Stanford University Explore Courses

RELIGST 298: Senior Colloquium

For Religious Studies majors writing the senior essay or honors thesis. Students present work in progress, and read and respond to others. Approaches to research and writing in the humanities.

Terms: Spr | Units: 5

Instructors: Pitkin, B. (PI)

RELIGST 300: Theory in the Study of Religion

This course explores how religious belief, ritual, and tradition, interact with, embed, or respond to aspects of social reality or human nature, such as economics, institutions, law, art, values, and psychology. The course examines a number of approaches to the study of religion, including sociological and anthropological ones. The course is intended for Religious Studies MA students and graduate students from other departments.

Last offered: Spring 2014

RELIGST 301: Islamic Law (RELIGST 201)

(This course is combined with LAW 586) Topics include marriage, divorce, inheritance, ritual, war, rebellion, abortion, and relations with non-Muslims. The course begins with the premodern period, in which jurists were organized in legal traditions called ¿schools of law.¿ After examining the nature and functions of these institutions, we turn to the present era to study the relationship between customary law, state law, and the Islamic legal heritage in Egypt and Indonesia. The course explores Muslim laws and legal institutions and the factors that have shaped them, including social values and customs, politics, legal precedents, and textual interpretation.

Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5

Instructors: Sadeghi, B. (PI) ; Marcus, A. (TA)

RELIGST 301A: Gender in Classical Islamic Law (RELIGST 201A)

The course examines classical Islamic society and law. It covers historical development, the unity and diversity of Muslim legal traditions, and the relationship between laws and values. Constructions of gender in law are examined through rituals, marriage, divorce, birth control, child custody, and sexuality.

Last offered: Spring 2013

RELIGST 302: Islamic Studies Proseminar

Research methods and materials for the study of Islam. May be repeated for credit.

Last offered: Autumn 2012 | Repeatable 3 times (up to 5 units total)

RELIGST 303: Myth, Place, and Ritual in the Study of Religion (RELIGST 203)

Sources include: ethnographic texts and theoretical writings; the approaches of Charles Long, Jonathan Z. Smith, Victor Turner, Michael D. Jackson, and Wendy Doniger; and lived experiences as recounted in Judith Sherman's Say the Name: A Survivor's Tale in Prose and Poetry, Jackson's At Home in the World, Marie Cardinal's The Words to Say It, and John Phillip Santos¿ Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation.

RELIGST 304A: Theories and Methods

Required of graduate students in Religious Studies. Approaches to the study of religion. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Terms: Aut | Units: 4

Instructors: Fonrobert, C. (PI)

RELIGST 304B: Theories and Methods

Required of graduate students in Religious Studies. Approaches to the study of religion. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Last offered: Autumn 2014

RELIGST 306: Life, Love, and Death in Islamic Narratives

A wide-ranging engagement with Islamic perspectives on fundamental human preoccupations. We will utilize religious and literary sources spanning Islamic history to discuss topics such as: the ends of human life in the material world: pleasures and pains of love for God and human beings; death and dying; eschatology and resurrection; and skepticism regarding religious claims. Emphasis on original sources in translation considered in relation to theoretical perspectives in the humanities.