11135

REL 103 Buddhist Thought and Practice

Kristin Scheible

. . W . F

1:30 - 2:50 pm

OLIN 202

HUM/DIFF

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 Class size: 22

11136

REL 106 Introduction to Islam

Mairaj Syed

. T . Th .

11:50 - 1:10 pm

RKC 111

HUM/DIFF

Cross-listed: Middle Eastern Studies This course seeks to provide a broad-ranging introduction to pre-modern, modern, and contemporary Islam. We will study the central beliefs, institutions, and practices that have constituted multiple traditions which lay claim to Islamic legitimacy throughout history, starting with Muhammad’s message in seventh century Arabia.  In the first half of the course we will study, in depth, the central scriptural text of Islam, the Qur’an, in what Muslims have generally taken to be as its historical context. In the second half of the course we will encounter the competing traditions of interpretive belief and practice that constitute the different and at times competing disciplines and normative visions of Islamic religious thought and piety. In the last few weeks, we will study themes that have figured prominently in popular media portrayals of Muslims in the last few decades, notably gender and modern Islamic political thought and practice (including the radical variety). We will end the course in a place and time far from where we started. The Muslims are now here in America and more precisely, New York. We will ask: how have they maintained continuity with what has gone before and how will they chart their own future? Class size: 22

11535

REL / THEO 114 Introduction to the New Testament

Joseph Mali

. . W . . . . . . F

5:00 - 6:20 pm 11:50 - 1:10 pm

OLIN 203 OLIN 201

HUM

This theology course is open to students without prior knowledge of the Bible. It will provide an overview of the New Testament as a while. Topics to be covered will include the historical and political issues of the New Testament. Special attention will be given to the major themes of the New Testament. The diversity of the different books will also be considered. The presentation of the topics will be by discussion. Class size: 22

11137

REL / THEO 201 Working Theologies

Jacob Neusner

. . W . .

10:10 - 12:30 pm

OLIN 101

HUM

This lecture course will provide an overview of the major religious traditions. The course will be introduce the principal world religions (religious traditions that flourish in more than a single location), with attention also to indigenous religions (religions that flourish in one location mainly or only) and to new religions (religions that have coalesced in the past century or so). The presentation of the topics will follow a single outline, so that comparisons between and among religious traditions are facilitated. This course will follow Professor Neusner’s textbook on comparative religions. Class size: 20

11139

REL 242 Hinduism in the Epics

Richard Davis

. T . Th .

8:30 - 9:50 am

OLIN 202

FLLC/DIFF

Cross-listed: Asian Studies, Classical 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 Class size: 22

11141

REL 257 Gender and Sexuality in Judaism

David Nelson

. T . Th .

11:50 - 1:10 pm

OLIN 101

HUM

Cross-listed: Gender & Sexuality Studies, Jewish Studies Traditional Judaism is often seen as a highly patriarchal system in which women have little access to public ritual roles or community leadership. It enforces a strict separation between men and women in many social situations, and prohibits even casual physical contact between husband and wife during the wife’s menstrual period. It defines some sexual acts between two men as an “abomination” for which capital punishment is prescribed. What are the origins of these practices, and the social, theological, and psychological attitudes that they reflect? This course will examine a broad sweep of issues relating to gender and sexuality in the earliest strata of Jewish historical development, that is, the biblical and rabbinic periods. Topics to be covered will include public and private gender roles; power dynamics between men and women; views of sexuality, marriage and its variants; homosexuality; etc. We will read both narrative and legal primary texts, as well as current scholarship on the development of these issues in the ancient world. Our goal will be to gain an understanding of some of the beliefs and values that drove the development of early Judaism. Class size: 22

11140

REL 261 Gender and Buddhism

Kristin Scheible Writing Lab:

. T . Th . . . . Th .

1:30 - 2:50 pm 12:30 - 1:25 pm

OLIN 203 OLIN 305

HUM/DIFF

Cross-listed: Gender & Sexuality Studies Paying attention to the immense diversity of historical, geographic and cultural locations of our subjects, we will encounter the sacred images and social realities of men and women in the Buddhist world.  Specifically, we will consider the ways in which categories such as "woman," "man," "feminine," "masculine," "gender," "nun," and "monk" have been explained and imagined by Buddhist communities (as well as by academics and feminists) through various historical and cultural locations.  We will begin with an examination of early Buddhist sources, the depictions of the Buddha as a sexualized "bull of a man," the stories surrounding the founding of the nun's order and the songs of women saints (Pali Therigatha).  We will then consider gender(ed) imagery in Mahayana sources, with a focus on the gender transformation of the bodhisattva Kuan-yin in China from.  We will consider the feminine principle as envisioned by Vajrayana Buddhists in Tibet before devoting a significant portion of the course to the study of how real men and women in the contemporary Buddhist landscape, especially those who have taken vows, understand theoretical and practical tensions inherent in the Buddhist tradition.  Sources for this section will be the observations of nuns who were in attendance at the First International Conference on Buddhist Nuns, individual biographies of Buddhist men and women, and ongoing debates about women’s roles in the Buddhist sangha (community). This is a writing intensive course. Most weeks we will meet for an extra hour writing lab, and regular short writing assignments will be required. The general goals of these labs are to help with the development, composition, organization, and revision of analytical prose; the use of evidence to support an argument; strategies of interpretation and analysis of texts; and the mechanics of grammar and documentation. Class size: 16

11534

REL 288 Islamic Legal Theory and Practice

Mairaj Syed

M . W . .

6:20 - 7:40 pm

OLIN 205

HUM/DIFF

Cross-listed: Middle Eastern Studies What was the nature of the schools of law (*madhhab*s)? What were the recognized rules of textual interpretation within these schools?  How did methodological and hermeneutic principles relate to the actual legal decisions?  How did the foundational texts and their interpretation compare to other factors that shaped the laws, such as legal inertia and social values?  What was the interplay between interpretation and legal continuity and change?  What, and how, can we learn about the values of a society from its laws?  The course begins with the still-influential pre-modern Sunni Muslim theory of legal hermeneutics (as described in M. H. Kamali’s *Principles*). That provides the background needed for reading Muslim legal texts and pursuing the abovementioned questions about the nature of legal reasoning.   The second half of the course is devoted to case-studies in premodern law selected from among the following topics: marriage, divorce, women in the public space, privacy, relations with non-Muslims, commercial law, and the obligation to forbid wrong and enjoin right. Class size: 22

11536

REL 332 Gandhi: Life, Philosophy, and the Strategies of Nonviolence

Richard Davis

. . W . .

1:30 - 3:50 pm

RKC 122

HUM

Cross-listed: Asian Studies, Human Rights Mohandas Gandhi was among the most radical, revered, controversial, and influential political and religious figures of the twentieth century. His strategies of non-violent satyagraha were widely and successfully adopted during the Indian independence movement, and they have since been adapted by other political leaders and movements around the world, with varying degrees of success. In this seminar we will examine Gandhi’s life and the development of his philosophy of svaraj and satyagraha. We will consider the colonial South African and Indian conditions in which Gandhi acted, and we will explore the range of Gandhi’s efforts towards personal, political, and social transformation. Finally, students in this seminar will investigate some of the movements that have attempted to apply Gandhian methods in new settings, in India, South Africa, the United States, and elsewhere, and assess their effectiveness. The course will include a series of films that provide different perspectives on the Gandhian legacy, from the hagiographical to the deeply critical. Class size: 15

11537

REL 354 Visions of the Islamic Ethical Life in the thought of al-Ghazali

Mairaj Syed

. T . . .

4:40 - 7:00 pm

OLIN 309

FLLC

Cross-listed: Middle Eastern Studies Ghazali (d. 1111) is arguably the most influential and famous pre-modern Muslim intellectual in Islamic history. He lived at a time when the Sunni caliphate had lost de facto power and the Egyptian Ismaili Shiis were aggressively proselytizing their religious and political ideology in the Sunni heartlands. The disciplines of learning representing scripture, law, ethics, mysticism, and philosophy that would largely constitute medieval intellectual culture had established distinctive identities, accepted modes of reasoning, and the most important questions meriting human inquiry. The exemplary practitioners within each of these traditions claimed that they exclusively represented the best moral vision of the human individual and his place in society. Given this context, Ghazali set himself two primary aims: the formulation of a political ideology that could vigorously oppose Ismaili Shiism and bend Sunni political philosophy to changed political realities, and fashion a coherent vision of the Islamic life out of the disparate and conflicting strands represented by Islamic law, ethics, philosophy, and mysticism. This seminar will be a study in Ghazali’s social and political context and his synthetic vision of what constitutes the Islamic life lived well. We will study the materials out of which Ghazali attempts his synthesis and ask how coherent his vision is? Class size: 15

11144

REL COL Religion Colloquium

Richard Davis

M . . . .

5:00 - 6:00 pm

OLIN 101

N/A

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 Class size: 25