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881 - 890 of 976 results for: all courses

RELIGST 133: Muslims, Jews, and Christians: Conflict, Coexistence, and Collaboration (JEWISHST 123)

Relationships between Muslims, Jews, and Christians today are informed by a multitude of complex and often painful histories. These faith traditions emerged out of deep and sustained engagement with one another sharing theological and ethical principles, and revering many of the same figures and there have been many periods of rich and productive interaction. Yet there have also been areas of dissension and conflict, and periods when theological, social, or political disagreement devolved into violence and oppression. In recent times (especially following the Holocaust and the establishment of the modern State of Israel), religious, political, and intellectual leaders of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities, in the U.S. and around the world, have recognized the need to forge deeper and more meaningful relationships with one another. Knowledge and understanding of the perspectives that different communities and individuals bring to bear on their entangled past, present, and future are a critical part of efforts to resolve intransigent conflicts and advance mutual interests. This course explores some of the most significant moments of interaction through literature and art, polemic and dialogue that have shaped engagements between Muslims, Jews, and Christians throughout history, and examines both prospects and pitfalls for engagement in the present and future.
Last offered: Summer 2019 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP

RELIGST 144: John Calvin and Christian Faith

Close reading and analysis of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion as a classic expression of Christian belief.
Terms: Aut | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
Instructors: Pitkin, B. (PI)

RELIGST 147: Building Heaven and Hell

How did early Jews and Christians imagine space? How did they construct heaven and hell through their written texts? Can we take their written images of the earthly and heavenly Jerusalem and her temple, such as those found in Ezekiel, the Book of Revelation and the Apocalypse of Paul and transform them into three-dimensional space? We are going to try! We will meet in the architecture studio and literally build these images from foam board and hot glue. A number of themes will emerge through the course: the interpretive move in rendering a once real space as a literary icon, the relationship between text and imagined space, the connection between space and ritual, the development of apocalyptic visions, and the centrality of Jerusalem in Jewish and Christian thought.
Terms: Spr | Units: 4 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors: Copeland, K. (PI)

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 150: Humanities Core: Texts that Changed the World -- The Ancient Middle East (COMPLIT 31, DLCL 31, HUMCORE 31)

This course traces the story of the cradle of human civilization. We will start from the earliest human stories, the Gilgamesh Epos and biblical literature, and follow the path of the development of religion, philosophy and literature in the ancient Mediterranean or Middle Eastern world.We will pose questions about how different we are today. What are our foundational stories and myths and ideas? Should we remain connected in deep ways to the most ancient past of civilization, or seek to distance ourselves from those origins? N.B. This is the first of three courses in the Middle Eastern track. These courses offer a UNIQUE opportunity to study Middle Eastern history and culture, past and present. Take one, two or all three courses to experience a year-long intellectual community dedicated to exploring how ideas have shaped our world and future.
Terms: Aut | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-ER

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.
Terms: Win | Units: 3 | 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 séance tables. Through close readings of stories, novels, seance accounts, and scientific treatises, 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.
Terms: Aut | Units: 4 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors: Mayse, E. (PI)

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
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