101 - 110 of 201 results for: RELIGST

Caste, as a plurality of ideas about systemic exclusion or social hierarchy, has shaped the lifeworlds of South Asians past and present, across regions, languages, and religious boundaries. But is caste a unitary concept? And what does it have to do with religion? This seminar turns to the archive to explore a series of case studies about how caste, as an actively contested concept and set of social practices, has interfaced with meaning-making and community formation in Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Buddhist, and Christian traditions. We are interested both in the social history of religion as well as the phenomenology of oppression and liberation, taking a comparative approach that allows us to defamiliarize our assumptions about the varied relationships between religion, culture, hierarchy, and violence. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.

The emergence of tantric scriptures in medieval India marked a major turning point in the development of religious thought and practice throughout Asia. These scriptures introduced myths, rituals, contemplative techniques, and artistic expressions that transformed the religious traditions of India - from Hinduism to Jainism and Buddhism. Tantric forms of worship subsequently shaped the religious traditions of Southeast Asia, China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, Mongolia, and everywhere else Indian religions spread. This seminar examines the history of Buddhist tantra through English translation of one of the most popular collections of tantric literature in the history of Buddhism: the Wheel of Time. The Wheel of Time blends models of the cosmos, time, embodiment, and aesthetics with rich contemplative and ritual techniques. Since its origin, the Wheel of Time and its associated body of texts and practices has become immensely popular throughout the Tibetan Buddhist world. The influence of the Wheel of Time continues to this day, as the current Dalai Lama frequently offers the Wheel of Time initiation as a blessing for world peace, and scholars and practitioners continue to study its literature and practice its contemplative techniques. Undergraduates are expected to have at least one prior course in Buddhism or the consent of the instructor. Undergraduates register for 256 for 5 units. Graduate students register for 356 for 3-5 units.

This seminar explores the role of women in Japanese Buddhism, starting from the earliest records until today. All readings will be in English. Prerequisites: Solid foundation in either Buddhist studies or East Asian Studies. You must have taken at least one other course in Buddhist Studies. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.

This course examines the fundamental role of powerful goddesses in Chinese religion. It covers the entire range of imperial history and down to the present. It will look at, among other questions, what roles goddesses played in the spirit world, how this is related to the roles of human women, and why a civilization that excluded women from the public sphere granted them a dominant place, in the religious sphere. It is based entirely on readings in English.

"Secularism" and "secularization" are two concepts whose importance to modern life is only matched by their ability to elude our understanding. Our aim in this seminar, therefore, will be to make sense of them as historical and sociological phenomena, as well as objects of theoretical and philosophical inquiry. Among other issues, we will probe the question of religious decline in modern societies, the formation of secular identity and subjectivity, the theological underpinnings of the separation of religion and state, the politics of religious minorities, and the broader transformation of religion in the modern age. Our approach to the subject will consist primarily in the discussion of a wide range of primary sources and scholarly writings, which will span the disciplines of political theory, anthropology, theology, history, and literature. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.

Sex and the Early Church examines the ways first- through sixth-century Christians addressed questions regarding human sexuality. We will pay particular attention to the relationship between sexuality and issues of gender, culture, power, and resistance. We will read a Roman gynecological manual, an ancient dating guide, the world's first harlequin romance novels, ancient pornography, early Christian martyrdom accounts, stories of female and male saints, instructions for how to best battle demons, visionary accounts, and monastic rules. These will be supplemented by modern scholarship in classics, early Christian studies, gender studies, queer studies, and the history of sexuality. The purpose of our exploration is not simply to better understand ancient views of gender and sexuality. Rather, this investigation of a society whose sexual system often seems so surprising aims to denaturalize many of our own assumptions concerning gender and sexuality. In the process, we will also examine the ways these first centuries of what eventually became the world's largest religious tradition has profoundly affected the sexual norms of our own time. The seminar assumes no prior knowledge of Judaism, Christianity, the bible, or ancient history.

More than 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery--its histories and legacies--remains the subject of heated debate among the institution's descendants and the millions of others who live in its wake. As a global institution predicated upon the exchange of human bodies, slavery helped to forge political and economic empires, divided nations, and crystallized racialized caste hierarchies that persist into the present. Yet, the politically and emotionally charged nature of conversations about slavery has obscured the lives of the women, men, and children who bore the legal status of "slave." In this course, we will explore the meanings of enslavement from the perspectives of those who experienced it, and in doing so, interrogate broader questions of the relationship between slavery and the construction of racialized group identities. Using autobiographical narratives, eyewitness accounts, slaveholder diaries, images, and archeological evidence from the United States, we will examine the religious, philosophical, and experiential orientations that grounded the enslaved psyche and found expression in bondspeople's music, movement, foodways, dress, and institutions. Although the United States South will be our primary region for interrogation, we will analyze the thought and culture formations of U.S. bondspeople in light of the discursive and aesthetic productions of African-descended peoples throughout the diaspora. In this way, we will endeavor to know the people who helped birth American culture. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.

What is Tantra? Tantric forms of ritual and philosophy have been integral to the practice of Hinduism for most of its history. Tantra has provided initiates with a spiritual technology for embodying the divine and transcending the cycle of rebirth; on a social and political level, Tantra has mediated the institutions of Hindu kingship and appealed to a diverse population of initiates. This course covers a number of influential and well-documented Hindu tantric traditions, exploring several prominent features of Tantric religion as they develop historically, including: tantric ritual practice (core technologies of the subtle body, mantras, ma, alas, etc., along with the more notorious elements of sex and transgression), theology and philosophical speculation, as well as Tantra's relationship to the outside world and state power. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.

The awkward phrasing of the title of this course is deliberate, for in it we will be attempting to understand the universal category of "the uncanny" through the prism of Islam as it has been perceived through the lens of the West (the assumption being that Islam has had a sort of doppelgänger effect within the Western imagination). This will require us to read works of theory (of course Freud, but also Barthes and others) as well as works of art and philosophy across Western and Muslim cultures in which Islam makes an important appearance. In a sense, this is a course on "Islam and the West" or "Orientalism," yet it diverges in proposing a framing which opposes itself to the narrow ideological confines of this secular language, a language which has dominated (and precluded proper) reflection on the matter thus far. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.