
Spring 2025 Religious Studies Courses
Electives & General Education
Leadership Ethics: Early China (RELG 206, AILT, IFWC)
TR 1:30–2:45 (01); 3:00-4:15 (02)
Jane Geaney
Two questions lie at the heart of classical Chinese texts: how to live and how to lead. This course explores moral visions of life and leadership composed in China two millennia ago and still influencing China’s leaders today— from the uniquely Chinese “Non-Action” method to Chinese Virtue Ethics, Consequentialism, and Divine Command Theory. Topics include Confucian, Daoist, Legalist, and Mohist treatment of Heaven’s Mandate and the ancestral Dao, as well as Sunzi’s Art of War, and contemporary Chinese Social Justice Leadership and Transformational Leadership.
Law & Order in China: Ancient Roots, Modern Impact (RELG 206, AILT, IFWC)
M 3:00–5:40 (03)
Jane Geaney
The concept of the Rule of Law invites comparison across cultures, and “Law & Order in China” approaches the development of law in Early China through this lens. Distinct from morality and custom, the idea of law emerged as a consistent impersonal standard for governance. Though later associated with authoritarianism and anti-intellectualism, Chinese legal thinking arose in response to historical change, challenging the notion of an idealized past and divine mandates. This course encourages students to critically examine the foundations, advantages, and limitations of the Rule of Law, while exploring how early Chinese legal ideas might shape global issues today.
Sex & Salvation in Nineteenth-Century America (RELG 210, AIHS, IFWC)
TR 3:00–4:15 (01); 4:30-5:45 (02)
Doug Winiarski
Why are contemporary American evangelicals fascinated with promoting family values and policing the boundaries of human sexuality? This course looks back to a period in which the most radical Protestants in the young United States questioned everything: family structures, gender roles, sexual identities, and marital arrangements. Topics include the innovative and often controversial sexual and marital practices of the Shakers, Mormons, and Oneida Community. We’ll also pay close attention to the fascinating life and career of the Publick Universal Friend, the first nonbinary religious leader in American history.
Religion, Sports, and Social Justice (RELG 222, AIHS, IFPE)
MW 10:30-11:45
Mimi Hanaoka
This course explores the intersection of religion, sports, and social justice, focusing on the 20th and 21st centuries. We will examine the connections between sports and religion and ask these types of questions: do some sports have their origins in religious movements? How and why have athletes used their platform to advocate social justice, and what does that have to do with religion? What are the intersections between race, gender, religion, and social justice in sports? We will consider examples from basketball, tennis, judo, baseball, boxing, and football.
Religious Studies Seminars
Nature Religion (RELG 302, AMER)
W 3:00–5:40
Doug Winiarski
Life in the Anthropocene demands that we humans radically rethink our relationship to nonhuman animals and the physical environment. More than an ethical imperative, this engagement is more akin to a religious or spiritual calling. In this immersive reading seminar, we’ll study classic works of nineteenth-century American nature religion in art, literature, and philosophy alongside essays by contemporary writers such as bell hooks, Gary Snyder, and Annie Dillard. We’ll learn the fundamentals of American environmental history and dive into contemporary issues: eco-spiritual activism, back-to-the-land communities, re-enchantment, the new animism, and religious controversies involving the science of climate change. Writing assignments will encourage personal reflection and the cultivation of aesthetic, ethical, spiritual, and/or theological values. Class activities will include at least one hiking excursion to the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Women, Gender, Sexuality, and Islam (RELG 303, GSCP, WGTP, AIHS, IFPE)
MW 12:00-1:15
Mimi Hanaoka
This course explores Islam and Muslim traditions through the prisms of women, gender, and sexuality, exploring how authority and power interact with these phenomena. We will ask these types of questions: How is authority gendered in Islam in its social, religious, and domestic dimensions? Where do the utopian ideals of equality create dissonance with the lived reality of gendered societies and communities? Are these issues of women, gender, sexuality, and authority unique to Islam, or do they manifest across a variety of religions and communities across time and place?
Religious Studies
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RELG 103 Introduction to Islam
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS)
DescriptionIntroductory course on Islam that examines its development as a religious and social movement from its inception to the contemporary period. Focuses on understanding the historical processes that contributed to the development of Islam over time and in different regions. Traces the intellectual history, institutional evolution, and theological developments of Islam, placing these phenomena in their appropriate historical contexts. Approach is both chronological and topical. -
RELG 105 Ninety-nine Names of God
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS)
DescriptionA historical approach to the foundational concepts, events, and texts in the Islamic tradition, paying particular attention to the Quran and hadith. The Quran is the Muslim scripture and the hadith are accounts of what the prophet Muhammad said or did. Muhammad described God as having ninety-nine names, and this course explores how these names have been interpreted through reference to the Quran and the corpus of hadith material. -
RELG 200 Symbol, Myth and Ritual
Units: 1
DescriptionIntroduction to study of religion including, but not limited to, social scientific approaches, focusing on symbols, myths, and rituals as constitutive features of individual and communal religious thought and practice. -
RELG 201 The Bible As Literature
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Literary & Textual Analysis (AILT)
DescriptionA non-confessional study of the diverse genres of Biblical literature, viewing passages in historical context to understand the multiple layers of the intended message: period about which written, the time of the writer, and the time of the recipient. Within Biblical exegesis, primary emphasis is given to literary and historical criticism. -
RELG 203 Islam and Film
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS)
DescriptionExplore how Islam and Muslims have been depicted and represented in documentaries and films, focusing on three primary themes: ritual, gender, and race. -
RELG 205 Religion and Literature
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Literary & Textual Analysis (AILT)
DescriptionReligious beliefs, practices, and institutions as expressed in literature of various traditions. May be repeated when topics change. -
RELG 206 Religion, Literature, and Written Communication
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): IF-Written Communication (IFWC), AI-Literary & Textual Analysis (AILT)
DescriptionCourse considers texts related to Religious Studies, explores textual interpretation, and emphasizes writing training. May be repeated when topics change. -
RELG 207 Sex, God, and the Middle East
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE)
DescriptionThis course investigates how sexuality, religion, gender, colonialism, and imperialism have intersected in the Middle East. Examining how both Arabs and Muslims have been represented through art over the centuries. Exploring several foundational concepts, including colonialism, orientalism, imperialism, gender, masculinities, and femininities. -
RELG 208 Occult America
Units: 1
DescriptionIntroduction to historical methods through an investigation of selected eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century supernatural and preternatural phenomena ranging from witchcraft, hauntings, ventriloquism, and spirit possession to occult healing, poisoning, and charming practices. Students will learn to formulate interpretive questions and develop historical arguments based on a broad array of challenging primary texts and related secondary scholarship. -
RELG 210 Religion and History
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Written Communication (IFWC)
DescriptionInvestigation of the nature and limits of historical inquiry through selected historical topics, periods, and religious traditions. May be repeated when topics change. -
RELG 215 Religion and the Arts
Units: 1
DescriptionInteractions of religious beliefs and practices with the visual and performing arts in selected traditions. May be repeated when topics change. -
RELG 220 Magic & Religion in the Early Christian World
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Visual & Performing Arts (AIVP), IF-Written Communication (IFWC)
DescriptionThe course focuses on the development of magic in the Greek and Roman worlds. Since Christianity developed in the Roman world, it examines the role of magic in the early Church. -
RELG 221 Satan
Units: 1
DescriptionStudents will develop understanding of the figure of Satan in ancient Jewish and Christian literature, as well as its appropriation by modern popular culture. Particular emphasis is given to the historical events that spur changes in the role/development of the figure of Satan. -
RELG 222 Religion, Sports, and Social Justice
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE)
DescriptionThis course explores the intersection of religion, sports, and social justice, focusing on the 20th and 21st centuries. We will pay close attention to issues of race and gender, considering how authority and power interact with these phenomena within the arena of sports. We will ask how and why athletes have used their platform to advocate for social justice and how that has intersected with religion. We will consider examples from various sports, including basketball, tennis, judo, baseball, boxing, and football. -
RELG 223 Gods of the Pharaohs
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS)
DescriptionExamines ancient Egyptian religions and religious rituals in their geographical and chronological specificity through literature and material culture. -
RELG 225 Horror and the Bible
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), IF-Written Communication (IFWC)
DescriptionExplore the intersections of horror (in literature, film, and other media) and the Bible. Use of horror and horror theory to interpret biblical texts, and use the Bible to push back against and reimagine horror. We will also consider how horror offers a lens to analyze forms of difference and oppression. -
RELG 230 The History of Israel
Units: 1
DescriptionIsrael's historical development through collaborative study of Israel's ideas and institutions within context of Ancient Near East. -
RELG 233 Sex and the Hebrew Bible
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), AI-Literary & Textual Analysis (AILT)
DescriptionThis class critically examines sex, gender, and sexuality as they are constructed in the Hebrew Bible. We will consider biblical ideas of sexuality and desire, laws regulating sex and the body, homoeroticism and homosexuality, trans representation, the portrayal of women, and queer characters and moments in the Bible. We will also explore how key biblical texts about gender and sexuality have been interpreted over time. -
RELG 235 The Hebrew Bible, the Climate, and the End of the World as We Know It
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): IF-Written Communication (IFWC), AI-Literary & Textual Analysis (AILT)
DescriptionThis class explores biblical perspectives on climate change, the Anthropocene, and prophecies of environmental collapse and dystopia. -
RELG 238 Introduction to the Hebrew Bible
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Literary & Textual Analysis (AILT)
DescriptionIntroductory course on the Hebrew Bible (New Testament). Emphasizes the literary and historical interpretation of biblical texts, but also discusses including archaeology, myth and folklore criticism, and feminist criticism. The class also explores the sociocultural world of the Hebrew Bible, the composition and canonization of texts, and problems of interpretation. -
RELG 240 Lost Christianities
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS), IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), IF-Embodied Communication (IFEB)
DescriptionExplores the varieties of Christianity that co-existed from Jesus' death in the middle of the first century through the end of the second century. Included in these are Jewish-Christians, Marcionites, Montanists, and Gnostics. A variety of primary texts in translation will be read to understand better the struggle between forms of early Christianity and the way that one form became dominant and, thus, "orthodox." -
RELG 241 Introduction to New Testament
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS)
DescriptionSurvey of history of early Christianity, from Jesus and his religious background to the third century C.E. Focus on primary texts: New Testament and other early Christian literature. -
RELG 242 Jesus in History and Tradition
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS)
DescriptionInvestigates diversity of historical sources for Jesus. Detailed attention to selected ancient documents and modern interpretations. -
RELG 244 Sex and Family in the Greek and Roman Worlds
Units: 1
DescriptionExplores intersections of gender, ethnicity, and class in selected religions, with emphasis on theoretical and empirical approaches. -
RELG 250 Introduction to World Religions
Units: 1
DescriptionSurvey of major beliefs, practices, symbols, and sacred texts in selected religious traditions. -
RELG 251 Sacred Arts of India
Units: 1
DescriptionIntroduction to Indian religions focusing on artistic expressions, roles of yoga and meditation in creativity, and use of images to experience the divine. -
RELG 253 Body/Sex in World Religious Literature
Units: 1
DescriptionExploration of theoretical ideas about body and sexuality in world religious literature focusing on connection between sexuality and construction of identity in various religious perspectives. -
RELG 257 Native American Religions
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS)
DescriptionSurvey of selected themes in Native American religious history from prehistory through the new millennium. Will investigate development of complex religious traditions among the mound builder cultures of the southeast; rituals of trade, healing, and warfare among the Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples of the northeast; the emergence of native prophets and visionaries who employed religious doctrine and ritual in support of military actions against invading American settlers; and Black Elk and Lakota Catholicism. Concludes with topical discussion of religious challenges facing Indian communities today, including the controversial use of the narcotic peyote in the Native American Church, debates over the status of Indian burial remains and sacred space, and the appropriation of indigenous spirituality by New Age gurus and environmentalists. -
RELG 258 Religion & the Medieval Imagination
Units: 1
DescriptionIntroduces ideas and institutions of the Latin west, from Augustine of Hippo (d. 430) to Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274). Topics may include faith and reason, the sacraments, pilgrimage, and the ethics of sex, war, and death.. -
RELG 262 Sacred Arts of Native America
Units: 1
DescriptionIntroduction to a variety of sacred arts of Native America and religious roles that visual and performing arts serve in Amerindian settings. Students will gain conversance with a range of artistic techniques, materials, and objects and their cultural meanings. -
RELG 263 Religion and the Arts
Units: 1
DescriptionInteractions of religious beliefs and practices with the visual and performing arts in selected traditions. May be repeated when topics change. -
RELG 267 Varieties of Christian Ethics
Units: 1
DescriptionHistorical and contemporary approaches to ethics in the Christian traditions. Authors discussed may include Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and contemporary thinkers on war, abortion, and sexuality. -
RELG 269 Ethics, Religion, and the Environment
Units: 1
DescriptionMoral and religious issues that attend our life in and interaction with the environment. Through the detailed analysis of text and argument the course seeks to provide an overview of on-going issues and to foster the ability to read and assess arguments from a variety of positions. -
RELG 273 Witchcraft and Its Interpreters
Units: 1
DescriptionInterdisciplinary exploration of witchcraft, popular magic, and demonic possession in early modern England and British North America based on original legal records and other primary sources. Special attention given to the Salem Witch-hunt and the historical methods employed by contemporary scholars. -
RELG 288 Saints and Sinners in Muslim Literature
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS)
DescriptionExplores the twin concepts of sainthood and sinfulness in Islamic thought and society from their early iterations to their later developments. Discusses how, when, and why the categories of Sunni, Shi'a, and Sufi developed in the Islamic tradition while introducing their relationships to concepts of sainthood and sinfulness. In the context of discussions about saints and sinners in the Islamic tradition, addresses Muslim understandings of God, humanity, and community and considers how these differ across time and place. -
RELG 293 Selected Topics
Units: 1
DescriptionSpecial course offered at introductory level when sufficient faculty or student interest exists in subject matter not covered in other religion courses. May be repeated for credit when topics vary. -
RELG 294 Selected Topics
Units: 1
DescriptionSpecial course offered at introductory level when sufficient faculty or student interest exists in subject matter not covered in other religion courses. May be repeated for credit when topics vary. -
RELG 302 Nature Religion
Units: 1
DescriptionAdvanced seminar course exploring representations of the natural world in American cultural history from the era of contact through the nineteenth century. Readings consist of primary sources--landscape paintings, novels, philosophical treatises, poems, sermons, and travel literature--as well as secondary studies of these works by leading scholars in the fields of Anthropology, Art History, Environmental History, Intellectual/Cultural History, Literature, and Religious Studies. Topics covered may include Native American environmental practices, Puritanism and the concept of "wilderness," the place of nature in early American travel narratives and novels, the Hudson River School of landscape painters, and American Transcendentalism. -
RELG 303 Women, Gender, Sexuality, and Islam
Units: 1
DescriptionExplores Islam and Muslim traditions through the prisms of women, gender, and sexuality, exploring how authority and power interact with these phenomena. -
RELG 305 Queer Bible
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), IF-Written Communication (IFWC)
DescriptionThis course brings together queer theory, sexuality, and the Bible in order to explore what it means to “queer” the Bible and biblical interpretations. Readings include both biblical texts and queer and trans scholarship on the Bible. Topics may include questions of sexuality, gender identity, and queer hermeneutics, queer time, queer affect, and queer pleasure in the Bible. -
RELG 307 Islam in America
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS)
DescriptionExplore the history and life of Muslims and Islam in the United States. Examine the origins of Islam in America, including slavery and different waves immigration and conversion over five centuries, special attention to the 19th – 21st centuries. Our attunement of the racialization of Islam and Muslims will ground our approach to the events, concepts, institutions, and ideas that we study in this course. -
RELG 310 Dying for God
Units: 1
DescriptionIntroduces students to the history of Roman persecution of Christians through historical and literary analysis of texts from the 2nd–4th centuries CE. -
RELG 330 Genesis
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Literary & Textual Analysis (AILT)
DescriptionGenesis, the first book of the Bible, remains among the most important literary, historical, and theological works ever written. In this class, we will take a deep dive into Genesis, while also exploring literary, historical, mythological, feminist, postcolonial, and other responses to the text. We will also consider the history of interpretation, with a particular interest in the reception of Genesis in literature and in popular culture. -
RELG 331 The Hebrew Prophets
Units: 1
DescriptionAn exploration of prophets and prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, including Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Jonah. Topics include the lives of the prophets, the prophecy and poetry, the relationship between prophetic speech and actions, prophecy and the body, failed prophecy, prophecy as social justice, and contemporary re-imaginings of biblical prophecy. -
RELG 332 Pain, Suffering, and Wisdom: Hebrew Bible
Units: 1
DescriptionDevelopment of biblical wisdom literature. Pre-biblical, Hebrew, and Christian wisdom selections. -
RELG 341 Hate: A History of Antisemitism
Units: 1
DescriptionIntroduces students to the long history of antisemitism—a history that begins in ancient Egypt and continues in our own time. Through the semester, students will trace the various manifestations of antisemitism not only in physical acts but also in destructive myths. The course does not assume prior knowledge of Religious Studies or Judaism. -
RELG 342 Whores, Dragons, and the Anti-Christ: Revelation and the Apocalyptic Imagination
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS)
DescriptionLiterary analysis of a text ascribed to John of Patmos, the Book of Revelation. The apocalyptic revelation that is said to have been received by John describes Christian expectations of the end of the world as we know it, but John's is not the only ancient apocalypse; thus, the course will also situate John's text in light of other developments in Christian apocalyptic literature. Centers on genre analysis and interpretation of apocalyptic imagery and symbolism with some attention to modern, cinematic employment of apocalyptic thought. -
RELG 345 Christianity and Slavery, Ancient and Modern
Units: 1
DescriptionConsiders the impact of slaveholding culture on Christian thought and practice both in antiquity and in the Americas; also analyzes the circumstances under which individual Christians and church communities accommodated, reformed, resisted, and rejected slaveholding practices. -
RELG 347 Women in Early Christianity
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS)
DescriptionExamines the representations of women in early Christianity, focusing primarily on the first four centuries of Christian history, with particular attention given to the problems of using ancient sources to determine social practice. Introduction to constructions of sex and gender in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and medical literature, the role of women in contemporaneous pagan and Jewish cultures, and intra-Christian conflicts involving the role of women, in particular, martyrdom, orthodoxy and heresy, and asceticism. -
RELG 352 The Hindu Tradition
Units: 1
DescriptionSurvey of major historical movements, philosophical developments, and cultural expressions in India and Tibet. -
RELG 355 Selected Asian Religions
Units: 1
DescriptionIntensive study of one of the following religious traditions: Daoism, Confucianism, or Zen. -
RELG 358 Topics in American Religious Traditions
Units: 1
DescriptionFocused study of a selected topic in American religious history such as the Great Awakening, Indians and missionaries, religious autobiography, or the frontier. Seminar format emphasizing the analysis of primary sources and related methodological issues. May be repeated for credit when topics vary. -
RELG 366 Buddhist Philosophy
Units: 1
DescriptionMajor Buddhist philosophical developments, beginning in India and culminating in contemporary Zen philosophy. -
RELG 367 Topics in Western Religious Thought
Units: 1
DescriptionSelected issues and figures in Western Religious Thought, such as Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, 12th Century Renaissance, Religion and the Sciences, and Medieval Religious Orders. May be repeated for credit when topics vary. -
RELG 369 Problems in Social Ethics
Units: 1
DescriptionSelected issues of social concern as addressed by various religious traditions in contemporary context. Such topics as sexuality, war, abortion, euthanasia, and environmentalism. May be repeated for credit when topics vary. -
RELG 370 Leadership and Religious Values
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): AI-Literary & Textual Analysis (AILT), IF-Embodied Communication (IFEB)
Description(See Leadership 387.) -
RELG 385 Sufism: Introduction to Islamic Mysticism
Units: 1
Fulfills General Education Requirement(s): IF-Power/Equity/Identity/Cult (IFPE), AI-Historical Inquiry (AIHS)
DescriptionExplores the origins and development of mystical thought within Islamic religious and intellectual history and places these developments in their appropriate historical and social contexts. -
RELG 388 Individual Internship
Units: 0.5
DescriptionApplication of academic skills and theories in placement supervised by religious studies department faculty member. Application must be presented to and approved by the department prior to internship. No more than 1.5 units of internship in any one department and 3.5 units of internship overall may be counted toward required degree units. -
RELG 393 Selected Topics
Units: 1
DescriptionSpecial course offered when sufficient student interest exists in subject matter not covered in other religious studies courses. May be repeated for credit when topics vary. -
RELG 394 Selected Topics
Units: 1
DescriptionSpecial course offered when sufficient student interest exists in subject matter not covered in other religious studies courses. May be repeated for credit when topics vary. -
RELG 395 Independent Study
Units: 0.25
DescriptionSpecialized study to provide maximum freedom in research and investigation. -
RELG 396 Independent Study
Units: 0.25
DescriptionSpecialized study to provide maximum freedom in research and investigation. -
RELG 403 Honors Course
Units: 1
DescriptionGuided, in-depth research, usually beginning in the fall of the senior year and culminating in the oral defense of the honors thesis in the spring, for those accepted in the department honors program. The honors thesis constitutes the senior paper. Those planning to complete coursework in December must make arrangements to complete the honors program in or before the fall of the senior year. -
RELG 404 Honors Course
Units: 1
DescriptionGuided, in-depth research, usually beginning in the fall of the senior year and culminating in the oral defense of the honors thesis in the spring, for those accepted in the department honors program. The honors thesis constitutes the senior paper. Those planning to complete coursework in December must make arrangements to complete the honors program in or before the fall of the senior year. -
RELG 406 Summer Undergraduate Research
Units:
DescriptionDocumentation of the work of students who receive summer fellowships to conduct research [or produce a creative arts project] in the summer. The work must take place over a minimum of 6 weeks, the student must engage in the project full-time (at least 40 hours per week) during this period, and the student must be the recipient of a fellowship through the university. Graded S/U.