51 - 60 of 150 results for: RELIGST

This seminar focuses on the emergence of second- and third-century Christianity. Together we'll explore a wide range of primary sources in English translation as well as recent scholarship in the field. For graduate students, regardless of their specialty, the focus will be on achieving a good knowledge and teaching competence of early Christianity. Undergraduates must already have strong background in the academic study of late antiquity and must obtain permission from the instructor.

What are the paths to religious radicalization, and what role have media- new and old- played in these conversion journeys? We examine how Pentecostal Christians and Reformist Muslims in countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Sudan, and Ethiopia have used multiple media forms- newspapers, cell phones, TV, radio, and the internet- to gain new converts, contest the authority of colonial and post-colonial states, construct transnational communities, and position themselves as key political players.

This course will examine how people learn religion outside of school, and in conversation with popular cultural texts and practices. Taking a broad social-constructivist approach to the variety of ways people learn, this course will explore how people assemble ideas about faith, identity, community, and practice, and how those ideas inform individual, communal and global notions of religion. Much of this work takes place in formal educational environments including missionary and parochial schools, Muslim madrasas or Jewish yeshivot. However, even more takes place outside of school, as people develop skills and strategies in conversation with broader social trends. This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to questions that lie at the intersection of religion, popular culture, and education. May be repeat for credit.

An exploration of the theory and practice of Buddhist meditation from the time of the Buddha to the modern mindfulness boom, with attention to the wide range of techniques developed and their diverse interpretation. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.

This seminar will explore the mystical writings of the major religious traditions represented in our department: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. It will address major issues in the study of mysticism, exposing students to a wide variety of religious thinkers and literary traditions, while simultaneously interrogating the usefulness of the concept of "mysticism" as a framework in the study of religion. We will consider various paradigms of method (comparative, constructivist, essentialist), and examine the texts with an eye to historical and social context together with the intellectual traditions that they represent. Preserving the distinctiveness of each religious tradition, the class will be structured as a series of five units around these traditions, but our eyes will be continuously trained upon shared topics or themes, including: language; gender; notions of sainthood; scripture and exegesis; autobiography and writing; mysticism and philosophy; poetry and translation; mysticism and social formation; the interface of law, devotion, and spirit; science and mysticism; perceptions of inter-religious influence; mysticism and the modern/ post-modern world. Advanced reading knowledge of at least one language of primary-source scholarship in one of the above traditions is required. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 unit.

Material objects are essential elements of Islamic cultures and practices. This course examines Islamic art, sculpture, architecture, devotional objects, and clothing, as well as basic concepts in studying religion and material culture.

This course will examine interactions between religion and education, focusing on both formal and experiential sites in which people and communities explore, articulate, encounter, and perform religious ideologies and identities. The class will focus on different religious traditions and their encounters the institutions and structures of education in American culture, both in the United States and as it manifests in American culture transnationally.

The marking off of sacred space is often posited as central to the production of the sacred as a generic category. Moving from Durkheim and Eliade's contrasting views of the sacred as either a collective imaginary reflecting society's self-image or the result of perceivable incursions of the divine into the mundane realm, this course will proceed to explore phenomenological (Lefebvre, Heidegger, Casey), anthropological (Basso, Albera, Couroucli), ritual studies (Smith, Bell), religious studies (Bigelow, Pesantubbee, Linenthal, Friedland & Hecht), and art historical (Flood) approaches, as well as primary sources (fa'il or praise literature, pilgrimage manuals). We will engage such questions as: What is sacred space? What are the possible relationships between sacred space and religion, politics, economies, material culture, and other social structures? Can sacred space be shared by multiple religious traditions and, if so, under what conditions? How does sacred space work as a repository of collective memory, a symbol of identity, a wellspring of community wisdom, a marker of spiritual or social division? Participants will study a particular site of their choosing (in time and space) and produce biographies of that place.

Among the extensive and influential writings of William James, from technical texts on psychology to popular essays on education, this course will focus on the 'Varieties of Religious Experience' and its importance for a contemporary understanding of religion. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units. Limited enrollment; consent of instructor required.