Course Descriptions

Fall 2009

REL 130C Introduction to Religions
10:30-11:30 MWF/Leslie James
This course is an introduction to the major religious traditions of the world. It includes Eastern, Western, and other religious traditions. Its major goal is to inform students about the histories, beliefs and practices of the world's religions from pre-historic times to the present twenty-first century. Amongst other things, the expectation is that students will appreciate the significance of religions and beliefs systems in the birth of civilizations, their influence in the everyday life of practitioners, influence on history and the contemporary world, and the need to acquire knowledge and understanding of religions and religious practices.

REL 141 Hebrew Bible
10:00-11:30 MW/Russell Arnold
This course introduces students to the literature of Ancient Israel that came to be known as the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh or Old Testament). Students will be expected to read significant portions of this literature in translation and to learn to recognize its complexity and diversity. In class we will discuss the texts within the historical and cultural contexts in which they developed and were written down. Students will also be introduced to the methods and practices of biblical scholarship, as well as the rich interpretive traditions carried on by Jewish and Christian communities throughout the ages. It is my goal that students will become sophisticated, careful readers of the biblical text so that they will be able to understand and assess the many varied theological, political, and social positions said to be proven based on what “the Bible says.”

REL 142 New Testament
10:00-11:30 TR/William E. Smith III
In this class, we will explore together the writings that comprise the New Testament (NT) or Christian scriptures and the world in which they were composed. This means that we will investigate not only the theological ideas contained in the various texts found in the NT but also how these ideas relate to their historical and cultural environments or ‘contexts.’ We will read all 27 texts that comprise the NT. As we read, we will also be learning the basic methods and questions that biblical scholars use when they study the NT. We will end with a reflection on why these particular texts, out of all those that early Christians wrote (a select few of which we will also read and discuss), came to be collected together into a group that is now commonly referred to as the NT. Some of the goals of this class include greater familiarity with the content of the NT as well as more complex and nuanced ways of thinking about this content.

REL 241 Biblical Literature
2:20-3:50 TR/Beth Benedix
The term “Biblical literature” presents us immediately with a set of complicated issues:  What assumptions do we need to make in order to read the Bible as a work that we might describe as “literary” in nature?  How to approach a set of texts that do not present a unified or necessarily coherent message?  In this class, we’re going to be considering the phrase “Biblical literature” primarily from two vantage-points.  The first is the Bible as literature.  Here, we will look at Biblical texts themselves, addressing how these pieces might be read in the context of traditional interpretive approaches, but also as discrete entities that shed light on the historical, political and religious environments in which they were written.  As we look at these texts, we will want to think about the question of redaction, or the process by which these pieces become part of the Biblical canon.  Beginning with the first two chapters of Genesis, we as readers are presented with any number of seemingly conflicting claims.  How do these conflicts work together to form the finished piece we know as the Bible?  We will also be considering the Bible in literature, and this venture will occupy the majority of our discussions.  Here, we’ll encounter a number of modern works that echo pieces of the Bible—some quite subtly, others more explicitly.  As we confront these works, we will want to explore possible motivations on the part of the authors who wrote them.  In each case, these authors are involved in a process of revision, of re-evaluation:  how does the borrowed Biblical text help them in this process?

REL 257 Hinduism
2:50-3:50 MWF/Jason Fuller
We will examine religious experience and expression in Hindu India in their diversity and regional variation with special emphasis on the contemporary persistence of traditional values and practices. Relevant historical background will be surveyed to help assess continuity and change in learned and vernacular Hindu religious practices and the values that both influence and are displayed in them.

This will be a participatory class where students will be expected to take an active role in discussions of reading assignments and areas of particular student interest. Class-time will be devoted to a mixture of discussions, student presentations, video screenings and lectures. Students will be held responsible for all material covered in class (particularly lectures) as well as all assigned readings.

REL 290 Tps: Jerusalem: Holy City
10:00-11:30 TR/Russell Arnold
This course will survey the religious, political, and cultural history of Jerusalem over three millennia as a symbolic focus of three faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. We will discuss the transformations of sacred space as reflected in literary and archaeological evidence by examining the testimony of artifacts, architecture, and iconography in relation to the written word. We will study the creation and development of mythic Jerusalem through event and experience. We will also discuss the ways in which competing attachments to the city result in conflict between groups throughout history and inform the current disagreements over the Jerusalem’s status for Israelis and Palestinians.

REL 340 Tps: Jewish and Christian Origins, ‘S’
2:20-3:50 MW/Russell Arnold
This course will focus on the history, literature, and religious developments in the period between 200 BCE and 200 CE. We will deal with the late biblical literature, some apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls, and how these various traditions are reflected in the origins of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. The last part of the class will discuss the relationships between early christian traditions and early rabbinic traditions.

REL 370B Bob Marley and Caribbean Religion and Culture, ‘S’
2:20-3:50 MW/Leslie James
This course explores and interprets Caribbean religion and culture, as well as global culture, through the lens of Bob Marley, the world’s most famous Reggae superstar and Rastafari. Through close study of Bob Marley’s life and music, it will show the message and meaning of the Rastafarian faith in the midst of conflict-ridden colonial, post-colonial, independent, and cold war Jamaican society. The role of the artist in the process of social change, humanization, and cultural development, will be a fundamental question in the course. It will situate Marley’s life and music in those historical processes to appreciate the power of his life and music, their enduring impact on Jamaica, the Caribbean, and global culture. It will investigate them in depth to show they address issues and themes that cover the Black/African experience in the modern world such as identity, exile and repatriation, slavery, Babylonian captivity, war, peace, political violence, redemption, emancipation, nostalgia, love, unity, truth, freedom, and the struggle for independence and sovereignty in the post-colonial world.

REL 479 Seminar in Religion
7:00-9:50 pm T/Jason Fuller
The Senior Seminar is designed to be the capstone experience for Religious Studies majors. Students will undertake a semester-long research, writing and discussion program that will result in the production of a 20-25 page final seminar paper (plus 3-5 pages of endnotes and bibliography). The final seminar paper should explore a theme or subject of personal interest in the academic study of religion that simultaneously demonstrates an awareness of Religious Studies as a discipline. The seminar will culminate in a formal presentation of research to an audience of peers and professors.