2012-2013 Religion Courses

Judaism since the biblical age has defied easy categorization, oscillating between religion and ethnicity. This course provides an introduction to Judaism with an eye towards Jewish responses to Western values, masculine heroism, and chivalry. We begin with questions about the authorship and message of the Bible and delve into formative texts like the Talmud, Midrash, Medieval Bible commentaries, and philosophy. We then encounter texts produced by movements that challenged, and in many ways displaced, normative Jewish practice, including Kabbalah, Messianism, poetry, folk religion, and Hasidism. Next, we follow attempts to create a modern Jewish synthesis through Enlightenment (Haskalah), Zionism, Jewish Socialism, modern literature, modern philosophy, and feminism. Then, we explore religious transformations like Reform, Conservative and Neo-Orthodox Judaism, alongside attempts to resist modernity through the invention of Ultra-Orthodoxy. Finally, we explore Jewish responses to the Holocaust and chart the course of Jewish religion and culture in 20th-century America and Israel. Throughout, we will attempt to gauge the interplay between Jewish texts and daily life. The desired outcome is to become aware of the way in which conceptions of law, chosenness, exile, sin, redemption, sexuality, death, and so on evolved over time to meet the twin challenges of anti-Semitism and complete assimilation.

This course is an in-depth exposure to the religious tradition, known in the West as “Buddhism,” in all of its incredible historical and cultural diversity. In the first semester, the course will focus on the evolution of Buddhist doctrines, practices, and institutions in India, from the origins of the religion as a group of “world-renouncing” ascetics through the development of large, state-supported monastic communities and the emergence of the major reform movements known as Mahayana and Tantra. It also treats the Buddhism of two regions of the world—Southeast Asia and the Tibetan plateau—where the respective traditions have been most self-consciously concerned with maintaining precedents inherited from India. The second semester of the course focuses on the Buddhism of East Asia (China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam), where new branches of the tradition such as Tiantai, Huayan, Pure Land, and Zen developed and flourished under the influence of Chinese culture. Because the first semester is a self-contained unit, students may consider taking only that part of the course. The material covered in the second semester is designed to complement that of the first semester, but the second semester is also a self-contained unit that students may take even if they have not taken the first.

There is, perhaps, no one who has not heard the name of a seemingly obscure carpenter’s son executed by the Romans around 33 CE. Why? The religion we call Christianity has shaped the Western world for at least 1,500 years. In this course, we will study the origins of this tradition. As we study the origins of this movement, we will explore Judaism in the strange and fertile Second Temple period (515 BCE-70 CE). We will encounter the learned societies of holy men like the Pharisees and the Qumran sectarians, as well as the freedom fighters/terrorists called the Zealots. Our main source will be the New Testament of the Christian Bible, although this will be supplemented by other primary materials. Excerpts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, rabbinic literature, and Hellenistic texts from this period provide the cultural backdrop in which Christianity has its roots. We will learn about the spread of the new movement of “Christians,” as it was called by its detractors in Antioch. How did this movement, which began among the Jews of the Eastern Mediterranean, come to be wholly associated with Gentiles by the end of the second century? Who became Christian? Why were they hated so much by the greater Greco-Roman society? What did they believe? How did they behave? What are the origins of “Christian anti-Semitism”? What kind of social world, with its senses of hierarchy and gender relations, did these people envision for themselves?

The Jewish relationship to fiction and autobiography has been highly unusual. On the one hand, the Bible itself may be said to contain some of the earliest forms of both genres. Yet, restricted Jewish access to Western centers of culture and learning, linguistic and religious barriers, and inner taboos often impeded the development of these literary modes. It was only with the process of emancipation and internal cultural reform that Jewish authors could begin to emerge from the Ghetto and grapple openly with the challenges of modernity through fiction and autobiography. Some writers managed to enrich their modern existence by drawing upon popular Jewish mysticism and life in the Jewish small town (shtetl), while others sought to push away that world by reflecting modern alienation, sexuality, and violence. Certain Jewish authors, like Solomon Maimon, Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, and Sholem Aleichem (whose short stories formed the basis of the play, Fiddler on the Roof), engaged modernity with such force and transparency that they achieved universal acclaim. But the path of the modern Jewish writer was often torturous, entailing a rebellion against the Jewish tradition and an embrace of revolutionary or Zionist movements, followed by nostalgia, longing, and regret. It did not help that exposure to European culture also meant exposure to newly virulent forms of anti-Semitism, which culminated in the Holocaust. Throughout this course, we interweave modern works of fiction with autobiographies by Jewish men and women whose pariah status gave them a unique perspective on the world. Despite the deep tensions that run through their writings, we will discover works of great beauty, poignancy, and insight.

Critics of Sufism, both Muslim and non-Muslim, claim that many of its teachings and practices seriously distort the Islamic message to the point where some declare Sufis heretical. Many of its adherents and admirers, on the other hand, believe that Sufism represents the very core and heartbeat of Islam. These disagreements are ultimately traceable to different assumptions concerning the nature of reality and knowledge. This course will explore this controversy, which continues to the present day, by examining the distinctive doctrines of Sufism on sainthood, ethics, mystical states, the nature of the self, and the relationship between the divine and human. We will look at examples of the more obvious points of conflict, such as Sufi notions regarding the importance of passion in spirituality and the portrayal of Satan as a tragic lover of God. Reading the writings of Muslim critics of Sufism, we will examine the criteria they use to distinguish between what they judge to be praiseworthy, neutral, or reprehensible aspects of Sufi thought and practice. We will study the practices of Sufism, including meditation techniques, communal structures and networks, and creative expression in music and poetry. Finally, we will explore the popularity of Sufism today in Europe and America and its role in conversions to Islam. 

To watch a Muslim kiss the Qur’an is to recognize that this is not a “book” in the ordinary sense of the word. There is an art to reciting its verses and an art to its calligraphy. The uncovering of its meanings has been variously understood by Muslims to be a matter of common sense, diligent scholarship, or profound inspiration. In this seminar, we will begin by studying the style and content of the Qur’an. Some of the themes that may be discussed are the nature and function of humans and supernatural beings, free will and determinism, the structure of this and other worlds, God’s attributes of mercy and wrath, gender and family relations, other religions, and the legitimate use of violence. We will also look at the types of literature that developed in response to the Qur’an in texts ranging from the entertaining stories of the prophets, to scholastic theological and philosophical analysis, and to mystical insights said to be achieved by the experience of spiritual states. Contemporary writings will be included that reflect the interaction between the classical heritage of Qur’anic exegesis and new interpretations that reflect current paradigms of gender relations, social activism, and spirituality.

This course explores the diverse terrain of religious life in Japan, investigating as much of the amazing spectrum of Japanese beliefs, practices, and institutions as is possible without actually visiting the country. To this end, it makes extensive use of audio-visual materials as well as primary sources (Japanese texts in English translation) and secondary scholarship. The course covers all the major religious traditions and movements found in Japan today, including Shintō, the various schools of Buddhism, and the so-called New Religions, as well as numerous elements of "folk" or "popular" religion and culture that are not readily subsumed under any of the preceding labels. The emphasis is on religion in contemporary Japan, with particular focus on religious rituals and the art and architecture that facilitate them, but a modicum of historical background will be given when necessary. Open to any interested student. Prior study or experience of things Japanese (language, literature, history, etc.) is desirable but not required. 

Texts commonly seen to contain mystical elements have to do with the desire on the part of the reader to know, experience, or be with God and with the author’s attempt to properly demarcate the boundaries within which these desires can be fulfilled. Christian mysticism is, therefore, perhaps best thought of as erotic theology; it concerns that aspect of theology that involves the desire for God. Recognizing this, we must also acknowledge that inherent to this theology is a profound paradox. What is desired must be conceived. It must be held in the grasp of one’s understanding in order to be attained. While this is fine for an orange or even wealth and power, it is much more problematic when the object of desire is God, the creator of the universe. Theologians in the early church developed a language of desire and specific sets of practices involving one’s lifestyle and prayer in order to resolve this paradox and fulfill his or her desire. Early Christian theologians began to ponder this paradox with a synthesis of a biblical theology of divine revelation (i.e., the revelation of God as preserved in the biblical canon, symbolized in both the revelation of YHWH on Mount Sinai and the incarnation of the Divine Logos as Jesus of Nazareth) and Platonic rhetoric with respect to the expression of a desire for the ultimate good, truth, or beauty. The mystery is informed on the one hand by the anthropology of desire set forth by Plato in, for example, the Symposium and the Phaedrus. Educated in the Hellenistic world, the early church fathers took these ideas for granted and attempted to find common ground with their Christian inheritance. We will begin our study by applying ourselves to this general background, including the phenomenon of Gnostic Christianity. We will then move on to encounter such great early Christian writers as Origen and Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Psuedo-Dionysius, and Ambrose of Milan and conclude our study with a lengthy look at what, for Western culture, is the seminal work of Augustine of Hippo.

The beginning of the 21st century is turning out to be a dynamic one for Islamic thought. From bloggers to superstar imams, academics to activists, a host of individuals and groups are moving beyond defensive or reactive postures to address contemporary local and global challenges in increasingly confident ways. Examples include post-Islamist politics in North Africa and Turkey, Indonesian eco-Sufism, American Muslim inner-city initiatives, Islamic microfinance, and recent approaches to Muslim sexual ethics, nonviolent resistance, and peaceful conflict resolution. Although the focus of this course will be on intellectual and theological approaches that break new ground in one way or another, the range of political, social, and religious orientations examined will be wide. We will look at movements with charismatic leaders and movements that are leaderless or “leaderful.” We will also look at the way in which new media is shaping or being shaped by these discourses. Because the course will not provide basic introductory material on Islam, a prior course in Islam or the Qur’an is a prerequisite.

This course is an in-depth, historical examination of the mythology, literature, philosophy, institutional arrangements, and religious practices associated with this most-famous and widely misunderstood branch of East Asian Buddhism. The Chan (Zen) school of Buddhism arose in China as the result of a cross-cultural exchange of epic proportions: the gradual intrusion of an alien set of religious ideas, values, and practices—those belonging to Indian Buddhism—into China between the first and the eighth centuries of the Common Era and the subsequent efforts of some 20 generations of Chinese Buddhists to defend, adapt, domesticate, and finally make the foreign religion entirely their own. Chan became the most “Chinese” school of Buddhism by defining itself in terms of indigenous concepts of clan genealogy, by exalting members of its spiritual lineage as native-born buddhas, and by allowing those buddhas to speak in the vernacular, using a mode of rhetoric that was heavily influenced by the Confucian and Daoist traditions. The course begins by outlining the Indian Buddhist doctrines and practices that were imported into China and by summarizing the indigenous cultural milieu that was initially quite hostile to the alien religion. The course then explores the various compromises and adaptations of Indian Buddhist teachings, practices, and institutions that took shape within the Chan tradition and enabled it to emerge in the Song dynasty (960-1278) as the predominant school of Chinese Buddhism. The main theme of the second semester is the transmission of the Chan school of Buddhism to Japan, where it became known as Zen, and the subsequent development of the tradition in that country. To be accepted into this course, students must demonstrate sufficient background knowledge, as derived from previous academic coursework or personal experience, of either: (a) the Buddhist tradition, or (b) East Asian culture (language, literature, history, etc.). Special consideration is given to any students with Chinese or Japanese language reading ability.

Judaism since the biblical age has defied easy categorization, oscillating between religion and ethnicity. This course provides an introduction to Judaism with an eye towards Jewish responses to Western values, masculine heroism, and chivalry. We begin with questions about the authorship and message of the Bible and delve into formative texts like the Talmud, Midrash, Medieval Bible commentaries, and philosophy. We then encounter texts produced by movements that challenged, and in many ways displaced, normative Jewish practice, including Kabbalah, Messianism, poetry, folk religion, and Hasidism. Next, we follow attempts to create a modern Jewish synthesis through Enlightenment (Haskalah), Zionism, Jewish Socialism, modern literature, modern philosophy, and feminism. Then, we explore religious transformations like Reform, Conservative and Neo-Orthodox Judaism, alongside attempts to resist modernity through the invention of Ultra-Orthodoxy. Finally, we explore Jewish responses to the Holocaust and chart the course of Jewish religion and culture in 20th-century America and Israel. Throughout, we will attempt to gauge the interplay between Jewish texts and daily life. The desired outcome is to become aware of the way in which conceptions of law, chosenness, exile, sin, redemption, sexuality, death, and so on evolved over time to meet the twin challenges of anti-Semitism and complete assimilation.

This course is an in-depth exposure to the religious tradition, known in the West as “Buddhism,” in all of its incredible historical and cultural diversity. In the first semester, the course will focus on the evolution of Buddhist doctrines, practices, and institutions in India, from the origins of the religion as a group of “world-renouncing” ascetics through the development of large, state-supported monastic communities and the emergence of the major reform movements known as Mahayana and Tantra. It also treats the Buddhism of two regions of the world—Southeast Asia and the Tibetan plateau—where the respective traditions have been most self-consciously concerned with maintaining precedents inherited from India. The second semester of the course focuses on the Buddhism of East Asia (China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam), where new branches of the tradition such as Tiantai, Huayan, Pure Land, and Zen developed and flourished under the influence of Chinese culture. Because the first semester is a self-contained unit, students may consider taking only that part of the course. The material covered in the second semester is designed to complement that of the first semester, but the second semester is also a self-contained unit that students may take even if they have not taken the first.

There is, perhaps, no one who has not heard the name of a seemingly obscure carpenter’s son executed by the Romans around 33 CE. Why? The religion we call Christianity has shaped the Western world for at least 1,500 years. In this course, we will study the origins of this tradition. As we study the origins of this movement, we will explore Judaism in the strange and fertile Second Temple period (515 BCE-70 CE). We will encounter the learned societies of holy men like the Pharisees and the Qumran sectarians, as well as the freedom fighters/terrorists called the Zealots. Our main source will be the New Testament of the Christian Bible, although this will be supplemented by other primary materials. Excerpts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, rabbinic literature, and Hellenistic texts from this period provide the cultural backdrop in which Christianity has its roots. We will learn about the spread of the new movement of “Christians,” as it was called by its detractors in Antioch. How did this movement, which began among the Jews of the Eastern Mediterranean, come to be wholly associated with Gentiles by the end of the second century? Who became Christian? Why were they hated so much by the greater Greco-Roman society? What did they believe? How did they behave? What are the origins of “Christian anti-Semitism”? What kind of social world, with its senses of hierarchy and gender relations, did these people envision for themselves?

The Jewish relationship to fiction and autobiography has been highly unusual. On the one hand, the Bible itself may be said to contain some of the earliest forms of both genres. Yet, restricted Jewish access to Western centers of culture and learning, linguistic and religious barriers, and inner taboos often impeded the development of these literary modes. It was only with the process of emancipation and internal cultural reform that Jewish authors could begin to emerge from the Ghetto and grapple openly with the challenges of modernity through fiction and autobiography. Some writers managed to enrich their modern existence by drawing upon popular Jewish mysticism and life in the Jewish small town (shtetl), while others sought to push away that world by reflecting modern alienation, sexuality, and violence. Certain Jewish authors, like Solomon Maimon, Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, and Sholem Aleichem (whose short stories formed the basis of the play, Fiddler on the Roof), engaged modernity with such force and transparency that they achieved universal acclaim. But the path of the modern Jewish writer was often torturous, entailing a rebellion against the Jewish tradition and an embrace of revolutionary or Zionist movements, followed by nostalgia, longing, and regret. It did not help that exposure to European culture also meant exposure to newly virulent forms of anti-Semitism, which culminated in the Holocaust. Throughout this course, we interweave modern works of fiction with autobiographies by Jewish men and women whose pariah status gave them a unique perspective on the world. Despite the deep tensions that run through their writings, we will discover works of great beauty, poignancy, and insight.

Critics of Sufism, both Muslim and non-Muslim, claim that many of its teachings and practices seriously distort the Islamic message to the point where some declare Sufis heretical. Many of its adherents and admirers, on the other hand, believe that Sufism represents the very core and heartbeat of Islam. These disagreements are ultimately traceable to different assumptions concerning the nature of reality and knowledge. This course will explore this controversy, which continues to the present day, by examining the distinctive doctrines of Sufism on sainthood, ethics, mystical states, the nature of the self, and the relationship between the divine and human. We will look at examples of the more obvious points of conflict, such as Sufi notions regarding the importance of passion in spirituality and the portrayal of Satan as a tragic lover of God. Reading the writings of Muslim critics of Sufism, we will examine the criteria they use to distinguish between what they judge to be praiseworthy, neutral, or reprehensible aspects of Sufi thought and practice. We will study the practices of Sufism, including meditation techniques, communal structures and networks, and creative expression in music and poetry. Finally, we will explore the popularity of Sufism today in Europe and America and its role in conversions to Islam. 

To watch a Muslim kiss the Qur’an is to recognize that this is not a “book” in the ordinary sense of the word. There is an art to reciting its verses and an art to its calligraphy. The uncovering of its meanings has been variously understood by Muslims to be a matter of common sense, diligent scholarship, or profound inspiration. In this seminar, we will begin by studying the style and content of the Qur’an. Some of the themes that may be discussed are the nature and function of humans and supernatural beings, free will and determinism, the structure of this and other worlds, God’s attributes of mercy and wrath, gender and family relations, other religions, and the legitimate use of violence. We will also look at the types of literature that developed in response to the Qur’an in texts ranging from the entertaining stories of the prophets, to scholastic theological and philosophical analysis, and to mystical insights said to be achieved by the experience of spiritual states. Contemporary writings will be included that reflect the interaction between the classical heritage of Qur’anic exegesis and new interpretations that reflect current paradigms of gender relations, social activism, and spirituality.

This course explores the diverse terrain of religious life in Japan, investigating as much of the amazing spectrum of Japanese beliefs, practices, and institutions as is possible without actually visiting the country. To this end, it makes extensive use of audio-visual materials as well as primary sources (Japanese texts in English translation) and secondary scholarship. The course covers all the major religious traditions and movements found in Japan today, including Shintō, the various schools of Buddhism, and the so-called New Religions, as well as numerous elements of "folk" or "popular" religion and culture that are not readily subsumed under any of the preceding labels. The emphasis is on religion in contemporary Japan, with particular focus on religious rituals and the art and architecture that facilitate them, but a modicum of historical background will be given when necessary. Open to any interested student. Prior study or experience of things Japanese (language, literature, history, etc.) is desirable but not required. 

Texts commonly seen to contain mystical elements have to do with the desire on the part of the reader to know, experience, or be with God and with the author’s attempt to properly demarcate the boundaries within which these desires can be fulfilled. Christian mysticism is, therefore, perhaps best thought of as erotic theology; it concerns that aspect of theology that involves the desire for God. Recognizing this, we must also acknowledge that inherent to this theology is a profound paradox. What is desired must be conceived. It must be held in the grasp of one’s understanding in order to be attained. While this is fine for an orange or even wealth and power, it is much more problematic when the object of desire is God, the creator of the universe. Theologians in the early church developed a language of desire and specific sets of practices involving one’s lifestyle and prayer in order to resolve this paradox and fulfill his or her desire. Early Christian theologians began to ponder this paradox with a synthesis of a biblical theology of divine revelation (i.e., the revelation of God as preserved in the biblical canon, symbolized in both the revelation of YHWH on Mount Sinai and the incarnation of the Divine Logos as Jesus of Nazareth) and Platonic rhetoric with respect to the expression of a desire for the ultimate good, truth, or beauty. The mystery is informed on the one hand by the anthropology of desire set forth by Plato in, for example, the Symposium and the Phaedrus. Educated in the Hellenistic world, the early church fathers took these ideas for granted and attempted to find common ground with their Christian inheritance. We will begin our study by applying ourselves to this general background, including the phenomenon of Gnostic Christianity. We will then move on to encounter such great early Christian writers as Origen and Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Psuedo-Dionysius, and Ambrose of Milan and conclude our study with a lengthy look at what, for Western culture, is the seminal work of Augustine of Hippo.

The beginning of the 21st century is turning out to be a dynamic one for Islamic thought. From bloggers to superstar imams, academics to activists, a host of individuals and groups are moving beyond defensive or reactive postures to address contemporary local and global challenges in increasingly confident ways. Examples include post-Islamist politics in North Africa and Turkey, Indonesian eco-Sufism, American Muslim inner-city initiatives, Islamic microfinance, and recent approaches to Muslim sexual ethics, nonviolent resistance, and peaceful conflict resolution. Although the focus of this course will be on intellectual and theological approaches that break new ground in one way or another, the range of political, social, and religious orientations examined will be wide. We will look at movements with charismatic leaders and movements that are leaderless or “leaderful.” We will also look at the way in which new media is shaping or being shaped by these discourses. Because the course will not provide basic introductory material on Islam, a prior course in Islam or the Qur’an is a prerequisite.

This course is an in-depth, historical examination of the mythology, literature, philosophy, institutional arrangements, and religious practices associated with this most-famous and widely misunderstood branch of East Asian Buddhism. The Chan (Zen) school of Buddhism arose in China as the result of a cross-cultural exchange of epic proportions: the gradual intrusion of an alien set of religious ideas, values, and practices—those belonging to Indian Buddhism—into China between the first and the eighth centuries of the Common Era and the subsequent efforts of some 20 generations of Chinese Buddhists to defend, adapt, domesticate, and finally make the foreign religion entirely their own. Chan became the most “Chinese” school of Buddhism by defining itself in terms of indigenous concepts of clan genealogy, by exalting members of its spiritual lineage as native-born buddhas, and by allowing those buddhas to speak in the vernacular, using a mode of rhetoric that was heavily influenced by the Confucian and Daoist traditions. The course begins by outlining the Indian Buddhist doctrines and practices that were imported into China and by summarizing the indigenous cultural milieu that was initially quite hostile to the alien religion. The course then explores the various compromises and adaptations of Indian Buddhist teachings, practices, and institutions that took shape within the Chan tradition and enabled it to emerge in the Song dynasty (960-1278) as the predominant school of Chinese Buddhism. The main theme of the second semester is the transmission of the Chan school of Buddhism to Japan, where it became known as Zen, and the subsequent development of the tradition in that country. To be accepted into this course, students must demonstrate sufficient background knowledge, as derived from previous academic coursework or personal experience, of either: (a) the Buddhist tradition, or (b) East Asian culture (language, literature, history, etc.). Special consideration is given to any students with Chinese or Japanese language reading ability.