printer friendly pageRELIGST 91: Exploring American Religious History (AMSTUD 91, CSRE 91, HISTORY 260K)
This course will trace how contemporary beliefs and practices connect to historical trends in the American religious landscape.
Last offered: Spring 2018
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
RELIGST 115X: Europe in the Middle Ages, 300-1500 (HISTORY 15D, HISTORY 115D)
(
HISTORY 15D is 3 units;
HISTORY 115D is 5 units.) This course provides an introduction to Medieval Europe from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance. While the framework of the course is chronological, we'll concentrate particularly on the structure of medieval society. Rural and urban life, kingship and papal government, wars and plagues provide the context for our examination of the lives of medieval people, what they believed, and how they interacted with other, both within Christendom and beyond it. This course may count as
DLCL 123, a course requirement for the Medieval Studies Minor.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
Instructors:
Griffiths, F. (PI)
;
Nunez, A. (TA)
RELIGST 118: Freedom Fighters, Terrorists, and Social Justice Warriors: Protest and Decolonization in South Asia (HUMCORE 134)
The South Asian region comprises the contemporary nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldives. Racially, linguistically, politically, religiously, and in every way diverse, this region has also experienced the challenge of European colonialism, the effects of global climate change, the impact of rapid industrialization and urbanization, and internal conflicts within and between nations. It is also a creatively and intellectually vibrant region in which principles of non-violent resistance, award winning arts and literature, stunning natural environments, and scientific discovery are integral and celebrated. How have South Asians engaged the rapid social change of the twentieth century with decolonization and regional conflicts? What artistic and literary formations emerged from and drove the freedom movements against colonial rule and the nation forming projects that ensued? How have globalization and internal debates about national identities shaped contemporary South Asian societies?
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI, WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Bigelow, A. (PI)
RELIGST 135: Contemporary Islam and Muslims in America (AFRICAAM 135A, AMSTUD 135X, CSRE 135, GLOBAL 137)
In this course, we will explore contemporary Islam and Muslims in a post-9/11 and post-Trump America. Following some brief grounding history in Week 1, we will use ethnographic studies and digital media content to understand the American Muslim experience in the 21st century. Each week, we will also address how the lived experience of American Muslims interacts with "theoretical" and "normative" conceptions of Islam, and whether these interactions eventually create a distinctive "American Islam." Topics covered will include: internal and external racial & gender dynamics, ideological debates, institutions, social media wars, politics, and specific communities as case studies. Together we will develop a critical perspective on the American Muslim experience, particularly as a case of how one diverse religious community negotiates religion in a complex sociopolitical setting.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Ahmed, A. (PI)
RELIGST 139: Religion along the Silk Road
From roughly the year 1 to the year 1000, a vibrant trade route stretched across Central Asia, linking Europe, India and East Asia. Along this route, merchants bought and sold the silk that gave the route its name, along with paper, ceramics, spices, precious stones and any number of other commodities. Together with these trade goods, merchants, missionaries, farmers and artisans who participated in this vast commercial network, exchanged ideas, scriptures, practices and beliefs, including those associated with major religious traditions; Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Judaism, Manichaeism and Islam followed the same routes as silk and spice. In this course we will examine the spread of all of these religions across the Silk Road, what happened when they interacted, and what this tells us about the relation between commerce, trade and geography in the pre-modern world.
Last offered: Spring 2018
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
RELIGST 149: Finding Utopia: Mysticism, Free Love, and New Religions of the Nineteenth-Century
This class explores radical experiments in 19th-century religious utopias. Ranging from the occult to free love to anarchism, we will encounter diaries from a polyamorous commune, seance accounts of astral travel, a journal from a "Sister of the New Life" striving to create a neighborhood modeled off the fairies that she thought inhabited her body, and theological treatises insisting that spiritual progress could only be achieved scientifically. Sources such as these will help us investigate the connection between religious innovation and concepts that continue to influence us today.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI, WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Willburn, S. (PI)
RELIGST 154: Buddhism and Science: A Critical Introduction to the Encounter
Buddhism has figured in the Western imagination as a "rational religion," a "philosophy" that is mostly compatible with science. While the notion of Buddhism as "scientific" is both controversial and open to exaggeration, in the last few decades, this positive image has helped to facilitate direct encounters between Buddhism and science in multiple settings--dialogues between scientists and Buddhist scholars on key topics such as mindfulness, collaborative presentations and workshops at academic conferences, scientific research on contemplative practices, and so forth. This course explores the many facets of the encounter between Buddhism and science. It aims to do so through discussion and debate of relevant scientific papers, traditional Buddhist literature, science and technology studies (STS), and anthropological literature. Topics to be addressed include, among others, the encounter between Buddhism and psychology; the study of Buddhist contemplative practices in the laboratory; the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program and the "Mindful Revolution"; the creation of a Buddhist "science of happiness"; Buddhism and technology; and Buddhism, science, and the idea of secularism.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Gentry, J. (PI)
;
Oliveira Lopes, A. (PI)
RELIGST 158: Spiritualism and the Occult
How can the living communicate with the dead? From Leland Jr.'s ghost to his uncle, T.W. Stanford, millions of people in the nineteenth century practiced technologies of spirit communication from spirit photography to animated seance tables. Through close readings of stories, novels, such as Romance of Two Worlds in which the heroine astrally travels through outer space, seance accounts, and scientific treatises, including Waisbrooker¿s theory that the way to enlightenment is through having the right type of sex, this class explores their mystical culture and how it blurred the line between seen and unseen in an effort to expand the real.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Willburn, S. (PI)
RELIGST 180: Gender Relations in Islam (FEMGEN 180)
This course investigates the ways in which gender identities and relationships between men and women have been articulated, constructed, and refashioned throughout the Muslim world. Starting with problematizing the fixed notions of gender and sexuality, we map the attitudes toward these notions through visiting a diverse array of sources from the Qur¿an, Sunna, and legal documents to historical and anthropological case studies, literature, and film from South East Asia to Europe and North America. We examine the notions of femininity and masculinity in the Qur¿an, family laws, and attitudes toward homosexuality and transgendered populations. We read examples of ambiguous use of language with regards to gender and sexuality in Persian poetry and mystical traditions. We study the dynamic relationship between Islam and Feminism in the Muslim world. Finally, we witness the implications of these attitudes in our case studies and stories, from a divorce court in Iran to a wedding in Sudan.
Last offered: Autumn 2017
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
RELIGST 218: Islam, Race and Revolution: A Pan-American Approach (AMSTUD 218, CSRE 218, RELIGST 318)
Taking a pan-American approach to the study of religious traditions, this upper-level course traces the history of the critical intersection between race, religion and revolution among Muslims from the turn of the nineteenth century until the present day. Moving from the Atlantic Revolutions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, to the United States, to the decolonizing Third World, and then finally to the contemporary Middle East, this class will emphasize that Islam and race together have been used by many groups in order to challenge existing power structures, agitate for change, and more than occasionally, transform the social, cultural and governmental structures comprising their worlds. Moreover, although this class is concentrated upon religious formations in the Americas, students will explore global events throughout the Muslim world in order to examine how global politics contribute to religious formations, solidarities and identities. At the conclusion of this course, students will be expected to write a 10-15 page research paper, and a topic will be chosen in consultation with the instructor. Students will also be expected to write weekly reflection papers, which will serve to facilitate class discussion. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.
Last offered: Spring 2018
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
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