensions and complementarity between them, but to be alert to the nature of claims to either religious purity or mixing and the ways those claims were put forward under specific religio-historical circumstances. The course is organized thematically rather than chronologically. We will address topics on terminology, doctrine, cosmology, eschatology, soteriology, exorcism, scriptural productions, ritual performance, miracle tales and visual representations that arose in the interactions of the two religions, with particular attention paid to critiquing terms such as “influence,” “encounter,” “dialogue,” “hybridity,” “syncretism,” and “repertoire.” The course is designed for both advanced undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of East Asian religion, literature, history, art history, sociology and anthropology. One course on Buddhism or Chinese religious traditions is recommended, but not required, as background.
- R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Zhaohua Yang
Info - 4 points
A Political Introduction to the Christia
Pol Intro Christian Scrip
In this course we will examine the New Testament canon and the twenty-seven texts that comprise it in light of their respective literary genres, their Jewish antecedents and Greco-Roman influences, which will include their historical, social, cultural, political and economic contexts, and the ways these factors impinged upon their various dimensions of meaning. Various modes of biblical interpretation, both ancient and contemporary, will be explored. A major emphasis will be on the ways select texts are utilized, misconstrued and weaponized in the public sphere in this contemporary moment.
- W 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Obery Hendricks
Wikipedia Info - 4 points
TECHNOLOGY,RELIGION,FUTURE
This seminar will examine the history of the impact of technology and media on religion and vice versa before bringing into focus the main event: religion today and in the future. Well read the classics as well as review current writing, video and other media, bringing thinkers such as Eliade, McLuhan, Mumford and Weber into dialogue with the current writing of Kurzweil, Lanier and Taylor, and look at, among other things: ethics in a Virtual World; the relationship between Burning Man, a potential new religion, and technology; the relevance of God and The Rapture in Kurzweils Singularity; and what will become of karma when carbon-based persons merge with silicon-based entities and other advanced technologies.
- R 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
-
Instructor:
David R Kittay
CULPA: 6
Info
- 4 points
Religion and the Sensorium
This seminar explores the sensorium—the interplay of sensory experience, embodiment, and culture—in religious contexts across diverse traditions and historical periods. As we examine foundational texts from the fields of phenomenology, cultural anthropology, material studies and affect theory, we will explore how a variety of approaches to theorizing sense, perception and affect can be brought into conversation with issues emerging within the study of specific religion traditions. Major questions that will preoccupy us in this regard include: How do sensory experiences shape religious practices and identities? What roles do material objects and environments play in mediating sensory encounters in both daily and ritual settings? How do religious traditions prioritize, contest, or balance sensory modalities such as sight, sound, touch, or taste? How do affective intensities influence sensory engagement in rituals and devotion? How, ultimately, do we think we perceive?
While this seminar is open to interested students from all disciplines, our work in this course is also designed to serve as a “zone of inquiry” seminar for the Religion Department’s graduate programs. “Zones of inquiry” seek to introduce students to a particular cluster of key concepts and various theoretical elaborations of those concepts, in order to aid students in honing their ability to reflect critically on and further develop central concepts that they bring to the specific traditions and phenomena of their research. A main goal of this course will therefore be to deepen our conceptual and analytical acumen and expand our theoretical resources at the intersection of religious studies and theories of media and the body.
- M 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Michael Como
CULPA: 20
Info
- 4 points
Proseminar in Religion I
The Proseminar in Religion is designed to support PhD students within the department as they work on various aspects of professional development. Meeting three times per semester, the sessions will focus on both academic and non-academic career paths, coordinated by a member of the faculty and with guest speakers from both within and beyond the department. The emphasis will be on concrete outputs and skills training. The proseminar will require preparation and active participation from enrolled students, including background reading and writing assignments connected to the monthly topic. After each session focused on a piece of writing (fellowship applications; CVs and cover letters; publishing), students should come away from the proseminar with strong drafts of the relevant texts.
The proseminar is required for all ABD students in year 5 or 6 and can be taken sequentially or not. ABD students are encouraged to speak about the timing of enrollment with the DGS and their dissertation sponsor.
- W 7 p.m.-9 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Matthew Engelke
CULPA: 3 Wikipedia h-index: 25 Info - 1 points
THEORY & METHOD-STUDY OF RELIG
“Theories and Methods” courses in any field are commonly unwieldy beasts. They cannot but be a compromise-formation between contemporary questions and texts, ideas, and definitions (alongside a whole lot of problems) that we have inherited as “canonical” in a field. In the best case, such a course is a passageway into deeper engagement with a field, its histories, its complexities, and its possibilities from which we might wrest and build viable futures. Disciplinary fields are structures where power and knowledge are produced and reproduced. The study of religion is no exception. The questions of “how is ‘religion’ constructed as a category here?” and “what work does the designation of something or someone as ‘religious’ do?” will, therefore, accompany us throughout our work over the course of this semester. We will also examine how different methodological commitments shape what objects of study and which questions come to the fore for the study of religion. This course will explore how the study of religion is not reducible to the study of traditions and communities that are readily recognized as “religious.” However, the vexed histories of the construction of “religion” as a category of knowledge production does also not negate that there are large, varied, and flourishing communities of practice beyond the university for whom whether or not “religion” exists is not at all a question. Holding these layers of complexity in play, this course seeks to introduce students exemplarily to key texts and concepts that have shaped the study of religion as we encounter it today as an academic discipline.
- W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Dominique Townsend
CULPA: 1 Info - 3 points
Aesthetics in Tibetan Buddhism
What does beauty have to do with Buddhism? Should it be understood as a mark of virtue or a font of attachment? And more broadly, what is the role of the senses and the objects of the senses in Buddhist practice? In this seminar students engage with images, objects, texts, sounds, feelings, and tastes to understand the significance of aesthetics in Tibetan Buddhism. Beyond treating aesthetics as the philosophy of art and beauty, students will consider the profound and variegated role of the senses and their objects in Buddhist experience. When are the senses limiting and when are they liberating? When are artworks objects of attachment for practitioners, and when are they supports for practice? Most fundamentally, together we will investigate how aesthetics can be ethically coded—for example, by asking why beauty is so often associated with virtue. This multidisciplinary seminar is designed for graduate students and is also open to advanced undergraduates with instructor’s approval.
- T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Dominique Townsend
CULPA: 1 Info - 4 points
RESEARCH IN RELIGION I
Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Guided individual research.
-
Instructor:
Matthew Engelke
CULPA: 3 Wikipedia h-index: 25 Info -
Instructor:
Dominique Townsend
CULPA: 1 Info -
Instructor:
Rachel McDermott
CULPA: 37
Info
-
Instructor:
David L Moerman
CULPA: 18
Info
-
Instructor:
Michael Como
CULPA: 20
Info
-
Instructor:
Aziza Shanazarova
Info -
Instructor:
Gil Anidjar
CULPA: 22 Info - 1-6 points
RESEARCH IN RELIGION II
Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Guided individual research.
-
Instructor:
Gil Anidjar
CULPA: 22 Info - 1-6 points