Courses

• CAS RN 111: Multireligious America
  Introduction to American religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, with an emphasis on developments after 1965, when new legislation opened up immigration and dramatically altered the American religious landscape. Exploration of interreligious interactions: conflict, cooperation, and creolization.
• CAS RN 121: Religion in America
  Religion in American history from early European encounters with indigenous peoples to the pluralistic present. Focus on interrelationship of religious beliefs and practices with intellectual, social, political, and cultural life in America. Readings may include Jefferson, Vivekananda, Heschel, King, Daly.
• CAS RN 200: Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Religion
  Origins and history of the academic study of religion. Different constructions of religion as an object of study and the methods that arise from them. The role of the humanities and social sciences in understanding religion's place in history and contemporary experience.
• CAS RN 201: The Hebrew Bible
  Study of the literature of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the religious faith to which these writings bear witness within the context of the history of the ancient Israelite community. Carries humanities divisional credit in CAS.
• CAS RN 202: From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of Christianity
  Places Jesus of Nazareth in his contemporary religious and social context of Second Temple Judaism; and accounts for the origins and growth of Christian life, belief, and spirituality up to the second century, as reflected in the writings of that period. Carries humanities divisional credit in CAS.
• CAS RN 203: Religion and Film
  How do visual media influence spiritual sentiments, social prejudices, erotic boundaries, faith, and secularism? How does religion regulate the impact of film? This course considers religion on the Hollywood big screen and in video games, animation, and student cinema.
• CAS RN 206: Scriptures in World Religions
  Introduction to scriptures in world religions, investigating the ways sacred books express, interpret, and make possible religious experience.
• CAS RN 208: Sacred and Secular Power in Christianity and Islam
  Explores the relationship between sacred and secular power within the Christian and Islamic traditions, with a focus on how their foundational texts and earliest communities established models for negotiating the porous boundary between the sacred and the secular. Also offered as CAS HI 213.
• CAS RN 209: Religion, Health, and Medicine
  How religious and moral narratives inform approaches to biomedicine from the nineteenth century to the present, including understandings of disease, illness, health, sexuality, and the body. Topics include medicine and prayer, alternative medicine, and boundaries between medicine and religion.
• CAS RN 210: Buddhism
  A historical introduction to the major themes of Indian Buddhist thought and practice with special attention to the development of Buddhism in Tibet.
• CAS RN 211: Chinese Religion
  A historical survey of Chinese religion. Covers ancient mythology, cosmology, shamanism, and ritual; the traditional state cult, Daoist mysticism, and immortality; Buddhist schools and Non-Confucian worldview; and sectarian movements and popular cults.
• CAS RN 212: Christianity
  Introduction to Christian thought and practice in a world context, origins to present. Topics include sin, salvation, sacramnent, sacred text, bodies and souls, community, authority and the individual, Christians and non-Christians, and the challenge of modernity.
• CAS RN 213: Hinduism
  Introduction to the Hindu tradition. Ritual and philosophy of the Vedas and Upanishads, yoga in the Bhagavad Gita, gods and goddesses in Hindu mythology, "popular" aspects of village and temple ritual, and problems of modernization and communalism in postcolonial India.
• CAS RN 214: Islam
  The rise and spread of Islam from the seventh century to the present; introduction to its central beliefs, institutions, and practices, and its impact on the religious and cultural history of Asia and Africa. Continuity and change in the modern period.
• CAS RN 215: Japanese Religion
  Introduction to Japanese religions, including Shintoism and Zen, Pure Land, and Tantric Buddhism. Focus on Zen Buddhism and its cultural expression in both geido (way of the arts) and bushdo (way of the warrior). Brief examination of the modern Japanese philosophy of religion.
• CAS RN 216: Judaism
  Systematic and historical introduction to doctrines, customs, literature, and movements of Judaism; biblical religion and literature; rabbinic life and thought; medieval mysticism and philosophy; modern movement and developments.
• CAS RN 220: Holy City: Jerusalem in Time, Space, and Imagination
  Transformation of an ordinary ancient city into the holy city of Jews, Christians, and Muslims; and development of modern Jerusalem, as shaped by British rule, Zionism, and Palestinian nationalism. Jerusalem's past, present, and meanings considered through analyses of religious and secular rhetoric.
• CAS RN 224: Women and Religion
  Explores the roles, images, and experiences of women across a range of religious traditions. Topics key to the study of religion and gender are considered, including religious experience, the gendering of the body, and sources of religious authority.
• CAS RN 241: Topics in Religion & Evil
  Topics vary; may be repeated for credit.
• CAS RN 242: Magic, Science, and Religion
  Boundaries and relationships between magic, science, and religion from late antiquity through the European Enlightenment. Topics include transformation of pagan traditions, distinctions between learned and popular traditions, Scientific Revolution, and changing assumptions about God and Nature. Also offered as CAS HI 203. CAS RN 242 carries humanities divisional credit in CAS.

Back to full list of College of Arts & Sciences