printer friendly pageRELIGST 229: Winged Bulls and Sun Disks: Religion and Politics in the Persian Empire (CLASSGEN 159, CLASSGEN 259, RELIGST 329)
Since Herodotus in the 5th century BCE, the Persian Empire has been represented as the exemplar of oriental despotism and imperial arrogance, a looming presence and worthy foil for the West and Greek democracy. History of the Achaemenid Empire, beginning with the rise of the Medes in the 7th century BCE to the fall of the Achaemenids to Alexander the Great's armies in 331 BCE. Focus on the intimate relationship between religion and empire and will also survey the diverse cultural institutions and religious practices found within the Empire. Evaluate contemporary representations of the Persians in politics and popular culture, such as the recent film "300" and the graphic novel on which it is based, in an attempt to better appreciate the enduring cultural legacy of the Greco-Persian wars.
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 230B: Zen Studies (RELIGST 330B)
Readings in recent English-language scholarship on Chan and Zen Buddhism
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 238: Christian Neo-Platonism, East and West (RELIGST 338)
Christianity's shift to neo-Platonic Greek philosophical categories and its significance for contemporary spirituality. Readings from Plotinus, Proclus, Greek fathers such as Pseudo-Dionysus, and from Ambrose and Augustine.
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 239: Luther and the Reform of Western Christianity (RELIGST 339)
Luther's theology, ethics, biblical interpretation, and social reforms and their significance for the remaking of Western Christianity. Readings include Luther's own writings and secondary sources about Luther and his world.
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 245: Religion, Reason, and Romanticism
The late 18th-century European cultural shift from rationalist to romantic modes of thought and sensibility. Debates about religion as catalysts for the new
Zeitgeist. Readings include: the Jewish metaphysician, Mendelssohn; the dramatist, Lessing; the philosopher of language and history, Herder; the critical idealist, Kant; and the transcendental idealist, Fichte.
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 247B: Readings in Chinese Religious Texts: The Lingbao Scriptures (RELIGST 347B)
A survey of the original Lingbao scriptures. Composed in the late-4th / early 5th century, these texts radically revised Daoist practice, incorporated elements of Buddhist thought and practice, and created liturgies that are still used in Daoist communities today. (Reading knowledge of Literary Chinese ¿¿ required).
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 248A: Chinese Buddhism Beyond the Great Wall (RELIGST 348A)
The thought, practice, and cultural resonance of the sorts of originally Chinese Buddhism that flourished to the north and northwest of China proper during the two to three centuries following the fall of the Tang - i.e., under the Khitan Liao (907-1125) and the Tangut Xixia (1032-1227) dynasties - with special emphasis on the later fortunes of the Huayan, Chan, and Mijiao (Esoteric) traditions. Prerequisite: reading knowledge of Chinese.
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 250: Classics of Indian Buddhism
Texts in English translation includING discourses (sutras), philosophical treatises, commentaries, didactic epistles, hymns, biographies, and narratives.
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 253: Mountains, Buddhist Practice, and Religious Studies (RELIGST 353)
The notion of the sacred mountain. Readings from ethnographic and theoretical works, and primary sources.
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
RELIGST 261A: Belief (in a post-Christian Age)
The post-Chritain (or post-modern) age has given rise to new forms of faith, ranging from secular humanism and cultural atheism to rediscovery of the transcendent in the cosmos and quantum mechanics. However, unlike the era of "Christendom," belief is no longer necessarily hinged to faith. This course explores the origins of this phenomenon in Thomas Aquinas, and then newer philosophical approaches to understanding belief, ranging from Charles Taylor and Talal Asad and their theories of the secular, to Catherine Bell and the role of practice in believing. Finally, we turn to the work of three contemporary theorists of religious belief: Gianni Vattimo, Jean-Luc Marion, and Richard Kearney, who endeavor to cast believing outside established theological categories, yet still speak of "god."
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
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