Religion

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  • CAS RN 400: Writing Religion
    A writing-intensive seminar focused on the close reading and careful writing on spirituality and religion in various non-fiction genres (memoir, Instagram essays, op-eds, academic articles). Possible authors: Ann Lamott, Jeff Sharlet, J. Z. Smith, Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, Annie Dillard. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Writing-Intensive Course.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS RN 406: Biblical Fakes and Forgeries
    Examines issues regarding forged documents and artifacts relating to the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. Examples of forgeries (alleged and certain) include: book of Daniel, Letter of Aristeas, Gnostic Gospels, Secret Gospel of Mark; forged Scrolls in museum collections. Proposed Edit: Examines forged documents and artifacts relating to Hebrew Bible and New Testament, probing historical and ethical questions they raise. Examples (alleged and certain forgeries) include: book of Daniel, Gnostic Gospels, Secret Gospel of Mark, and forged Dead Sea Scroll fragments. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Ethical Reasoning
    • Critical Thinking
  • CAS RN 409: Cults and Charisma
    Examines religious sects, new religions, and charismatic leadership using case-studies from history and the contemporary world, as well as analytical principles from religious studies and anthropology.
  • CAS RN 410: 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 410.
  • CAS RN 420: Maimonides
    A study of major aspects of the thought of Maimonides. Primary focus on the Guide of the Perplexed, with attention to its modern reception in works by Baruch Spinoza, Hermann Cohen, Leo Strauss, and others. Also offered as CAS PH 409. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Oral and/or Signed Communication.
    • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
  • CAS RN 424: 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.
  • CAS RN 427: Topics in American Religion
    Topic for Fall 2020: Historiography of US Religions. Exploration of key scholarship, both classic and contemporary, in the study of American religions. Possible authors include: Ahlstrom, Albanese, Braude, Douglas, Kruse, Marsden, Orsi, Raboteau, Tweed, Weisenfeld.
  • 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 452: Topics in Religious Thought
    Topics vary from year to year. Topic for Fall 2020: Religion, Secularism, and Power. What forms does religion take in the modern world? This seminar exams the growing field of secularism studies, including its intersections with anthropology, feminist and queer studies, and critical race theory. Possible authors: Foucault, Asad, Mahmood, Sullivan, Coviello, Lloyd, Pellegrini.
  • CAS RN 453: Topics in Religion and Sexuality
    Topic for Fall 2018: Sex, Art, and the Sacred in Modern America. Traces heated debates over sex, art, and religion to reveal competing genealogies of the sacred and profane in the modern US. Looks at feminist and queer visual and performance art, literature, and memoir in the context of culture wars conservatism. Also offered as CAS WS 305 C1.
  • CAS RN 459: Primo Levi Within Holocaust Literature
    Levi's writings employ scientific, literary, ethical, theological and philosophical approaches to the Holocaust. An examination of Levi's works both within the context of other writers such as Elie Wiesel, and within the practice of Holocaust testimony, ethics and witnessing. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Ethical Reasoning.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Ethical Reasoning
  • CAS RN 460: Seminar on the Holocaust
    This course will examine historical, ethical and religious issues arising from the Holocaust. We will discuss antisemitism and ideology; what communities were considered "other"; human motivation regarding collaborators, perpetrators and bystanders; the role of individuals, organizations and governments; the treatment of women; the ethics of resistance; the behavior of the Jewish Councils; and attitudes to the existence of God during and after the Holocaust. We will also compare the Holocaust to contemporary crises now occurring around the world. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Ethical Reasoning, Historical Consciousness.
  • 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 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
    May be repeated for credit as topics change. Two topics are offered Spring 2018. Section A1: Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov. Close, careful study of Dostoevsky's masterpiece, with eye to philosophical, theological, cultural, literary significance; explores Dostoevsky's reinvention of the novel alongside questions of morality, justice, selfhood, modernity, the meaning of life. In English. Also offered as CAS LR 456 A1 and CAS XL 560 A1. Section B1: Gender and Religion in the Graphic Novel. Examines the aesthetics of comic art and the graphic novel as they emphasize gendered, religious, and cultural identities. Focus on Judaism and Islam, two storytelling traditions that use graphic novels to transport readers in time and space. Also offered as CAS WS 300 C1 and CAS XL 560 B1.
  • CAS RN 530: Gensex Buddhsm
    An introduction to Marxist cultural criticism that examines the transformation of concepts in classic Marxism (Marx, Lukacs, Althusser, Adorno, and Gramsci) into contemporary debates about race, gender, sexuality, colonialism, modernity, and language (Said, Zizek, Spivak, and others). Effective Spring 2021, 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 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
    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.

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