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