CRN |
94017 |
Distribution |
C/D / *(Humanities) |
Course
No. |
REL 103 |
||
Title |
Buddhist
Thought and Practice |
||
Professor |
Kristin Scheible |
||
Schedule |
Mon Wed 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm OLIN 202 |
Cross-listed:
Asian Studies
This course is designed to explore the “three
jewels” of Buddhism: the Buddha, the Dharma
(the teaching), and the Sangha (the
Buddhist community). We will move imaginatively through different
historical periods, cultures, and what might be called “Buddhisms” in this
introductory survey of Buddhist teachings and practices. Our goals are
threefold: first, we must consider what tools are potentially helpful in the
comparative study of religion. We will revisit and reevaluate this
objective throughout the course. Second, and most importantly, we will
explore the diversity of thought and practice within the religious tradition
monolithically referred to as “Buddhism,” by acquainting ourselves with the
texts and participants of various communities (or “schools”) of Buddhists
including Theravada, Tibetan, Pure Land and Zen. Finally, the “three
jewels” framework will help us to organize our findings and to make sense of
apparent continuities and differences among the traditions. Religion program category: Historical
CRN |
94020 |
Distribution |
A/C / *(Humanities) |
Course
No. |
REL 106 |
||
Title |
Introduction
to Islam |
||
Professor |
Nerina Rustomji |
||
Schedule |
Mon Wed 11:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 201 |
Cross-list: Theology
Is Islam in Arabia in the seventh century the same
religion as Islam in Michigan in the twenty-first century? Is a woman in fifteenth-century Iran the
same kind of Muslim as a man in nineteenth-century Indonesia? Does West African
Islamic mysticism differ from South Asian Islamic mysticism? This course answers these questions by
introducing Islamic religious systems in world context. We will study a series
of cultures in order to explore differing elements of Islamic practice and to
understand some commonalities of Islamic faith. Regions we will encounter
include Arabia, Iran, Africa, South Asia, Indonesia and Malay Peninsula, and
America. Themes we will trace include conceptions of prophecy, ritual practice,
development of Islamic theology and jurisprudence, forms of mysticism,
relationship between genders, and definitions of communal identity. Textual
traditions we will examine include the Quran, traditions of the prophet
Muhammad, philosophical treatises, mystical guidebooks, reform literature, and
contemporary educational manuals. Religion
program category: Historical
CRN |
94019 |
Distribution |
A/C / *(Humanities) |
Course
No. |
REL 120 |
||
Title |
The
Future of Christianity |
||
Professor |
Paul Murray |
||
Schedule |
Tu Th 1:30 pm - 2:50 pm OLIN
201 |
Cross-listed: Theology
Related
interest: Gender & Sexuality Studies
Does
Christianity have a future? Are
contemporary social and cultural conditions such that it must “change or die,” as Bishop John Shelby Spong
suggests? During the final decades of
the twentieth century, sharp questions regarding the continued viability and
usefulness of Christianity were raised with increasing force and frequency not
only by its external critics, but by thoughtful Christians, as well. The social contexts of such questions
include developing oppositions to Western imperialism in all its forms,
including attempts to proselytize non-Christian peoples, religious pluralism as
an existential reality, the popular pursuit of individualized spiritualities
without religious affiliation, the reconceptualization of gender and sexuality,
and the emergence of technologies that extend human manipulation of the world,
including the human organism, in ways that were previously unimaginable. These contexts, however, are only the
immediate forms of still more deeply rooted intellectual challenges to
traditional Christian beliefs and practices.
Modern Biblical studies, linguistics, archeology, patristics, and historical studies have
compelled Christians -- Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox -- to reexamine
foundational assumptions about their respective traditions. At stake in contemporary disputes about
moral issues, church polity, discipline and doctrine are the conceptual
foundations of Christianity. Can they
be rethought? Or, to draw on an
aphorism of Jesus, will ‘new wine burst
the wine skins’? Course readings will
consider the roots and forms of these questions in theologies, church
declarations, literature and the arts. Religion
program category: Historical
CRN |
94021 |
Distribution |
D / *
(FLLC) |
Course
No. |
REL 140 |
||
Title |
Sanskrit |
||
Professor |
Richard Davis |
||
Schedule |
Tu Th 10:00 am - 11:20 am OLIN 303 (plus recitation
session TBA) |
Cross-listed: Asian Studies
Sanskrit is the language of ancient India, the
language in which such works as the Bhagavad
Gita, the great Hindu epics Mahabharata
and Ramayana, and the Upanisads were written. In this course students will learn the
grammar and syntax of Classical Sanskrit and acquire a working vocabulary. In the second semester students will read
substantial portions of original texts in Sanskrit. Religion program category: Interpretive
CRN |
94022 |
Distribution |
B / *(Humanities) |
Course
No. |
REL 242 |
||
Title |
Hinduism
in the Epics |
||
Professor |
Richard Davis |
||
Schedule |
Mon Wed 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm OLIN 303 |
Cross-listed: Asian Studies
The Indian epics have long been one of the major
ways that the teachings of the Hindu tradition have been transmitted. In this course we will read the Mahabharata (including the Bhagavad Gita) and the Ramayana, with a view to the role of the
epics in Hindu ritual and devotional life.
In addition, we will examine how these texts have been retold and
performed in various ways up to the present. Religion program
category: Interpretive
CRN |
94141 |
Distribution |
B/D / * (FLLC) |
Course
No. |
REL 272 |
||
Title |
India
and Greece |
||
Professor |
William Mullen / Kristin Scheible |
||
Schedule |
Tu Th 11:30 am - 12:50 am OLIN 201 |
Cross-listed: Classics, Theology
In this team-taught course, by specialists in ancient Greek and in ancient
Indic culture, we will explore the present state of the comparative method as
applied to the histories and mythologies of two complex civilizations. We
will begin with the perennial question of shared Indo-European origins
and what, if anything, we might posit as “history.” Turning to rich and
foundational cosmogonic and catastrophic myths operative in texts such as
Hesiod's Theogony and Ovid’s Metamorphoses and in the Indic Vedas and Puranas,
we will consider cosmological structures of time and space, and also
varying possible relations between males and females both mortal and immortal.
We will continue to pursue these themes in the enduring epics, the
Odyssey and the Ramayana. In a more intensive mode, reflecting the
special scholarship of each professor, we will study the interaction of ritual
and sacred places in selected texts, principally the Odes of Pindar and the
Edicts of Asoka. We will end the course revisiting historical questions,
examining evidence of direct contact between the two civilizations, and how
they represented each other as the other, the “barbarian.” Religion program category: Historical
CRN |
94023 |
Distribution |
A/C / *(Humanities) |
Course
No. |
REL 290 |
||
Title |
Special Topics in the Study of Religion
|
||
Professor |
Jacob Neusner |
||
Schedule |
Tu Th 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm OLIN
308 |
Fall
2004 Topic: Altruism in the Religions
of the World
A movable feast of topical studies in religion,
this seminar is offered by various members of the Religion Program to investigate
particular problems or themes. The
stress is on the comparative study of religions, with an interest in how
various religious traditions take up a single topic. A research seminar
conducted under the sponsorship of the Templeton Foundation will be held at
Bard College on November 16-18, 2004 on the theme of altruism in the Religions
of the World with sessions morning, afternoon and evening. Students in this
seminar will read in advance the papers to be presented at the research
seminar, prepare questions to present to the visiting professors when they read
their papers, and present papers of their own on the problem of the
seminar. The problem is, is altruism a
category that is particular to Christianity or one that is native to diverse
religious cultures and systems of thought?
The opening research seminar-paper will spell out the question, and the
following presentations will respond out of the data of various religions. A portion of the research seminar will be
devoted to empirical evidence deriving from social science studies, with the
same question in view. Religion program category: Theoretical
CRN |
94024 |
Distribution |
n/a |
Course
No. |
REL COL |
||
Title |
Religion
Colloquium |
||
Professor |
Richard Davis |
||
Schedule |
Mon 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm OLIN
201 |
2
credits The
religion colloquium is a two-credit course open to all students, but required
of religion moderands. The purpose of the colloquium is to foster a community
of scholarship among students and faculty interested in the study of religion,
and to prepare public presentations of independent research. The colloquium is
designed to encourage interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives on
students’ topics of particular interest. Weekly sessions will be devoted to
discussion of new books, films, CD-roms, etc. as well as regular updates of
progress on senior projects. Public sessions of the colloquium will be
scheduled three or four times each semester; students who enroll for credit
will shoulder the responsibility for preparing papers to present in these
sessions. Outside speakers and faculty members may also be invited to present
papers in these public sessions.
Religion program category: Theoretical