Summer 2012

Session One (June 25 - August 3, 2012)

Course crn Title Instructor
RST 1F   Religion Today M. Elmore
RST 60   Introduction to Islam A. Iravani
RST 100   Issues and Methods C. Chin
RST 145   Contemporary American Religion M. O'Keefe

 

Session Two (August 6 - September 14, 2012)

Course crn Title Instructor
RST 42   Religion and Science Fiction W. Terry
RST 103   Medieval and Byzantine Christianity W. Terry
RST 170   Buddhism M. Elmore

 


For information on registration and tuition fees, please visit the UC Davis Summer Session website: http://summer-sessions.ucdavis.edu.

For further inquiries of courses themselves, contact the instructor directly or the Main Office at (530) 752-1219.
 


 

EXPANDED DESCRIPTION - SESSION ONE

Religious Studies 1F: Topic in Comparative Religion - "Religion Today"
Prof. Mark Elmore, mkelmore@ucdavis.edu

(Time), (Room)
CRN xxxxx

This course will explore the ways in which religion is adapted and transformed in the modern world. Special attention will be given to the means by which older forms of traditional religious authority are revised, abandoned, or challenged by new forms of individualism and religious pluralism. One of the central aims of the course is to help students avoid essentializing religion with analysis that emphasize timeless doctrines, beliefs, or rituals. Topics of study include contemporary processes of secularism, pilgrimage, embodiment, mediation, violence, and globalism. Consideration will also be given to the validity of different approaches to the study of religion.

GE credits (Old): ArtHum, Wrt, Div.
GE credits (New): ArtHum, Wrt, Oral Skills, Visual Literacy, and World Cultures.

Prerequisites: None.

Texts:

  • (TBA)

Religious Studies 60: Introduction to Islam
Prof. Ahmad Iravani, @ucdavis.edu

(Time), (Room)
CRN xxxxx

This course aims to provide a comprehensive introduction to Islam, as both a religion and a tradition consisting of various schools of thought. After examining the origin of Islam and the history and themes of the Quran as a main source of Islam, this course will give a general view of almost every important Islamic Issues such as Islamic Philosophy Islamic Mysticism (Sufism), Islamic Theology, Islamic Law, and contemporary issues such as human rights, Fundamentalism and Jihad.

There will be a final exam (40%) and a 7-10 pages term paper (40%) and (20%) will count towards the engagement and participation.

Professor Ahmad Iravani is a Professor of Law at the Catholic University of America. For any inquiries, please e-mail Prof. Iravani at iravania@gmail.com or call the Main Office at (530) 752-1219.

GE credits (Old): ArtHum or SocSci, Div, Wrt.
GE credits (New): ArtHum, Wrt, and World Cultures

Prerequisites: None.

Texts:

  • Malise Ruthven, Islam in the World (Oxford, 2006)
  • Annemari Schimmel, Islam: An Introduction (State University of New York, 1992)

Religious Studies 100: Study of Religion - Methods and Issues
Prof. Catherine Chin, chin@ucdavis.edu

(Time), (Room)
CRN xxxxx

In the wake of the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the discovery of the new world, religion became a problem as never before. This class explores the development of this problem from the early modern period through the present, focusing on two wide-ranging narratives. The first concerns the declining authority of God and the reciprocal ascent of the individual as it develops through Luther's theology, Descartes' epistemology, and Locke's liberalism and finally arrives in the consumer technologies of contemporary cosmopolises. The second concerns the birth and growth of the academic study of religion alongside the disciplines of anthropology, psychology, and sociology.

This class unsettles many of the un-reflective conceptions of religion that circulate today, from new-age assumptions about the difference between religion and spirituality to those guiding our foreign and domestic policy. In a world where religion is both the guarantor of mass murder and unbounded generosity, such questions have rarely been more important.

Note: This is a required course for Religious Studies major and minor.

GE credits (Old): None.
GE credits (New): ArtHum or SocSci, Wrt, and World Cultures.

Prerequisites: None.

Texts:

  • (TBA)

Religious Studies 145: Contemporary American Religion
Prof. Meaghan O'Keefe, @ucdavis.edu

(Time), (Room)
CRN xxxxx

This course ...

GE credits (Old): None.
GE credits (New): ArtHum, Wrt, American Cultures, and Domestic Diversity.

Prerequisites: Religious Studies 40 and History 17B recommended.

Texts:

  • (TBA)

 

EXPANDED DESCRIPTION - SESSION TWO

Religious Studies 42: Religion and Science Fiction
Prof. Wendy Terry, wrterry@ucdavis.edu

(Time), (Room)
CRN xxxxx

This course introduces students to popular representations of religions, real and imagined, in modern science fiction and fantasy writing and film. Topics covered include: science fiction as contemporary myth-making; the characteristics of religion and religiosity in fictional religious movements; the relationship between religion, science, and technology in modern speculative fiction; the role of allegory and distanciation in contemporary discourse on religion; tropes of science-fiction in contemporary religious movements. Particular focus on the relevance of post-humanism to religious discourse, i.e., the implications of non-human-centered experience for religious practice and thought, and contemporary problems in defining the limits of the "human" in the imagined relationship between human and divine.

GE credits (Old): ArtHum, Div, Wrt.
GE credits (New): None.

Prerequisites: None.

Texts:

  • (TBA)

Religious Studies 103: Medieval and Byzantine Christianity
Prof. Wendy Terry, wrterry@ucdavis.edu

(Time), (Room)
CRN xxxxx

This course will cover the historical development of Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Christianities in the pre-modern world, with attention to Christianity in the Mediterranean and Near East and Christian interaction with Islam. Topics will include: the rise of monasticism and mysticism as both institutional and individual forms of religious devotion; religious art and its place in both official and individual religious practice; the iconoclastic controversy and the relationship of visual culture to both religious and political ideologies; religious violence and questions of just war in the period of the crusades; the complex relationships between political and religious power in Eastern and Western Christianity.

GE credits (Old): ArtHum, Div, Wrt.
GE credits (New): ArtHum, Wrt, and World Cultures.

Prerequisites: Religious Studies 40 or 45.

Texts:

  • (TBA)

Religious Studies 170: Buddhism
Prof. Mark Elmore, @ucdavis.edu

(Time), (Room)
CRN xxxxx

This course examines Buddhism in its pan-Asian manifestations, from its beginning in India to its development in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, Central Asia, China and Japan. Topics will cover: cultural context of Buddhist prehistory; life of the Buddha and his teaching; basic teachings of the councils and questions of canonization; the period of King Asoka and the spread of Buddhism; the cult of the Buddha, relics and stupas, and background to the Lotus Sutra; the rise of Mayhana Buddhism; growth of Buddhism in China, Korea, Japan, and Tibet (prior culture and variant styles); and Buddhism in the Modern World.

GE credits (Old): None.
GE credits (New): ArtHum, Visual Literacy, and World Cultures.

Prerequisites: None.

Texts:

  • (TBA)