Philosophy and Systematic Theology

• STH TT 865: Christianity and Climate
  This course explores the relationship between climate change and many facets of Christianity--including theology, activism, public statements, ethical commitments, and worship practices. Through reading, writing, and discussion, we will explore how Christian communities engage (or avoid engaging) the pressing issue of climate change through various lenses (such as stewardship, justice, and dominion). We will examine factors that promote and inhibit such engagement. By the end of this course, you will be able to explain complex issues to laypersons, and to develop your own creative response to one of the most pressing environmental issues of our time. (Clusters 1)
• STH TT 866: Feminist and Womanist Theologies
  As one of the core courses in the theology sequence at BU School of Theology, this course introduces students to feminist and womanist approaches to the study of theology. It aims to provide students with a grounding in the major ideas and methodologies of feminist and womanist theologians. The first part of the course focuses on questions of method and provides students with grounding in the early history and development of feminist and womanist theologies. The second part focuses on important theoretical engagements that mark significant reassessments of notions of the body, sexuality, agency, and subjectivity within theological work. The third part highlights new trajectories and positions students' work within the ongoing conversation of feminist and womanist discourse. (Requires TF 701/702 or equivalent) (Clusters 1 and 2) (Fulfills Theology II Requirement)
• STH TT 869: African Theology: Sources, Methods, and Debates
  This course will investigate suffering from a variety of perspectives. The approach, while reflectively interdisciplinary, will concentrate on suffering as the fundamental test for theology, ethics, and philosophy. Added to the course will be a component concerned with issues of pastoral ministry and the bereavement process. (Requires TF 701/702 or equivalent)
• STH TT 871: Science Literacy and Scientific Boundary Questions
  This class is for anyone who needs to know about contemporary science and technology in order to speak responsibly about it as a journalist, a preacher, or a public intellectual. A spectacular audiovisual introduction to historic and recent scientific theories, this class will help you make sense of complex ideas and literature that can seem impenetrable to non-specialists. This class also identifies ethical, philosophical, and theological "boundary questions" in the science discussed, showing how such boundary questions inspired and influenced both religious thought and scientific research. Recommended for STH masters students, COM students work in religion or science journalism, STH PhD students in Theology and Science, and anyone working in philosophy, theology, or ethics requiring basic literacy in contemporary science. (Cluster 1 and 3)
• STH TT 873: Space, Place, and Change
  This course investigates the significance of space and place for contemporary religious communities and examines how religious leaders navigate changing landscapes. Case studies of religious leadership responding to municipal developments (urban/rural development), shifting natural landscapes (climate change, natural disasters), built environment needs (building renovations or expansions), and the spatial impacts of social and political life in the US (migration, accessibility, inclusion) will be examined. Primary attention will be given to religious landscapes in the North America. Students will reflect theologically on practices of religious leadership, hospitality, justice, and the formation and location of sacred space. The course culminates with a practical research project that requires students to apply learnings to their own context.
• STH TT 876: God, Good, and the Good Life
  This course explores the relations among God, good, and the good life as they have been conceived by a number of important and influential contemporary moral philosophers and religious ethicists -- theists and non-theists alike. In so doing, the course examines various ways of mapping the relations between philosophy and theology or faith and reason, while also casting doubt on efforts to neatly separate the two. The course especially attends to ways in which believers and nonbelievers alike have imagined the difference God makes (or fails to make) when it comes to ethics, considered both as an intellectual discipline and as way of being in the world. It considers too the ways these figures have inherited and transformed some of the most important pre-modern philosophical and religious traditions in their own efforts to do ethics in today's world. (Cluster 1)
• STH TT 898: Theology and Trauma
  This course aims to bring the recent studies in the interdisciplinary study of trauma to bear on the field of theology. What unique challenges does the phenomenon of trauma pose to contemporary theology? The first part of the course explores recent studies in trauma, focusing on three areas of research: 1) neurobiology of trauma, 2) clinical/therapeutic studies, and 3) literary approaches to trauma. The second part of the course examines theological engagements with issues of radical suffering. The third part brings together the insights from the first two and focuses on the question of what it means to witness theologically to individual, societal, and global trauma. We will look at issues and contexts such as the criminal justice system, war, poverty, and racism. In this final part, students will be working towards constructive theological engagements with issues of trauma through interaction with a variety of mediums: art, literature, spiritual practices, and film. The course is not a counseling course. It aims to provide rich theological reflection around issues of suffering, violence, and trauma, both individual and global. (Requires TF 701/702 or equivalent) (Clusters 1 and 2)
• STH TT 926: Political Theology
  Recent developments across a variety of disciplines have led to deep and widespread interest in "political theology" -- a diverse range of approaches to interrogating, (re)imagining, and (de)constructing the intersection of politics, religion, and theology, present and past. Scholars have argued that dominant paradigms of sovereignty, the secular, modernity, and liberalism are themselves secularized, corrupted, or otherwise transformed versions of Jewish and Christian theology. Others contend that modern political practices and paradigms represent not the legacy of early modern secularization but the trail of an early modern reinjection of theology in political and social theory. Others still find in the practices of contemporary communities lived political theologies that subvert existing power structures and cast doubt on common conceptions of contemporary political life and possibilities. This course examines these competing developments, readings, and proposals; their interactions; and the contested histories, theories, and values that underwrite them. Considering political theology as both a historical and contemporary phenomenon and engaging a range of perspectives and figures, the course also considers relations and interactions between political theology and other approaches to questions of "religion and politics."
• STH TT 929: Thomas Aquinas
  Thomas Aquinas is one of the most important figures in the history and development of Western philosophy and Christian theology. On nearly everything he writes about -- from virtue to the sacraments, metaphysics of identity to the incarnation, war to soteriology -- he has something interesting, important, and illuminating to say. And whether one agrees with his particular conclusions or not, it is difficult to engage his work without growing as a thinker and reader. This doctoral seminar constitutes an extended engagement with Thomas's thought, primarily through attention to his Summa theologiae. Engagement with secondary sources will be sparing so as to keep our focus on the text itself. We will be reading with an eye to understanding Thomas both on his own terms and as a resource for contemporary work in philosophy, theology, and religious studies. The course's focus this year is on Thomas's ethics (especially his conceptions of virtue, habit, and human action); the relations between his ethics and his overarching theological and intellectual project; and the ongoing philosophical and theological interest of these dimensions of his thought. The course is suitable both for advanced Aquinas students as well as those new to his thought.
• STH TT 932: Paul Tillich
  Centered on one of the major theological works of the twentieth century, the Systematic Theology, this course is designed to assist students to contextualize, interpret, and analyze the thought of Paul Tillich and to assess its significance for contemporary theology.
• STH TT 940: Ecclesiology
  This course asks the question, ?What is the church?? in dialogue with Christian theological figures and schools representing Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christian traditions. While one of the aims of this course is that students be conversant with those voices, it ultimately aims at the student's ability to articulate the ecclesiology of his or her own community and to bring that to bear on the contemporary situation and particular problems of Christian practice in church and society. Meets with TJ940.
• STH TT 956: Atheisms and Theologies
  The general aim of this course is learn about varieties of atheism-older "classic atheism," so-called "new atheism" of recent years, and theologically inspired forms of atheism-and to understand the various theological responses to atheism. Questions of particular importance are: (1) How strong are traditional and new atheistic arguments? (2) Where does or should theology stand in relation to the arguments of atheism? (3) What are the origins of modern atheism? (4) Should postmodern mystical theologies and iconoclastic anti-anthropomorphic theologies that reject a determinate divine being be considered atheistic? If so how does this sort of atheism relate to other types? The class is intended for advanced masters students and doctoral candidates interested in con-temporary theology and its conceptual roots in older theological debates. Meets with STH TT 816.
• STH TT 998: Theology and Trauma
  This course aims to bring the recent studies in the interdisciplinary study of trauma to bear on the field of theology. What unique challenges does the phenomenon of trauma pose to contemporary theology? The first part of the course explores recent studies in trauma, focusing on three areas of research: 1) neurobiology of trauma, 2) clinical/therapeutic studies, and 3) literary approaches to trauma. The second part of the course examines theological engagements with issues of radical suffering. The third part brings together the insights from the first two and focuses on the question of what it means to witness theologically to individual, societal, and global trauma. We will look at issues and contexts such as the criminal justice system, war, poverty, and racism. In this final part, students will be working towards constructive theological engagements with issues of trauma through interaction with a variety of mediums: art, literature, spiritual practices, and film. The course is not a counseling course. It aims to provide rich theological reflection around issues of suffering, violence, and trauma, both individual and global.