Winter 2014

Course CRN Title Room Instructor
RST 1E -    Topic: "Fundamentalism" 146 Olson K. Watenpaugh
  80180    (sec. 1, Discussion Section) 267 Olson M. Casey
  80181    (sec. 2, Discussion Section) 267 Olson M. Casey
  80182    (sec. 3, Discussion Section) 144 Olson J. Mayhew
  80183    (sec. 4, Discussion Section) 144 Olson J. Mayhew
RST 1F -    Topic: "Contemporary Religion" 234 Wellman M. Elmore
  83377    (sec. 1, Discussion Section) 101 Olson C. Garoupa White
  83378    (sec. 2, Discussion Section) 101 Olson C. Garoupa White
  83379    (sec. 3, Discussion Section) 229 Wellman C. Thorman
  83380    (sec. 4, Discussion Section) 229 Wellman C. Thorman
RST 10 83381    Contemporary Ethical Issues 2 Wellman M. O'Keefe
RST 42 83513    Religion and Science Fiction 106 Olson W. Terry          
RST 70 83382    Religion and Language 212 Veihmeyer M. O'Keefe
RST 80  84371    Religion, Gender, Sexuality           204 Art A. Coudert
RST 105 84372    Christianity and Modernity, 1700-1920          204 Art A. Coudert

Religious Studies 1E. Topics in Comparative Religions: "Fundamentalism" (4 Units)
Prof. Keith Watenpaugh

Lecture: TR 3:10-4:30P, 146 Olson

Discussion Sections:

Section    Instructor    Day/Time Room CRN
1 Matthew Casey   W 3:10-4:00P 267 Olson     80180
2 Matthew Casey   W 4:10-5:00P 267 Olson 80181
3 Jessica Mayhew R 9:00-9:50A 144 Olson 80182
4 Jessica Mayhew R 10:00-10:50A 144 Olson 80183

Course Description: 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 movements in Christianity and Islam. 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 credits (Old): Arts & Humanities, Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE credits (New): Arts & Humanities or Social Sciences, Oral Literacy, Visual Literacy and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Discussion - 1 hour.

Texts:

  • TBA
     

Religious Studies 1F. Topics in Comparative Religions: "Contemporary Religion" (4 Units)
Prof. Mark Elmore

Lecture: TR 12:10-1:30P, 234 Wellman (New Room)

Discussion Sections:

Section     Instructor Day/Time Room CRN
1 Catherine Garoupa White   R 3:10-4:00P 101 Olson     83377
2 Catherine Garoupa White   R 4:10-5:00P 101 Olson 83378
3 Cai Thorman F 9:00-9:50A 229 Wellman   83379
4 Cai Thorman F 10:00-10:50A   229 Wellman   83380   

Course Description: 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 analyses 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.

Prerequisite: None.

GE credits (Old): Arts & Humanities, Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE credits (New): Arts & Humanities, Oral Literacy, Visual Literacy, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Discussion - 1 hour.

Texts:

  • TBA
     

Religious Studies 10. Healthcare and Religious Belief (2 Units)
Prof. Meaghan O'Keefe

MW 10:00-10:50A, 2 Wellman
CRN 83381

Course Description: This course examines how various religious traditions deal with the ethical dilemmas involved in healthcare. We will study topics such as the end of life, caring for the sick, dealing with disasters with limited resources, growing up, birth, pregnancy, and conception. Rather than making judgments about what’s right and what’s wrong in a particular situation, we will investigate how different religious traditions categorize, understand, and encourage ethical actions in a given context.  We will also examine how religious ideas can, at times, complicate the process of providing individual healthcare as well the design and delivery of public health programs.

Prerequisite: None.

GE credits (Old): Writing Experience.
GE credits (New): None.

Format: Lecture - 2 hours.

Texts:

  • None
     

Religious Studies 42. Religion and Science Fiction (4 Units)
Prof. Wendy Terry

MWF 1:10-2:00P, 106 Olson
CRN 83513

Course Description: 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.

Prerequisite:  None.

GE credits (Old): Arts & Humanities, Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE credits (New): None.

Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Texts:

  • Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz  (Bantam Spectra, 1984)
  • Neil Gaiman, American Gods  (HarperTorch, 2002)
  • Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale  (Anchor, 1998)
     

Religious Studies 70. Religion and Language (4 Units)
Prof. Meaghan O'Keefe

MWF 11:00-11:50A, 212 Viehmeyer
CRN 83382

Course Description: This course considers the relationship between religion and language: how does language shape religious experience and how do religious traditions shape our understanding of language? Topics covered include the translation of sacred texts, ritual language, and the involvement of religious traditions in the ways in which scholars study language. Material covered will include performances of “speaking in tongues,” early European descriptions of Asian and Meso-American languages, and contemporary problems in translations of sacred terms.

Prerequisite:  None.

GE credits (Old): None.
GE credits (New): None.

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Texts:

  • Joseph Errington, Linguistics in a Colonial World: A Story of Language, Meaning, and Power (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007)
     

Religious Studies 80. Religion, Gender, Sexuality (4 Units)
Prof. Allison Coudert

M 4:10-7:00P, 204 Art
CRN 84371

Course Description: This course examines the constructions of gender and sexuality within different religious traditions, both pre-modern and modern. 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.

A focus of the class will be to investigate the way the art of different religious traditions reflects prevailing assumptions about gender.

Prerequisite:  None.

GE credits (Old): Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE credits (New): Arts and Humanities and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Texts:

  • TBA
     

Religious Studies 105. Christianity and Modernity, 1700-1920 (4 Units)
Prof. Allison Coudert

W 4:10-7:00P, 204 Art
CRN 84372

Course Description: This course investigates the reaction of Christian critics and apologists to the profound scientific, philosophical, and cultural transformations marking the period from the 1700-1925. This period witnessed the most serious intellectual assaults on Christianity (and religion in general) in western history, but as we shall see, these assaults were met with quite extraordinary resilience. Not only was the existence of God questioned, but so too were the historical authorship and veracity of Christian Scriptures, the reality and identity of Jesus, the existence of the soul and life after death. In many cases the authority of institutional Churches was rejected in favor of individual conscience, and the uniqueness and superiority of the Christian revelation was denied in favor of a “natural religion” available to all men at all times. For many people, however, the most severe blow to religion and traditional ways of thinking came in the form of Darwin’s theory of evolution and the Social Darwinism that emerged from it. It is no coincidence that out of this cauldron of new and contentious ideas new forms of biblical fundamentalism and apocalypticism developed. The divisive issues, which were at the heart of the conflict between religious liberals and conservatives in the two hundred years under review, anticipated our own era’s conflicts, and they were no less contentious then than they are today. Such conflict is, perhaps, an aspect of modernity itself.

Prerequisite:  None.

GE credits (Old): Arts & Humanities, Diversity and Writing Experience.
GE credits (New): Arts & Humanities, Oral Literacy, Visual Literacy, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Texts:

  • TBA