Exploration of a topic (to be determined) not covered by the standard curriculum but of interest to faculty and students in a particular semester.

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.

Intersection between religion, art, and philosophy. Sources culled from Western religious thought and philosophy.

Exploration of a topic (to be determined) not covered by the standard curriculum but of interest to faculty and students in a particular semester.

Introduction to "classic" literature and issues in the field of religion.

Gnosticism as a structure of religious belief; as sectarian movement within "mainline" traditions of late antiquity (Judaism, Christianity, paganism); as a literary-critical perspective on religious texts and traditions in antiquity and contemporary thinking.

Introduction to "classic" twentieth-century literature and issues in the field of religion.

History of the human body as history of its modes of construction in Graeco-Roman antiquity. Problems that arise when the body becomes a topic for religious inquiry. Readings in ancient texts and contemporary theory.

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.

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.

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.

Politics of gender, religious identities, and resistance in the Islamic world. Gender scripts in Qur'anic scripture and Shariah laws. Contemporary realities of Muslim women living in different parts of the world. Additional work required of graduate students.

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.

Historical, cultural, and sociological analysis of pan-Islamic festivals and rituals. Local, culturally-specific, unofficial practices in Islam.

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.

Methodological issues related to studies of indigenous traditions and develops interpretive strategies for using literature about Native American religions.

Feminist theology as a global religious movement from its roots in U.S. feminism to its current political and philosophical battles.

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.

Classical sociological writings of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber and their contemporary significance.

Psychoanalysis and its implications for religious ethics.

Selected philosophical and religious perspectives on postmodern ethics. Readings from Rorty, Stout, Kristeva, Wyschogrod, MacIntyre, Nussbaum, 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.

Theological responses of representative thinkers to the challenges of the new science, natural religion, Deism, and the philosophies of the European Enlightenment.

The significance of the Other in contemporary religious and philosophical ethics. Readings in Levinas, Lacan, Derrida, Kristeva, Critchley, Caputo.

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.

Examines Continental and American feminist and gender theory for intersections between religion, subjectivity, and bodily practice.

Texts from Marx and Foucault are read for their implications for Religion scholars.

Texts from theology and political theory that examine their mutual terms, themes, and concerns.

Twentieth-century theories of mass culture are read for their use and implications for religion scholars. [Effective spring 2009]

Philosophical background of postmodernism and its theological and cultural expressions. Content varies.

Theories of discourse formation and textual production in theology in relationship to the critique of ideologies of theory.

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.

Contemporary psychoanalytic theories and their implications for interpreting religious phenomena: Melanie Klein, Jacques Lacan, D.W. Winnicott, Erick Erickson, Hans Leowald, Heinz Kohut, Christopher Bollas, and others.

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.

Selected writings of the thirteenth-century Japanese Zen master dogen Zenji. Related Mahayana Buddhist texts.

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.

Methodological issues related to the interpretation of diverse religious phenomena including architecture, the body, and land.

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.

Surveys contributions to theories by anthropologists on the role of religion in societies from the founding of the discipline to the present day.

A range of aims and strategies for writing ethnographies of religion in the multiple contexts of culture, history, and politics.

Exploration of a topic (to be determined) not covered by the standard curriculum but of interest to faculty and students in a particular semester.

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.