Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

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  • CAS RN 243: Shamans and Shamanism
    Shamans in global and theoretical perspectives. The origins and construction of the category of shamanism. Modern theories and debates about the category and the appropriateness of applying it cross-culturally. Also offered as CAS AN 243. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry I
  • CAS RN 245: Religious Thought: The Quest for God and the Good
    An interactive seminar, investigating the meaning and purpose of human life, the significance of God or an Absolute, the role of contemplation and action in the spiritual quest, relationships between philosophy and religious thought, East and West. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy.
    • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • CAS RN 246: Sex, Death, and the Buddha
    An exploration of various Buddhist understandings of the ideal human life. Topics examined include: karma and rebirth, nonviolence and war, human and animal rights, suicide and euthanasia, as well as abortion and contraception. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Critical Thinking, Ethical Reasoning.
    • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
    • Ethical Reasoning
    • Critical Thinking
  • CAS RN 248: Food and Religion
    Explores the intersection of religion and food, using food to learn about religion and religion to study the role of food in human societies. Topics include feasting; fasting; feeding God(s), spirits, ancestors; eating/not eating animals; ingesting alcohol and psychoactive plants. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • The Individual in Community
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS RN 249: Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism
    Exploration of historical and contemporary manifestations of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. Students use various theoretical approaches to examine a wide range of relevant texts (written and visual) from late antiquity to modern America. Includes active learning and fieldwork.
  • CAS RN 296: Religion and Hip Hop
    Uses digital media studies to explore diverse religious expressions in hip hop culture. Through critical reading, community field trips, and hands-on technology usage, students consider an often overlooked element in the study of hip hop culture: religion. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
    • Creativity/Innovation
  • CAS RN 301: 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.
  • CAS RN 308: The Open Heaven: Apocalyptic Literature in Early Judaism and Christianity
    Examines literary and historical roots of "apocalypticism" in early Judaism and Christianity. Attention to literary genre, symbolism, metaphor, heaven, hell, angelology, demonology, attitudes toward the end of the world. Examines relationship of apocalypticism to shamanism, mysticism, magic, gnosticism, liturgy.
  • CAS RN 310: The Reformation: Religious Conflict in Early Modern Europe
    Examines religious change in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, particularly the origins and causes of the Protestant Reformation, the parallel Catholic Reformation, and the consequent military conflicts in Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Also offered as CAS HI 209. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Social Inquiry I.
    • Social Inquiry I
    • Ethical Reasoning
  • CAS RN 311: African American Religious History
    A historical survey of religions practiced by people of African descent living in North America. Students explore the diverse terrain of African American religiosity, which includes Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Spiritualism, and African-derived religions.
  • 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. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry II.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry II
  • 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. Cannot be taken for credit in addition to CAS CL 317. Carries humanities divisional credit in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry I
    • Critical Thinking
  • CAS RN 325: Early Jewish Mystical Thought
    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 328: Modern Judaism
    Encounters between Judaism and modernity from the Renaissance and Reformation; the Spanish expulsion and creation of Jewish centers in the New World; emancipation and its consequences; assimilation, Reform Judaism, Zionism, the American Jewish community, non-European communities, Jewish global migration, and modern antisemitism. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Critical Thinking
  • CAS RN 337: Gender, Sexuality, and Judaism
    Explores the role of gender and sexuality in Judaism and Jewish experience, historically and in the present. Subjects include constructions of masculinity and femininity, attitudes toward (and uses of) the body and sexuality, gendered nature of religious practice and authority.
  • CAS RN 338: Jewish and Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism
    Major trends of Jewish mystical thought and practice from late antiquity to today, including Kabbalah, Hasidism, and modern messianic movements. Includes close readings of Zohar. Covers theories and practices of mystical ascent, neo-Platonic trends in religious thought, and messianic speculation.
  • CAS RN 340: The Quran
    The emergence of the Quran as a major religious text, its structure and literary features, and its principal themes and places within the religious and intellectual life of the Muslim community.
  • CAS RN 341: Islamic Mysticism: Sufism
    Rise and development of the mystical movement in early Islam; analysis of the thought of leading Sufi brotherhoods, their organization, liturgy, and religious life; the impact of Sufism on classical and postclassical Islam.

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