Religion

• GRS RN 601: Varieties of Early Christianity
  Surveys the many different and often competing forms of Christianity that arose and flourished in the second to the seventh Century, from the "apostolic period" to the Arab conquest in the Middle East.
• GRS RN 616: Modern Islam
  Focuses on formations of Islam in colonial and postcolonial periods. How modernist and Islamist thinkers have negotiated the encounter between tradition and modernity.
• GRS RN 622: History of Judaism
  Major trends in postbiblical Judaism; academy and synagogue; Mishna and Talmud; Babylonian diaspora; medieval poetry, philosophy, and mysticism; codes of law; organization of the Jewish community "in exile"; land of Israel; Judaism and Islamic and Christian civilization.
• GRS RN 626: Jewish Mystical Movements and Modernization, 1492–2000
  Mysticism, spiritual, and social influences. Early modern, modern periods. Focus on "conservative" and "revolutionary" tendencies. 1492 and Iberian, German, Polish Jewry; leadership of "third generation" of survivors; Christian and Islamic influences; Kulturkampf precipitated by popularization of Kabbala, antinomianism, Hasidism, magic, science.
• GRS RN 630: American Jewish Experiences
  Examines history, culture, politics, and identities of American Jews and Judaism, 1654-2010. Communal documents, family histories, liturgy, sermons, music, films, literature, art, and artifacts are employed to study similarities and differences with other Jewish communities and other American minorities.
• GRS RN 631: Zionism and the State of Israel
  Introduction to the development of Jewish nationalism from its traditional and European origins through its culmination in the modern state of Israel. Readings from Zionist and Israeli literature on political, religious, and philosophical implications.
• GRS RN 634: Dead Sea Scrolls
  Examination of the ancient Hebrew documents discovered in the Judean desert. Their authorship; the theological significance of the Scrolls; their relations to Ancient Judaism and early Christianity; the controversy over their release and publication.
• GRS RN 636: The Heretical Jew
  Explores heresy in the Jewish context, both in the classic sense and as a category evolving in the secular world. Topics include biblical and rabbinic heretics, early modern and Enlightenment philosophy, post- Holocaust theology, and feminist and gay/lesbian challenges to normative Judaism. Also offered as GRS XL 656.
• GRS RN 637: Gender and Judaism
  Monotheism, especially the Jewish tradition, examined from the perspectives of gender theory, feminism, and homoeroticism. Topics include religion and gender, women and homosexuals as "other" in Jewish and Christian thought, rappropriation of traditional texts, and issues in contemporary spirituality.
• GRS RN 640: The Quran
  The emergence of the Quran as a major religious text, its structure and literary features, its principle themes and places within the religious and intellectual life of the Muslim community.
• GRS RN 648: Rumi and Persian Sufi Poetry
  Introduction to the Persian Sufi poet Rumi's narrative and lyric writings. Beginning with an introduction to Islamic mysticism, studies the innovative aspects of Rumi's poetry and the problem of profane vs. sacred love. All readings in English translation.
• GRS RN 684: The Holocaust
  Background of German (and European) anti-Semitism. Rise of Nazism and early oppression, initial Jewish reaction, mechanics of destruction, ghettos, camps, world response and nonresponse, literature of the Holocaust, and religious implications.
• GRS RN 687: Anthropology of Religion
  Myth, ritual, and religious experience across cultures. Special attention to the problem of religious symbolism and meaning, religious conversion and revitalization, contrasts between traditional and world religions and the relation of religious knowledge to science, magic and idealogy.
• GRS RN 696: Philosophy of Religion
  Critical survey of the manner in which philosophers over the centuries have evaluated the truth and value claims of various religions. Focus on Hegel and the nineteenth-century emergence of "philosophy of religion" as a subdiscipline of philosophy and theology.
• GRS RN 724: Core Texts and Motifs of World Religions: East
  An intensive seminar in primary texts and key ideas of theology and religious philosophy as developed in representative world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism. Second course in a year-long sequence. Each semester may be taken independently. Also offered as STH TT 902.
• GRS RN 725: Topics in South Asian Religion
  Specific aspects of South Asian religions within a historical or comparative/ phenomenological framework. Two topics are offered 2009/2010. Students may take one or both for credit. Fall 2009: Religion and Politics in South Asia. Explores the relationship between religion and politics in colonial and post-colonial South Asia through readings of primary texts as well as debates on religious reform/revival, nationalism, caste, and partition. Spring 2010: Visual Piety in South Asia. A focus on the Indic concept of darshan (auspicious sight) as a way of understanding the everyday religious lives of South Asians. An exploration of the way people in the region "see" religion, with an emphasis on Hinduism.
• GRS RN 727: Topics in American Religion
  Topic for Fall 2010: Wandering as Practice and Play. Is wandering punishment or opportunity? Virtue or vice? Might this playful practice serve as an antidote to American obsessions with efficiency, productivity, and the purpose-driven life? Possible authors: Thoreau, Twain, Kerouac, Crace, Dillard, Berry.
• GRS RN 730: Topics in East Asian Religion
  Topic for Fall 2011: Women in East Asian Religions. Explores religious lives of women in China, Japan and Korea. Covers Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Shinto, shamanism and folk traditions. Includes premodern and contemporary beliefs and practices drawing on case studies and broader historical and doctrinal materials.
• GRS RN 734: Representations of Muhammad
  Explores Muslim and non-Muslim representations of Muhammad over the centuries in prose biographies, poetry, and film. Attention to differences of genre across time and space. Focuses on shifting ideas about holiness, sex, violence, and revelation.
• GRS RN 739: Jewish Bioethics
  Exploration of Jewish perspectives on life, death and dying, abortion, the new reproductive technologies, organ transplantation and genetic engineering. Examination of the impact of the Nazi doctors, racial hygiene, euthanasia, and genocide on contemporary bioethics.

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