Courses

• CAS RN 435: Women, Gender, and Islam
  Investigates the way Muslim religious discourse, norms, and practices create and sustain gender and hierarchy in religious, social, and familial life. Looks at historical and contemporary challenges posed to these structures.
• CAS RN 439: 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.
• CAS RN 452: Topics in Religious Thought
  Topics vary from year to year. Topic for Fall 2014: Happiness, East and West. What is happiness? How can we achieve a balanced, healthy, fulfilling life? Classical thinkers such as Aristotle, Plato, Chuang Tzu; Buddhist, Confucian, Epicurean, and Stoic paths; comparison with contemporary studies of happiness. Also offered as CAS PH 485.
• CAS RN 453: Topics in Religion and Sexuality
  Topic for Spring 2015: The Body and Sexuality in Classical Religious Texts. Treats foundational primary sources in translation on sex and the body in several world religions. Consideration of differences in sources: genre, gender, modern/classical. Traditions include Greek, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Daoist.
• CAS RN 459: Primo Levi Within Holocaust Literature
  A study of Primo Levi's writings and scientific, theological, and philosophical approaches to the Holocaust. Other theorists (Arendt, Wiesel, Müller-Hill) and other survivors' testimonies (Delbo, Borowski, Fink) are read in conjunction with Levi's works. Also offered as CAS LI 459 and CAS XL 459.
• CAS RN 460: Seminar on the Holocaust
  Seminar examining ethical and religious issues raised by the Holocaust, including anti-Semitism; treatment of Jewish women; nature of the perpetrators; actions of different countries; importance of ideology; the nature and degree of Jewish resistance; post-Holocaust theology.
• CAS RN 466: Religion and the Problem of Tolerance
  Explores the religious roots of tolerance as an alternative to secular, more liberal foundations for pluralism. Grapples with the challenge of tolerance to the revealed religions and the ways different societies have met or failed to meet this challenge.
• CAS RN 468: Symbol, Myth, and Rite
  Historical overview of ritual behavior, the role of symbolism in the study of culture, and the narrative quality of worldview and belief. Emphasis on verbal performance and public display events in specific cultural contexts.
• CAS RN 470: Topics in Medieval Religious Culture
  Topic for Fall 2013: Christian, Muslim, and Jew: Religion, Community, and Culture in Medieval Spain. Interactions between Muslims, Christians, and Jews in medieval Europe's most religiously diverse region - from the establishment of an Islamic al-Andalus in 711 CE to the final Christian "reconquest" of the peninsula and expulsion of the Jews in 1492 CE. Also offered as CAS HI 407.
• CAS RN 471: Topics in Ancient Christianity
  Topic for Spring 2016: Saints and Their Cults. The cult of living and dead saints was central to the development and spread of Christianity (as also Islam and Buddhism). This seminar addresses the interpretation of saints' lives, pilgrimage and ritual action at shrines, and the saint's festival.
• CAS RN 490: Topics in the Materiality of Ancient Mediterranean Religions
  Investigates material traces and contexts of religion in the Graeco-Roman world, including iconic, architectural, votive, magical, and other archaeological remains; and draws on theories of space, image, and ritual performance. Topics vary. Also offered as CAS AR 435.
• CAS RN 504: Topics in Religion and the Visual Arts
  In-depth discussion of special issues in the study of religion and art. May be repeated for credit as topics change. Topic for Fall 2015: Religious Architecture in Islam: Mosques, Shrines, and Tombs. Examines a select group of buildings from the Islamic world in terms of architecture and religious practice. Topics include monuments such as the Ka'ba, the Dome of the Rock, or the Taj Mahal. Also offered as CAS AH 504.
• CAS RN 524: Topics in Religion and Literature
  Three topics are offered 2014/2015. Students may register for one, two, or three for credit. Topic for Fall 2014: Apocalypse and Literature. Literary responses to the biblical book of Revelation, from ancient to modern times. Systematic analysis of the biblical text. Readings from Dante, Langland, Rabelais, Blake, Hölderlin, Dostoevsky, García Lorca, Samuel Beckett, and Flannery O'Connor. Reference to artistic and musical representations of apocalypse. Also offered as CAS XL 560 A1. Topics for Spring 2015. Section A1: Russian Literature and Spirituality. Explores literary experimentation with religious ideas (e.g., spirit, soul, heaven, hell, crucifixion, gnosis, resurrection, sin, immortality) in the increasingly anti-religious environment of late imperial and Soviet Russia. Authors include Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bely, Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Platonov, Tarkovsky. Supplemental readings from philosophy/theory. Also offered as CAS XL 560 A1. Section B1: The Unique Individual in Literature (narrative fiction) and in Religious Thought. Readings from the fiction of Goethe, Melville, Dostoevsky, Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, poetry and short stories of Poe. Comparison between the discursive (religious thought) and non-discursive forms (literature) for apprehending and expressing the mystery, paradox, and fragility of human life. Also offered as CAS XL 560 B1.
• CAS RN 526: Topics in Religion and Literature in East Asia
  Topic for Fall 2015: The Story of the Stone. A masterpiece of world literature, depicts the interworkings of love, tragedy, honor, and drama within a Buddho-Daoist cosmos set in the everyday life of Chinese Confucianism. This course emphasizes the religious traditions of Chinese culture. Also offered as CAS LC 470 B1 and CAS XL 470 B1.
• CAS RN 555: Dante's Hell
  A close reading of one text, Dante Aligheri's Inferno, with attention to its medieval contexts: philosophical, theological, and historical. Analysis of the poetic means by which Dante represents both human evil and human hope. Bi-lingual text. Lectures and discussion in English. Also offered as CAS LI 555 and CAS XL 383.
• CAS RN 556: Dante: The Divine Comedy II: Purgatorio and Paradiso
  Focus on the literary, philosophical, and theological ideas Dante uses to represent his experience of himself and of human nature. Bi-lingual texts. Lectures and discussions in English. Also offered as CAS LI 556 and CAS XL 385.
• CAS RN 561: Religion and International Relations
  (Meets with CAS IR 561 and CAS PO 589.) Explores the role of religion in contemporary international relations in the context of questions about the common core of modernity. Reviews scholarly and policy literature, and case studies, in order to elucidate religion's intellectual and operational diversity in international relations.
• CAS RN 563: Muslim Societies: An Interdisciplinary History
  Examines the states, empires, faiths, and ideologies of the Muslim world over a 1500-year period, including states from North and West Africa, through the Middle East, to Turkey, Iran, and then to Central and Southeast Asia. Also offered as CAS AH 539, AN 548, HI 596, and IR 515.
• CAS SO 100: Principles in Sociology
  An introduction to the major theories and basic principles of sociological analysis. Subjects include methods of social research and investigation; role of individuals in groups, organizations, and society; socialization and education; stratification; race and ethnicity; science, culture, and religion; formal and informal organization; and economic and political systems. Carries social science divisional credit in CAS.
• CAS SO 201: Sociological Methods
  Required of concentrators and minor concentrators. Scientific method, measurement, experimentation, survey research, observational methods, projective techniques, and content analysis.

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