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.
- TR 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
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Instructor:
Gil Anidjar
CULPA: 22 Info - 4 points
ISLAM-DISCUSSION
- R 3:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
- R 5:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
- F 11:10 a.m.-noon
- F 1:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
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Instructor:
Aziza Shanazarova
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.
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Instructor:
Aziza Shanazarova
Info - 4 points
Religion and Nasty Women
Used in 2016 by then presidential candidate, Donald Trump, in reference to his female opponent, Hillary Clinton, the phrase “nasty woman” has become a badge of honor and a rallying cry for women’s empowerment.
The origin of the word “nasty,” attested in the 14th century, indicates highly unpleasant qualities- nauseating or unclean, in a literal or figurative way. It also came to evoke indecency and obscenity- and religious traditions have a long history of such depiction of women.
After introducing some key texts on the otherness and objectification of women (including by Aristotle, Beauvoir, Kristeva, Nussbaum, and Butler), we will examine a number of female characters- goddesses, prostitutes, and virgins - in the Mesopotamian, Greek, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic corpus that fit the definition of nasty. We will also analyze some of the underlying tropes of impurity and danger that characterize nastiness involving bodily fluids, sexuality, and knowledge. Spanning theology, literature, movies, and popular culture the course aims to be a survey of religious-based misogyny as well as women’s responses in their pursuit of agency.
- TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
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Instructor:
Clemence C Boulouque
CULPA: 4
Info
- 4 points
Religion and Nasty Women - Discussion
Religion and Nasty Women-
Used in 2016 by then presidential candidate, Donald Trump, in reference to his female opponent, Hillary Clinton, the phrase “nasty woman” has become a badge of honor and a rallying cry for women’s empowerment.
The origin of the word “nasty,” attested in the 14th century, indicates highly unpleasant qualities- nauseating or unclean, in a literal or figurative way. It also came to evoke indecency and obscenity- and religious traditions have a long history of such depiction of women.
After introducing some key texts on the otherness and objectification of women (including by Aristotle, Beauvoir, Kristeva, Nussbaum, and Butler), we will examine a number of female characters- goddesses, prostitutes, and virgins - in the Mesopotamian, Greek, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic corpus that fit the definition of nasty. We will also analyze some of the underlying tropes of impurity and danger that characterize nastiness involving bodily fluids, sexuality, and knowledge. Spanning theology, literature, movies, and popular culture the course aims to be a survey of religious-based misogyny as well as women’s responses in their pursuit of agency.
- R 5 p.m.-5:50 p.m.
- F 10:10 a.m.-11 a.m.
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Instructor:
Clemence C Boulouque
CULPA: 4
Info
- 0 points
CHINESE RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS
This course provides a chronological and thematic introduction to Chinese religions from their beginnings until modern times. It examines distinctive concepts, practices and institutions in the religions of China. Emphasis will be placed on the diversity and unity of religious expressions in China, with readings drawn from a wide-range of texts: religious scriptures, philosophical texts, popular literature and modern historical and ethnographic studies. Special attention will be given to those forms of religion common to both “elite” and “folk” culture: cosmology, family and communal rituals, afterlife, morality and mythology. The course also raises more general questions concerning gender, class, political patronage, and differing concepts of religion.
- MW 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
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Instructor:
Kelly Carlton
Info - 4 points
Chinese Religious Traditions - Discussio
Chinese Religious Trad -
This course provides a chronological and thematic introduction to Chinese religions from their beginnings until modern times. It examines distinctive concepts, practices and institutions in the religions of China. Emphasis will be placed on the diversity and unity of religious expressions in China, with readings drawn from a wide-range of texts: religious scriptures, philosophical texts, popular literature and modern historical and ethnographic studies. Special attention will be given to those forms of religion common to both “elite” and “folk” culture: cosmology, family and communal rituals, afterlife, morality and mythology. The course also raises more general questions concerning gender, class, political patronage, and differing concepts of religion.
- R 9:10 a.m.-10 a.m.
- R 11:10 a.m.-noon
- F 10 a.m.-10:50 a.m.
- F noon-12:50 p.m.
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Instructor:
Kelly Carlton
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)
- T 10:10 a.m.-noon
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Instructor:
Matthew Engelke
CULPA: 3 Wikipedia h-index: 25 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.
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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 10:10 a.m.-noon
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Instructor:
David R Kittay
CULPA: 6
Info
- 4 points
Religion and Media
This is a course designed for students interested in media and their connections to religious traditions and practices. This includes a consideration of specific mediums, including print, photography, radio, television, film, and the internet. But there is also an important manner in which media technologies have to be understood in relation to the more elementary senses they express (hearing, sight, etc). We therefore investigate media as both a broad conceptual category and as specific technologies of communication. So lots on books, TV, phones and the like, but also presence, auras, connection, distance, broadcasting, and immediacy.
Course texts will include a combination of conceptual works as well as case studies drawn from major religious traditions. The learning goals of the course are: (1) to introduce seminal interpretive and methodological issues in the contemporary study of media/mediation; (2) to study some theoretical classics in the fields of media studies and religious studies, to provide a foundation for further reading; (3) to introduce new writing in the field; and (4) to 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 media studies is helpful but not required.
- T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Samuel R Stella
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.-9:30 p.m.
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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.
- M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Yannik Thiem
h-index: 1 Info - 3 points
THESIS RESEARCH & WRITING
This course is intended for MA students in Religion who are writing and completing a thesis or other paper of similar length and scope. Enrolled students will work with the instructor to develop, research, and write a thesis. Preparation and prerequisites: Instructor’s permission is required to enroll. Students are strongly encouraged to discuss the feasibility of potential thesis topics with a faculty member in Religion (preferably their advisor or other suitable faculty member), and if relevant, also strive to identify key primary texts or sources, in advance of the semester.
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Instructor:
Gil Anidjar
CULPA: 22 Info - 4 points
RESEARCH IN RELIGION I
Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Guided individual research.
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Instructor:
Rachel McDermott
CULPA: 37
Info
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Instructor:
Clemence C Boulouque
CULPA: 4
Info
- 1-6 points