Courses

• CAS RN 310: Christendom Divided: Reformation and Religious Conflict in Early Modern Europe
  Religious change in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the origins and causes of the Protestant Reformation; the Catholic Reformation; the resulting civil wars in the Germanies, France, and the Netherlands; pertinent aspects of Tudor and Stuart England. Also offered as CAS HI 209.
• CAS RN 312: Buddhism in America
  The transplantation and transformation of Buddhism in the United States. Time period ranges from the eighteenth century to the present, but the emphasis is on contemporary developments, including the new Asian immigration, Jewish Buddhism, feminization, and engaged Buddhism.
• CAS RN 314: Religious Thought in America
  Surveys many of the strategies that American religious thinkers have adopted for interpreting the cosmos, the social order and human experience, and the interaction of those strategies with broader currents of American culture. Also offered as CAS HI 308.
• CAS RN 316: 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.
• CAS RN 317: Greek and Roman Religion
  Survey of ancient Greek and Roman religions and their development from earliest beginnings to the eclipse of paganism. Theories and practices of these religions, comparisons with other religions, and relationships to Judaism and Christianity.
• CAS RN 318: Religion and American Foreign Policy
  Introduction to the historical roots and contemporary relevance of religion for American foreign policy. Uses conventional chronological approaches to explore key themes that illustrate the role of religion as input and object of American foreign policy. Also offered as CAS IR 318.
• CAS RN 322: History of Judaism
  Major trends in post-biblical Judaism; academy and synagogue; Mishna and Talmud; Babylonian diaspora; medieval poetry, philosophy, and mysticism; codes of law; organization of the Jewish community "in exile", the land of Israel; Jewish, Islamic, and Christian civilizations.
• CAS RN 323: Classical Jewish Thought
  Basic human and religious issues as they have been understood within the classical Jewish framework of God, the people of Israel, and Torah: good and evil, creation, the relationship of human beings to God and to one another.
• CAS RN 324: Introduction to Rabbinic Literature
  Chronological exploration of rabbinic Judaism's major documents, using a modern scholarly anthology. The Mishnah; legal and legendary selections from the midrashim and both the Jerusalem and Palestinian Talmuds. Themes: monotheism, sin and atonement, heaven and hell, conceptions of gender, the impact of rabbinic texts on medieval and modern Judaism.
• CAS RN 325: Jewish Mysticism I: Formative Traditions
  Analysis of the development of Jewish mysticism from the biblical to the early medieval era. Emphasis on the forms of mysticism--and the texts in which they are embedded--from the rabbinic era. No knowledge of Hebrew is required.
• CAS RN 326: 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.
• CAS RN 330: 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.
• CAS RN 331: 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.
• CAS RN 332: Foundations of Jewish Politics
  A foundational course for the study of Jewish political history. Students gain a broad understanding of central aspects of the "Jewish political tradition" from biblical times until today -- in Europe, the Americas, and the modern Middle East. Also offered as CAS HI 388.
• CAS RN 334: 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.
• CAS RN 335: Josephus and Ancient Judaism
  Explores Judaism and Jewish society in the Roman world, primarily through the lens of Josephus, the most important Jewish historian in pre-modern times. Examines Josephus on Herod, Jewish sectarianism, emergence of Christianity, destruction of the Temple, fall of Masada. Also offered as CAS CL 315.
• CAS RN 336: 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 CAS XL 356.
• CAS RN 337: Gender and Judaism
  Jewish monotheism examined from the perspectives of gender theory, feminism, and homoeroticism. Themes include religion and gender, women and homosexuals as "other" in Jewish and Christian thought, difficult traditional texts and their reappropriation, issues in contemporary spirituality.
• CAS RN 338: Mysticism and Philosophy: Medieval Jewish Perspectives
  Thematic introduction to mysticism and philosophy, with a focus on dynamics of religious experience. Readings from medieval Jewish philosophy, Kabbalah, Biblical interpretation, Sufi-inspired mysticism, poetry from the Golden Age of Muslim Spain. Attention to interactions with Islamic philosophy and mysticism.
• CAS RN 339: The Modern Jew
  Explores modern Jewish experience of space, body, language, and the self as sites of the struggles over a secular identity. Part of a sequence on "The Other Within." Counts toward concentrations in Judaic Studies and Religion.

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