Winter 2011

 

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Religious Studies 1E: Topics in Comparative Religion - Fundamentalism
Prof. Keith Watenpaugh (kwatenpaugh@ucdavis.edu)

Lecture: TR 1:40-3:00, 6 Wellman

Discussion Sections:
Sec. 1 (M 4:10-5:00, 151 Olson) CRN 44172
Sec. 2 (M 5:10-6:00, 151 Olson) CRN 44173
Sec. 3 (W 4:10-5:00, 151 Olson) CRN 44174
Sec. 4 (W 5:10-6:00, 151 Olson) CRN 44175
Sec. 5 (R 4:10-5:00, 151 Olson) CRN 44176
Sec. 6 (R 5:10-6:00, 151 Olson) CRN 44177

This course introduces students to the global and comparative study of the modern phenomenon of religious fundamentalism. Students will explore through primary and secondary material the intellectual and historical origins of fundamentalist strains in Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism. In their writing and classroom discussions, students will place these movements within their larger political, cultural and ethical contexts. Case studies include an examination of the multiple relationships between fundamentalism and science and science education; the connection between fundamentalism and political violence and terrorism; the role of fundamentalism in democratic societies; and questions of gender and sexuality and fundamentalism.

Prerequisite: NONE. GE credit: ArtHum, Div, Wrt.

Text:

• A Course Reader

 

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Religious Studies 1G: Myth, Ritual, and Symbolism
Prof. Wendy Terry (wrterry@ucdavis.edu)

Lecture: MWF 12:10-1:00, 126 Wellman

Discussion Sections:
Sec. 1 (M 4:10-5:00, 159 Olson) CRN 44017
Sec. 2 (M 5:10-6:00, 159 Olson) CRN 44018
Sec. 3 (T 4:10-5:00, 105 Olson) CRN 44019
Sec. 4 (T 5:10-6:00, 105 Olson) CRN 44020
Sec. 5 (M 6:10-7:00, 167 Olson) CRN 44021
Sec. 6 (T 7:10-8:00, 1120 Hart) CRN 44022

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the academic study of religion. During the first unit of the course we will examine myths from numerous religious traditions (primary texts) and scholarly approaches to the study of myth (method readings). The second unit focuses on rituals and scholarly theories about ritual. The course is introductory, and no prior academic study of religion is expected. As a General Education course, the requirements emphasize the development of skills in critical reading, analytic writing and oral argumentation.

Prerequisite: NONE. GE credit: ArtHum, Div, Wrt.

Texts:

• Jeppe Sinding Jensen (ed.), Myths and Mythologies: A Reader (Equinox, 2009)
• Ronald L. Grimes (ed.), Readings in Ritual Studies (Prentice Hall, 1996)

 

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Religious Studies 30: Religions of South Asia
Prof. Mark Elmore (mkelmore@ucdavis.edu)

TR 12:10-1:30, 1204 Haring (NEW TIME and LOCATION)
CRN 44023

The goal of this course is to introduce students to the vibrant religious traditions of South Asia. The course will examine Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, and Jain traditions as well as the ancient and modern contexts in which they are situated. In order to guide our inquiries, we will focus the ways that various problems (material, intellectual, political) have served as catalysts for the formation and dissolution of communities of interpretation and practice.

One of the primary goals of this course is to reexamine the multiple pasts of South Asia without projecting modern categories onto those traditions. Accordingly, we will examine Upanisadic texts and the four noble truths as more than tenants of ‘Hinduism’ or ‘Buddhism.’ Throughout the course we will ask how appropriate these concepts are for understanding the premodern traditions of South Asia. The class will include extensive use of visual resources in addition to traditional texts.
Prerequisite: NONE. GE credit: ArtHum, Div, Wrt.

Text:

• Ainslie Thomas Embree, Stephen N. Hay, and William Theodore De Bary, Sources of Indian Tradition (Columbia, 1988)
• Hilary Rodriguez, Introducing Hinduism, New Edition (Routledge, 2006)

 

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Religious Studies 60: Introduction to Islam
Prof. Baki Tezcan (btezcan@ucdavis.edu)

TR 10:30-11:50, 212 Wellman
CRN 40282

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.

Prerequisite: NONE. GE credit: ArtHum or SosSci, Div, Wrt.

Text:

• Jamal J. Elias, Islam (Prentice Hall, 1999)

 

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Religious Studies 80: Religion, Gender, Sexuality
Prof. Wendy Terry (wrterry@ucdavis.edu)

MWF 10:00-10:50, 212 Wellman
CRN 40284

This course examines the constructions of gender and sexuality within one or more religious traditions, pre-modern and modern. It will also emphasize on the interaction between religious, medical, and ethical definitions of the human body and sexual behavior.

Topics covered in this course include: pre-modern and modern definitions of masculinity and femininity, and the religious connotations and implications of these definitions, for example in standards of dress and public appearance, and in the different religious status of persons of differing genders, or of non-gender-normative persons. The course also examines historical constructions of sexual behavior, and the interaction between these constructions and different religious identities, for example in religious requirements of celibacy, procreation or polygamy. The course introduces students to the variety of changes and conflicts in different religious attitudes toward gendered and sexual behavior such as marriage, reproduction, abortion, and homosexuality. It also examines the reciprocal effects that ideas of gender and sexuality have on human notions of the divine and on notions of divine and human interaction, for example in the use of sexual language to describe mystical experience. Emphasis of the course is going to be on the Christian tradition.

Prerequisite: NONE. GE credit: Div, Wrt.

Text:

• A Course Reader (available through SmartSite)

 

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Religious Studies 100: Study of Religion - Issues and Methods
Prof. Mark Elmore (mkelmore@ucdavis.edu)

TR 1:40-3:00, 141 Olson
CRN 40290

(Expanded description is unavailable at the moment. Contact the instructor directly for any inquiries.)

Prerequisite: NONE. GE credit: NONE. Note: This is a required course for Religious Studies major and minor students.

Text:

• Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Vintage, 1995)
• Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion (1989)
• Friedrich Nietzsche, The Portable Nietzsche (Viking, 1954)
• Ivan Strenski, Thinking About Religion: An Historical Introduction to Theories of Religion (Blackwell, 2006)
• Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Dover, 2003)

 

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Religious Studies 143: New Testament Apocrypha
Prof. Catherine Chin (chin@ucdavis.edu)

TR 9:00-10:20, 101 Olson
CRN 44024

This course examines the production of Christian writing attributed to, or describing, New Testament figures, outside of the canonical New Testament. The first, and longer, part of the course surveys ancient non-canonical Christian writings produced by a variety of Christian groups, all of which appeal to New Testament figures and literary devices for their authority. The second part of the course examines the continuing use of New Testament figures in modern writing, and considers how the ideas of canonicity and extra-canonical status contribute to modern debates over the authority of ancient figures and texts.

This course addresses the question of how literary and religious authority has been produced in texts, both in antiquity and in the present; it thereby introduces students to critical perspectives on what are often seen as authoritative texts within major cultural and religious traditions. By examining non-canonical writing from ancient and modern sources, students will be trained to consider the relationships between discourses of authority and discourses outside traditional networks of authority in religious contexts.

Prerequisite: Religious Studies 40. GE credit: ArtHum, Div, Wrt.

Text:

• Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (Anchor, 2009)
• Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make it into the New Testament (Oxford, 2003)

 

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Religious Studies 161: Modern Islam
Prof. Keith Watenpaugh (kwatenpaugh@ucdavis.edu)

TR 3:10-4:30, 293 Kerr
CRN 44025

This course explores the way Muslims have engaged modernity. Examining this engagement through the three concepts of reformism, fundamentalism and secularism, students will employ primary and secondary materials to make sense of the role of Islam in the contemporary world and the way Muslims have responded to the challenges of imperialism, political change, global capitalism, the information revolution, women’s rights, immigration and life in non-Muslim majority societies. Special emphasis will be placed on the thought of the Islamic Modernists including Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Rashid Rida and Muhammad Abduh; political Islam in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood (Arab Middle East), the Islamic Party (South Asia) and the Party of Liberation (Central Asia); the development of modern and revolutionary Shiism in Iran, Lebanon and Iraq; and an introduction to the emerging role of Islam in Europe and the Western Hemisphere, including the veiling controversy in France and the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X in the US.

Prerequisite: Religious Studies 60 or Consent of Instructor. GE credit: ArtHum or SocSci, Div, Wrt.

Text: A Course Reader