printer friendly pageRELIGST 152: Buddhism and the Family
What do we owe our parents? This course centers how Buddhist authors in Cambodia and Vietnam have wrestled with questions of debt and gratitude in the family. We will begin with the Indian and Chinese antecedents that shaped ideals of filial piety in the region of Southeast Asia formerly known as "Indochina." The core of our readings and discussions will engage classical Khmer and Vietnamese literature in translation, including the verse novels "A Child Called Dream" and "The Tale of Kieu." The course will close with Asian American celebrations and critiques of filial piety. Our aim throughout the quarter will be to complicate contemporary views on familial debts by charting a specific religious and literary history in Southeast Asia.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
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 156X: Sounds of Islam (MUSIC 186E)
This course explores diverse intersections of sound and Islam in religious and secular contexts throughout the world. From studying Islamic philosophies about the art of listening to interrogating Muslim hip hop, we examine how sonic practices simultaneously reflect and shape different Muslim identities globally. Issues of nationalism, war and trauma, class, race and ethnicity, gender and sexualities, colonialism, social in/justice, and migration will remain central to our exploration of spirituality, secularism, piety, and religiosity for the individuals and communities making or listening to sounds of Islam.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
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 165: Modern Jewish Mysticism: Devotion in a Secular Age (JEWISHST 125)
The twentieth-century was a time of tremendous upheaval and unspeakable tragedy for the Jewish communities of Europe. But the past hundred years were also a period of great renewal for Jewish spirituality, a renaissance that has continued into the present day. Beginning with the writings of the Safed Renaissance, the Sabbateanism, and the Hasidic masters, our course will focus on key thinkers in the 19th and 20th centuries, including: Hillel Zeitlin, Martin Buber, Abraham Isaac Kook, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Arthur Green. Drawing upon essays, homilies, and poems, we will examine the ways in which their works re-cast and reinterpret the Jewish tradition in answer to the singular questions and challenges modernity. We will mark the development of their thinking against the two World Wars, the Holocaust, and the complex and multi-faceted processes of secularization. We will also consider the theological project of modern Jewish mystics in dialogue with modern Jewish philosophers (such as Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, and Emmanuel Levinas) as well as modern philosophers and scholars informed by Christianity (from William James to Charles Taylor). This course argues that the processes of sacralization, of reclaiming a life of mystical devotion, are best understood as a unique response to Jewish modernity rather than a retreat to past modalities of religion. In seeking to prove this point, we will explore writers whose work emerged in and engaged with different social and cultural domains. We will investigate their writings with an eye to issues such as power and identity, and will draw upon their works in charting the intersection of mysticism, literature, language and experience. Throughout our readings, we will keep our eye on the sustained impact of feminism on Jewish mysticism in the second half of the twentieth century. This course is structured as a seminar, and our class discussions will be rooted in the primary sources. It assumes no prior background of Judaism or any other religious traditions. All readings will be made available in English.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
RELIGST 166: The Divine Feminine in India (FEMGEN 166)
What happens when God is a woman? Is the Goddess a feminist? The Goddess, in her numerous incarnations, is foundational to much of Indian religiosity, whether Hindu, Buddhist, or even Jain¿and in turn, without her story, much of the theology and practice of these religions remains incomprehensible. This course examines the principal expressions of the theology and ritual worship of the Goddess in Indian history, from the Vedas to the Hindu Epics, to Indian philosophy, tantric ritual practice and modern global and new age movements in order to understand how the gendering of divinity affects theological speculation, religious experience, and embodied religious identity.
Last offered: Winter 2018
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
RELIGST 169: Sacred Words: Jewish Thought and the Question of Language (JEWISHST 129)
Jews have long been referred as the people of the book, but they might better be referred to as the people of the word. Drawing upon texts from the Hebrew Bible to the works of modern Hebrew writers like of Hayyim Nahman Bialik and Amoz Oz, this seminar will chart the development of Jewish thinking on language over the past two millennia. We will explore issues such as: the idea of canonization; oral versus written language; the nature and possibility of translation; the origins of language; notions of negative theology; mystical approaches to the word; the rebirth of Hebrew as a spoken and cultural language; and the limits of language after the Holocaust. This course will also bring Jewish thought into dialogue with contemporary philosophical reflections on issues of language. Modern explorations of language will prove an interesting way of deepening our understanding of the Jewish thinkers on one hand, and enriching contemporary intellectual discourse on the other.
Last offered: Spring 2018
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
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 181: Heidegger and Mysticism (PHIL 133S)
A close reading of Heidegger's
Being and Time with reference to the topics of meaning, mortality, mysticism, and self-transformation.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
| Repeatable
3 times
(up to 12 units total)
Instructors:
Sheehan, T. (PI)
RELIGST 210: Translating Religion (RELIGST 310)
What happens to Buddhism when the Buddha speaks Chinese? Is the Qur'an still the Qur'an in English? What did Martin Luther do for the German language? We try to answer these and other such questions in this course, which explores the translation of sacred scripture and other religious texts from the earliest times to the present day. Taking a global perspective, and looking at Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism, the course is designed to introduce students to the theory and practice of translation and get them thinking about its broader cultural, aesthetic and political significance. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Gentry, J. (PI)
;
Harrison, P. (PI)
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