ANTS GCIM 738S
Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam
A basic introduction to three major religious traditions on their own terms, with some attention to relations with Christian faith. Emphasis on preparation for authentic ministry in a pluralistic environment.
Heim T 2-4:50 Spring

ANTS INTE 638W
Introducing Islam to Rabbinic and Ministerial Students
An introduction to Islam in the context of Judaism and Christianity. This is a joint course between Hebrew College and ANTS.
Mobley & Rose Daily 9-11:50 Winter (January 7-11, 14-18)

ANTS WCHR 603F
Introduction to World Christianity: Changing Centers
Christianity is translatable into every human culture- and life-setting. While it grows in a particular place, it may become weak in another place. Now more Christians are living in the non-Western parts of the world (e.g., Africa, Asia, and South America) than in the West (in North America, Western Europe and Australia) and the centers of Christianity have been shifting. This course surveys the shifts of Christian centers, dealing with the historical aspects of the church, and examining the contemporary church in the non-Western world. This course will prepare students to meet the challenges of new forms of Christianity near and far. Prerequisites: Students with knowledge of the history of Christianity will find this course more useful than beginners.
Jeyaraj T 6-8:50 Fall

ANTS WCHR 642S
Mapping Mission: Motives, Models, and Methods of Christians
This course surveys the different mission motives, models and methods of Christians from the time of Jesus Christ until modern times. Emphasis will be on Asian, African, and South American forms of Christianity. This course will encourage students to revisit their missional (ad intra) and missionary (ad extra) understandings and activities of their own faith communities, and find ways of implementing holistic mission models. Prerequisites: Students with Church History knowledge will find this course more helpful than beginners.
Jeyaraj Th 6-8:50 Spring

ANTS WCHR 648S
Major Issues Facing Christianity
Christianity is the major world religion. As Christians translate their faith convictions and engage in ministry, they face significant issues. These require a missiological reflection and response from an interdisciplinary perspective. This course addresses some of the major issues that face world Christianity today. It will also explore possible opportunities to respond to them theologically and responsibly.
Jeyaraj T 6-8:50 Spring

ANTS WCHR 735W
India by Immersion: Dialogue and Service
This travel study seminar communicates firsthand empathetic understanding and experience of dialogue and service of Christians and their fellow Non-Christians in the picturesque south Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The participants of this seminar will learn to appreciate how Christians have been interacting and cooperating with their fellow Indians belonging to Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, and folk religions. Thus they will have ample opportunities to know the dynamics of dialogue and service.
Jeyaraj TBA Winter (January 3-19, 2008)

ANTS WCHR 749/849F
Mission of the Church in Africa
Christianity in Africa did not begin or end with European colonialism. Rather, African Christianity is as old as Christianity itself; after the demise of European colonialism, African Christianity has grown much. At present about 48% of Africans (i.e., 380 million) are Christians. This course will examine the history, theology and mission of African Christianity. This course fulfills the WCHR upper-level requirement.
Jeyaraj Th 6-8:50 Fall

BC TH 431
Quest for Spirituality: Jewish & Non-Jewish Responses
This elective is a critical study of the many ways in which seekers find spiritual enrichment (such as study, meditation, prayer, good deeds, etc.). Though the context is Jewish, the methodology can be applied to many other religions.
Sonsino W 3-4:50 Spring

BC TH 432
Women in World Religions
The issue of gender plays an important and at present controversial role in most of the World Religions. We will explore the position and roles of women in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. Within each of these traditions, we will focus on the conception of women in sacred scripture, institutional and hierarchical development of the tradition, and contemporary feminist reflection. Critical issues which will be discussed; relation between the conception of the absolute and that of women, connection between religious authority and the traditional images of women, and diversity of contemporary conceptions of gender within any particular religion.
Cornille M 3-4:50 Fall

BC TH 443
History and Methods in Comparative Religion
The Comparative Study of Religions has evolved through different stages of methodological reflection since its establishment as an autonomous discipline over a century ago. Questions concerning the nature and goal of comparison and the possibilities and limits of understanding individuals belonging to other religions remain at the heart of any engagement with religious pluralism. In this course we will explore these questions through a study of the theories of early phenomenologists of religion such as Gerardus Van der Leeuw, through the work of Mircea Eliade and his critics, up to the contemporary approaches of figures such as Jonathan Z. Smith.
Cornille M 10-11:50 Spring

BC TH 487
Passover in Midrash and Talmud
Sponsored by Boston College's Center for Christian-Jewish Learning
Fundamental to any understanding of Judaism is an ability to enter into its formative literature, Midrash and Talmud, the primary texts of Jewish learning. Focusing on texts (in translation) relevant to the celebration of Passover, this course will introduce students to the rabbinic approach to Scripture and their means of making it relevant in their (and our) world. This understanding will be heightened by comparisons to early Christian modes of discourse on the same themes.
Langer Th 3-4:50 Spring

BC TH 506
Tibetan Buddhist Traditions
Prerequisite: Strong interest to do weekly reading and writing.
We will study how Mahayana and Vajrayana (tantric) forms of Buddhism planted roots deeply in Tibetan culture through remarkable persons and complex cultural mechanisms. Included is a survey of early Buddhist and Mahayana doctrines, tantric theory, biographies of tantric saints, and alternative paradigms of the path to enlightenment. We will explore doctrinal and historical developments through secondary sources and writings in translation by ancient and contemporary Tibetan lamas. Requirements: Weekly writing, midterm and final papers.
Makransky T 4:30-6:50 Spring

BC TH 522
Buddhist Meditation Theory: Tibet
Permission of professor required. Weekly writing, midterm and final papers. This course focuses on meditation in Tibetan mind training literature (Lojong), the subject of my recent writing. Tibetan Buddhist understandings of nature of mind with its capacities for stable attention, inclusive love, compassion, and insight will be explored through texts in translation supported by weekly instruction in associated meditations. The meditation exercises are designed to shed light upon our readings and to be accessible to persons from any religious tradition, both to deepen understanding of Buddhist concepts and explore what light they may shed on the religious life and spirituality of students' own traditions.
Makransky Th 4:30-6:50 Fall

BC TH 529
Finding God: Aspects of Jewish Theology
Beyond the dogmatic requirement of divine unity, Jewish theology has allowed great freedom to those seeking to find and understand God. This introductory course will survey various theological viewpoints about God, from the biblical period to the present time, covering such responses as theism, mysticism, religious naturalism and religious humanism.
Sonsino W 3-4:50 Fall

BC TH 544
Prophetic Tradition: Exploring the Hadith
Using English translations, this seminar surveys the ways the corpus of Prophetic hadith has inspired every area of Islamic life, including spiritual devotions and practices; theology, cosmology and eschatology; family, social and economic life; models of proper behavior (adab); the interpretation of the Qur'an and sacred history; and later disciplines of Arabic learning. Focuses on acquiring familiarity with the structure, contents, and uses of major Sunni hadith collections (but including representative Shiite sources), as well as later influential short collections (Nawawi, Ibn `Arabi).
Morris W 2-4:15 Fall

BC TH 576
Pathways to God: Islamic Theologies in Context
This seminar surveys the spectrum of political theologies and alternative models of religious and spiritual authority--and corresponding political, social and cultural expressions--that compete and interact throughout the manifold cultural contexts of Islamic history and civilization. Course based on translations of classical sources, beginning with early hadith, introduces eight key theological traditions: apophatic theology (`Ali); Shiite theological schools; Ash'ari/Mu'tazili kalam; theological assumptions of "Islamic law"; Peripatetic/scientific traditions of philosophical theology and political philosophy; the school of Ibn 'Arabi (Liu Ch'ih); and Ibn Taymiyya's traditionalism.
Morris W 2-3:50 Spring

BU STH TX 829
Modern Jewish Thought
Explores attempts of major modern Jewish philosophers to reconcile Judaism and the modern consciousness. Authors include Mendelssohn, Cohen, Rosenzweig, Buber, Kaplan, and Fackenheim. Responses of traditional Judaism to modern strategies of identity and self-preservation; Judaism and the crisis of modernity.
Zank MWF 1-2 Fall

BU STH TX 844
Sufism
Rise and development of the mystical movement in early Islam; analysis of the thought of leading Sufi brotherhoods, their organization, liturgy, and religious life; the impact of Sufism on classical and postclassical Islam.
Mason T 2-5 Fall

BU STH TX 845
Islamic Law
A survey of major trends in Islamic jurisprudence from the seventh century to the present; the structure of Islamic law, its regulative principles, its place in Islamic society, and the mechanisms by which it is elaborated and applied.  
Swartz MWF 11-12 Fall

BU STH TX 852
Topics in Religious Thought
Topic for Fall 2007: Religious Thought: East and West. Explores key problems in religious thought: nature of the Absolute, origin of time and the world, paradox of transcendence and immanence, role of teachers, sages, and prophets, language and negative theology, reason and the path to realization.
Lobel T Th 3:30-5 Fall

BU STH TX 855
Zen Buddhism
A study of Zen teachings and practices as a sect of Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, as a philosophic system, and as a pattern of culture.
Cogan T Th 2-3:30 Fall

GC TH/WM 626
Evangelical Perspectives on Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy
Analyzes essential theological distinctives, ecclesiastical structures, developments, and principal expressions of spirituality of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Issues of church-state relations, ecumenical concerns, biblical and liturgical renewal, and missions and evangelism will be given special attention.
Kuzmic Select Weekends Fall

GC AP/WM 644
Introduction to Confucianism and Taoism
(description unavailable)
Lee WF 10:45-12:15 Fall

GC AP/WM 646
Introduction to Buddhism
In-depth survey of the main historical and theological themes of the Buddhist religion. Exposure to primary source materials, major Buddhist traditions, and current strategies being used to bring the gospel to Buddhists. Particular emphasis on the Chinese, Korean and Japanese experience of Buddhism.
Tennent TR 8-9:30a Fall

HC CHST 6052
Eastern Christianity and Islam
Students will be introduced to the historical development of Islam in the Middle East from its origins in the seventh century to the Ottoman Empire and the impact Islam had upon the Christian communities of the region. Particular attention will be given to the historical, political, and social conditions of these Christian communities under Islamic rule and law. The contemporary situation of Christians in the Middle East will also be examined.
Skedros W 2:10-4:30 Fall

HC PAST 7360
World Religions and Missions
We will look at humanity’s quest for God from the beginning of time, and how four of the world’s major religious traditions - Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism – developed. Along with their history, we will study their main teachings, worldview, and practice. Part of the class will include visiting temples of the other faiths. We will also look at the phenomenon of atheism, and its own religious perspective. With each of these different religions, we will discuss Orthodox Christianity’s understanding of other religions, and how we are to dialogue and interact with them, trying to discover elements that could be acceptable within Orthodox Christianity, and how these bridges could be used in sharing our Faith within other religions.
Veronis T 6:40-9 Fall

HDS 3101
Introduction to Comparative Theology and Theology of Religions
This course examines the processes by which theologians study other religions' theologies and bring this learning into dialogue with their own traditions through careful comparison, dialogical reflection and, ideally, a subsequent, well-informed theology of religions. Readings include (by way of the necessary concrete example) Hindu primary texts and texts from the Roman Catholic magisterial and theological traditions, but students will be encouraged to bring their knowledge of and interest in other traditions into the class discussions. Prior knowledge of either tradition, though desirable, is not required.
Clooney TBA Fall

HDS 3102
Interreligious Dialogue: Exploration in the Hindu-Christian Context
This course examines the purpose, history, and challenges of interreligious dialogue as a practice and a way of learning, by a study of select examples from the Hindu-Christian (and Roman Catholic) encounter that may illumine other dialogues as well. Emphasis is on theological conversations inscribed in primary texts. Examples include Jesuit missionary encounters with Hindu intellectuals, instances of Protestant-Hindu dialogue/debate, 19th-20th century reconsiderations of Hindu and Christian identities, late 20th century debates involving figures such as Swami Abhishiktananda, Bede Griffiths, Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel, and more recent figures. Final lectures address the state of dialogue today, in India and the West, and "dialogical theology" as an interreligious practice.
Clooney TBA Spring

HDS 3220
World Religions Today: Diaspora, Diversity, and Dialogue
An introduction to five of the world's religious traditions --Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam-- through the lens of modern adherents and interpreters. How do people in each tradition articulate their faith in the context of the modern world and its forms of diaspora and globalization? How do they think about the challenges of religious pluralism? What are the tensions within traditions? Between traditions? In a world of religious difference, what does dialogue mean?
Eck TBA Fall

HDS 3316
Icon or Idol? Attitudes to the Sacred Image
The study of iconography, literally "writing in images," is a powerful lens through which to view the religious traditions of the world. Through a historically informed, cross-cultural survey, this course examines how conceptions of the sacred are visually communicated. Treats differing attitudes toward the physical embodiment of divinity, the question of symbolic versus "real" presence, as well as negative attitudes towards images--iconoclastic movements, the transcendence of physical and verbal images, and the reinterpretation of iconic vision in abstract or noniconic views of religious faith.
Patton TBA Fall

HDS 3409
Comparative Religious Ethics
Predicated on the assumption that global concerns are manifest in highly particularized cultural and religious circumstances, this course seeks to understand Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian framings of and prospective solutions to the problem of communal violence in the modern world. Topics examined in each tradition include: conceptions of moral subjectivity, frameworks for moral education, close reading of novels that grapple with the moral challenges (especially new forms of violence) wrought by colonization and globalization, and explicitly religious responses to such violence in the work of Gandhi, Buddhist monastic communities in Sri Lanka, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Monius TBA Spring

HDS 3411
Hinduism Through the Modern Novel
Although not a literary genre indigenous to India, the novel has rapidly emerged as one of the most creative and powerful means of modern Hindu literary expression in India and abroad. This course will explore what it means to be "Hindu" in the colonial and post-colonial age through the lens of contemporary fiction.
Monius TBA Fall

HDS 3450
Hindu Myth, Image, and Pilgrimage
An introduction to the Hindu tradition through the myths, images, and pilgrimages of classical and modern Hindu cultures. Studies the stories and theologies of the gods and goddesses of India: Vishnu, Krishna, Shiva, and Devi; the heroes and heroines of the epic Ramayana; the temples, images, and iconography of the gods in both classical and folk traditions; and the pilgrimages that link this mythological and artistic complex to the mountains, rivers, and cities of India.
Eck TBA Spring

HDS 3572
The Buddha in Myth, Image, and Ritual
Is the Buddha a spiritual exemplar, the founder of a religion, the iconic locus of devotional ritual, a cosmological principle, or all of the above? This seminar will explore the multifacited nature of the figure of the Buddha primarily within the context of Theravada Buddhism with a particular focus on the Buddha image consecration ritual. Questions such as the relationship between the Buddha image and Buddha bhakti and the interplay among ritual, narrative and doctrinal constructions of the Buddha will be informed by recent studies of icons, images, relics, and ritual. Prerequisite: previous work in Buddhism.
Swearer TBA Fall

HDS 3604
Themes in Feminism and Islam: A Historical Overview
This course will explore some of the major issues and debates in relation to feminism and women in Islam in historical overview from a post-colonial perspective. The methods, tools, and assumptions forming the grounds of our studies will also be examined, including issues of Orientalism, colonialism, and feminism in the construction of the religions/cultures of others. Subsequent topics include feminist readings of Islam and explorations of contemporary texts on questions of gender, feminism, and Islam.
Ahmed TBA Fall

HDS 3616
Religion, Gender, Identity - Readings in Arab and Muslim Autobiography: Seminar
We will read autobiographical works mainly by contemporary Arab and/or Muslim writers, paying particular attention to issues of identity, religion and gender, and exploring how these are at play in the text and in authorial constructions of self.
Ahmed TBA Spring

HDS 3617
Revelation and Legal Formalism in the Normative Order of the Cult
In Islam, the cult obligations are part of a legal normative order that tries to come to terms with the cosmic dimension of the cult. It links universal cosmic factors, such as time, to legal norms that regulate the cult, in particular prayer and fasting. But, as in Christianity and Judaism, time in Islam is no longer the self-regulating cyclical time it was in Greek antiquity, it is rather linear time directed towards the final Day of Judgment. Time receives its direction from God. It cannot, therefore, be the independent cause of legal rules, a status that can only be attributed to God. The authors whose books we will read stem mostly from eleventh- and twelfth century Transoxania and we will compare them to fifteenth- and sixteenth-century authors from Egypt and Syria. Their texts will show the difficulties that the Muslim jurists faced in reconciling time as "a way to the norm" (sabab al-hukm) with Gods normative speech (khitab) as the two factors that determine legal norms. These texts illustrate the degree of sophistication and dissent that goes into the construction of a theory of cultic obligation linked to external causes. If we have no (or not enough) Arabic speakers in the course, I will translate into English and circulate, a week before the seminar, texts from a literary genre called the "sources of the law" (usul al-fiqh) so that students can prepare for the discussion.
Johansen TBA Spring

HDS 3621
Introduction to Islamic Law
The course introduces beginners to the history of the fiqh, a system conceived of as the legal and ethical interpretation of the revealed texts of Islam, normally translated into English as "Islamic Law". It will provide a description of the institutional background of this system's spread throughout the Muslim Empire and of the historical formation of its content and methodology until the 21st century. The relation between the rules of the fiqh and the efforts, starting in the 9th century, to formulate a theory of legal sources and argumentation (the usul al-fiqh) will be discussed, but the complex legal matter of the fiqh will not be reduced to such a theory of the sources of the law and the rules of legal argumentation. We will rather focus on the debate among Muslim jurists, from the 11th to the 15th century, on the legal or theological character of such a theory and on the relation between law and theology. Three characteristics of the fiqh will be difficult to understand for law students in an American (or European) university: 1. the cult is an integral part of the law; 2. legal scholars and not political legislators have over most of the periods of Islamic law produced the norms of the fiqh and 3. it is licit for these scholars to uphold dissenting legal and ethical norms. The jurists' efforts to derive legal norms from revealed texts determined their specific approach to the Koran and distinguished it from that of the theologians. The fact that reasoning in Islam took place in this framework has played an important role in the 20th century debates on the place of Islamic law in the codes of law of the modern nation states. We will, therefore, follow the development of these elements in the formative and classical periods of Islamic law. But the norms of the fiqh cannot be reduced to problems of text interpretation. The specific function of legal norms as a means to distinguish but, at the same time, to integrate adherents of different religions, different ethnic groups and different cultures into the political community of Islam and to define an "Islamic way of life" has always given special importance to notions that transcend religious and gender differences such as "political contract", property, capacity, affiliation and the law of procedure and proof, clearly legal subject matters. Religious distinctions, on the other hand, found their clearest expression in the rules of cult, marriage and taxation. The social hierarchies that resulted from these forms of legal and political integration have in turn fed back into the production of legal norms. The changes brought about by the nation states in the legal order of the modern Muslim World will be treated before this background of a rich and complex legal culture that has reached far beyond the legal institutions into all levels of education, intellectual and public life.
Johansen TBA Spring

HDS 3625
Islam in South Asia: Religion, Culture, and Identity in South Asian Muslim Societies
A survey of the development of Muslim communities in the Indian Subcontinent through an exploration of religious identity. Issues and themes salient to Islamic identity considered within religious and political contexts, as well as the broader context of South Asian culture as expressed in language, literature, and the arts. Also examines the use of the term "Islamic" and the lived experience of being Muslim in various pre-modern and modern discourses in South Asia. Enrollment limited to 20.
Asani TBA Fall

HDS 3627
For the Love of God and His Prophet:
Literary and Artistic Expressions of Muslim Devotional Life
The course surveys the literary and artistic dimensions of the devotional life of the world's Muslim communities, focusing on the role of literature and the arts (poetry, music, architecture, calligraphy, etc) as expressions of piety and socio-political critique. An important aim of the course is to explore the relationships between religion, literature and the arts in a variety of historical and cultural contexts in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Europe and America.
Asani TBA Spring

HDS 3629
The Female Body and Islam: Religious Doctrines in Changing Societies
The Koran has developed rules of the gaze on men's and women's bodies. The ethical and legal rules of the Muslim fiqh have developed a very different protocol of the gaze, partly under the influence of Greek optics. The visibility of God, of the ruler, of men and free or slave women are debated in great detail by the jurists and the exegetical literature of Islam. The concepts developed in these debates are anchored in the legal construction of social hierarchies, but also in the functions assigned to the cult, to domestic practices as well as to the public sphere. Each of these spheres has its particular and specific protocol of the gaze. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries important changes took place concerning the concepts of licit social hierarchies, women's place in public life and the isolation of the domestic against the public sphere. These changes have, on the one hand, given a public dimension to women's activities and on the other favored a new and simplified concept of women. In Islamist political movements they have contributed to the growing importance assigned to the female body as a symbol and a foundation of a clearly gendered religious order of society. The first part of the seminar will introduce general categories of classical Islamic thought on the visibility of the sacred, the political power and the shame zone of genders; the second part will analyze programs of religious and political movements but also the influence of changed concepts of the human body and gender for the concept of gendered social order.
Johansen TBA Fall

HDS 3661
Introduction to Mesopotamian Religion
A survey of the sources, data, and principal concerns involved with the study of Mesopotamian religion. A selection of texts will be read in translation.
Steinkeller TBA Spring

HDS 3663a
Old Iranian Religion: Zoroastrianism, the Religion of the Magi
Though often cited as the Worlds oldest revealed religion, the origin of Zoroastrianism (Mazdaism) and the reality of its founder Zarathustra (Zoroaster) are both lost in the mists of a distant past. The holy Avestan texts were transmitted from mouth to ear for at least 2000 years before they were written down in the middle of the first millennium CE, only to be largely destroyed in the aftermath of the Arabic conquest and the coming of Islam. In the early period of Islam, in order to counter the influence of the new religion, Zoroastrian priests composed numerous texts in the Pahlavi language (mother of modern Persian or Farsi), which contain most of the ancient traditions. Zoroastrianism is the first of the so-called dualistic religions (another is Manicheism), in which the problem of the origin of evil is solved by postulating two original principles, one good and one evil. We will be reading a variety of Zoroastrian texts and texts about Zoroastrianism in English translation. A number of books will be placed on reserve in Andover. See the FAS website for further details.
Skjaervo TBA Spring

HDS 3681
Modern Jewish Religious Movements
A study of various forms of Judaism that have emerged in the last two centuries. Examination of the Reform, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reconstructionist movements, as well as Hasidism and its opposition. Emphasis is on institutions, ideology, and significant figures.
Harris TBA Spring

HDS 3682
Modern Jewish Thought
A study of significant Jewish thinkers in the modern period and their reflections on the past and present meaning of Judaism. All thinkers studied against the background of premodern Jewish thought and the challenges posed by modern Western philosophical systems.
Harris TBA Fall

HDS 3690
African Religions
This course is a basic introduction to the history and phenomenology of traditional religions of the African peoples. Using diverse methodological and theoretical approaches, the course will explore various forms of experiences and practices that provide a deep understanding and appreciation of the sacred meaning of African existence: myth, ritual arts, and symbols selected from West, East, Central, and Southern Africa.
Olupona TBA Fall

HDS 3698
Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa
This course is a comparative and historical survey of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa. It will explore facets of Islam in African history, culture, and society, paying particular attention to Islamic institutions and organizations and the imprints of Islam on verbal and visual arts, religion and cultural identity. We will also focus on topics such as Islam and politics, Muslim-Christian relations, social change, women and gender, and the process of modernization. It will consider the emergence and growth of Islam in the age of identity politics, global Islamism, and religious revivalism.
Olupona TBA Spring

HDS 3702
Religion, Diaspora, and Migration: Seminar
This seminar explores critical and interdisciplinary approaches to the place of religion and the emergence of the new immigrant and diaspora communities in the modern world and the discourses emerging from the practice of diaspora and migration scholarship. Using historical, ethnographic, and textual sources, the course will illuminate the lived religious experiences of immigrant and diaspora communities in the United States and elsewhere. It introduces critical perspectives on forms of interaction between religion and other aspects of social identity - ethnicity, gender, nationality, race, age, and sexuality, as well as transnational and global influences on social and cultural identity. The course also examines the complex networks of economic, cultural, and technological innovations that the "new" diaspora and immigrant communities have developed to make sense of their spiritual and cultural lives in new situations.
Olupona TBA Fall

HDS 3808
Space and Place: Seminar
A cross-cultural exploration of modes of constructing and experiencing place and space, lifestory and landscape, home and the world. Enrollment limited to 18.
Jackson TBA Spring

HDS 3817
The Deep: Purity, Danger, and Metamorphosis: Seminar
Reflecting upon the many supernatural constructions of natural elements in lived religion, this comparative course examines metaphysical, mythical, and ritual responses to the sea, including its multiple and conflicting roles as arena of pilgrimage, catharsis, primordial generation, rebirth, desolation, or apocalypse. Enrollment limited to 15 by application at the first meeting.
Patton TBA Spring

HDS 3818
Ritualization and Transitional Phenomena
This focus of this course is not on institutionalised rituals, viewed as framed and identifiable forms of social action, but on ritualization - on the everyday strategies, tactics and routines of 'playful' and 'magical' action whereby people manipulate words, gestures, emotions, bodies, objects and images in an effort not only to control and comprehend their relationship with the world but to change the world appears to them, particularly in times of separation and transition, change or crisis. Like play and fantasy, the process of ritualization is an intrinsic aspect of everyday life, evident in the ways human beings compose stories, furnish and clean their home-spaces, cook and eat meals, read a newspaper, court, joke, argue, mourn, give gifts and converse. Crucial to all these actions is the process of transferring or projecting thoughts and emotions onto non-immediate objects or persons in an attempt to symbolically or vicariously grasp and transform confusing, contradictory or chaotic inner experiences.
Jackson TBA Spring

HDS 3836
Introduction to Buddhist Scriptures and their Critical Interpretations
An introduction to basic issues in the contemporary understanding of textuality, history, and interpretation and their relevance to the study of Buddhist scriptures. Examples of Buddhist scriptures will be drawn primarily from the Mahayana traditions.
Hallisey TBA Spring

HDS 3837
Moral Anthropology: Buddhist Insights
An exploration of the contribution of Buddhist resources to critical reflection on moral anthropology. Buddhist materials will be drawn from the Theravadin and Jodo Shinshu traditions. Enrollment limited to 25.
Hallisey TBA Spring

HDS 3847
Religion in Multicultural America - Case Studies in Religious Pluralism: Seminar
An exploration and analysis of the dynamic multi-religious landscape of the U.S. Special focus on Muslim and Asian American traditions -Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jain. How are these traditions changing in the American environment? In what contexts do they encounter long-dominant Christian and Jewish communities? How is America changing as we all struggle with civic, constitutional, and theological issues, especially in the post-9/11 period? Readings, discussions, and class projects will focus on particular cases and controversies. Enrollment limited to 15.
Eck TBA Fall

HDS 3851
Buddhism in America: Seminar
The transmission of Buddhist teachings and institutions to the West. A survey of Buddhist thinkers and movements since the nineteenth century, with primary attention to America: immigrant Buddhist communities, Transcendentalists and Theosophists, Pragmatist and Process philosophers, the beat generation, and recent Zen, Tibetan, and Theravada developments. Topics for discussion and research include tradition and transformation, socially engaged Buddhism and environmentalism, feminism, peace activism, and the dialogue with other faiths. No prerequisite, but knowledge of Asian Buddhism is desirable. Enrollment limited to 15.
Queen TBA Fall

HDS 3858
Borderlands: Seminar
This course explores the ambiguous and unstable borderlands - social, psychological, and spiritual - of human existence. Drawing on empirical studies of transnational migration, displacement, culture contact, the colonial encounter, rites of passage and limit experience, and using such key theoretical concepts as liminality, transculturation, indeterminacy, and plurality, we will explore the destructive and constructive dimensions of what Karl Jaspers calls border situations (grenzsituationen) and Gloria Anzaldúa calls the new mestizaje. Consideration will also be given to the transfigurative experience of carrying out ethnographic fieldwork in other societies, as well as questions concerning the conditions of the possibility of genuinely mutual dialogue and understanding between people and societies that history has cast into relations of radical inequality. Enrollment limited to 20.
Carrasco TBA Fall

HDS 3859
The Politics of Storytelling
This course addresses Hannah Arendt's thesis that storytelling is a critical strategy for bridging the gap between private and public realms. Storytelling is thus understood as a mode of social and political activity that involves a struggle between personal and collective representations of the "truth" and between unofficial and official versions of events. Through the close analysis of storytelling in a variety of situations, we will explore the ways in which the meaning of stories resides not in any ahistorical essence or internal logic, but emerges from the everyday human struggle to strike a balance between domains of experience that are, on the one hand, felt to belong to oneself or one's own kind, and, on the other, felt to be shared or to belong to others.
Jackson TBA Fall

HDS 3865
Human Rights in the Contemporary Intellectual
and Political History of the Muslim World
This course moves beyond polarization of the relationship between Islam and Democracy to explore contexts of interpretations of Human Rights and secularism in the Muslim world, analyze moments that have shaped these approaches and address the Muslim presence in America and Europe as it relates to the encounter between modernity, and Islam, while considering theories developed by religious authorities and activists as well as case studies from Egypt, Turkey and Iran.
Cesari TBA Fall

HDS 3883
Arabic Theological Texts: Seminar
A reading of Sharh al-Aqaid al-Nasafiyya by Sad al-Din al-Taftazani (d.1390), one of the most widely studied theological works ever written in Islamic civilization. Prerequisite: Three years of Arabic or equivalent.
El-Rouayheb TBA Fall

HDS 3884
al-Ghazali: Theologian and Mystic
Al-Ghazali (d.1111) is generally recognized to be one of the most influential of all Muslim religious thinkers. A prominent theologian and jurist, he experienced a spiritual crisis at the height of his career, and as a consequence explored mysticism (Sufism) and worked out a powerful synthesis between respect for the externals of the Islamic religion and the mystics stress on the interior life. In this course, we will look in particular at his account of his spiritual crisis; his critical engagement with the Islamic Philosophers; and some of the more mystical works that he wrote toward the end of his life, including his theodicy, his meditations on the Quranic dictum that "God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth", and select chapters from his great summa "The Revival of the Religious Sciences". All readings will be in English. Prerequisite: No knowledge of Arabic required.
El-Rouayheb TBA Fall

HDS 3898
Readings in Tibetan: Seminar
Readings will focus on polemical writings during the period of the Fifth Dalai Lama regarding the practice of Tantric Buddhism and its relation to Tibetan culture and civilization, including works by the Great Fifth himself. Prerequisite: At least one year of coursework reading classical Tibetan or the equivalent is required.
Gyatso TBA Fall

HDS 3923
Hindu Ethics: Seminar
An intensive exploration of the place of ethics and moral reasoning in Hindu thought and practice. Materials to be examined will be drawn from a wide range of sources, from classical Sanskrit dharmashastra to epic narrative, devotional poetry, and modern ethnography, but emphasis will be placed throughout upon the particularity of different Hindu visions of the ideal human life. Enrollment limited to 15.
Monius TBA Fall

HDS 3925
South Asian Religious Aesthetics: Seminar
An examination of South Asian theories of aesthetics and their relevance for understanding Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain discourses of ethics, literature, and theology. Prerequisite: Previous coursework in the religious history of South Asia. Enrollment limited to 15.
Monius TBA Spring

HDS 3928
Reading Hindu Texts Interreligiously III:
Sankara's Commentary on the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad in Translation
This seminar is for students interested in the study of primary Indian/Hindu texts, read in translation and in the context of a comparative dynamic of reading religiously across the boundaries of traditions. The Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, Sankara's commentary on it (plus excerpts from Suresvara's Vartikas), will be read (in English) along with short examples from Christian theological/commentarial literature. No language prerequisite, but students who know Sanskrit will be encouraged to make use of their expertise. It is part of a series, but it is not necessary to have taken prior seminars. Enrollment limited to 15.
Clooney TBA Fall

HDS 3931
Reading Hindu Texts Interreligiously IV:
The Yoga Sutras and Commentaries in Translation
This seminar is for students interested in the study of primary Indian/Hindu texts, read in translation and in the context of a comparative dynamic of reading across the boundaries of traditions. The Yoga Sutras and their commentaries will be read along with excerpts from Christian parallels (e.g., the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola). No language prerequisite, but students who know Sanskrit will be encouraged to make use of their expertise. It is part of a series, but it is not necessary to have taken prior seminars. Enrollment limited to 15.
Clooney TBA Spring

HDS 3935
The Law at Qumran and the Law of the Mishnah
A study of the emergence of Jewish law in antiquity. Theme for 2008: The Law at Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls); the relationship of Qumran law with the law of the Mishnah. Prerequisite: Ability to read Qumran texts in the original.
Cohen TBA Spring

HDS 3936
Buddhist Arts of Ministry in the Zen Peacemakers Order
As Buddhism has moved through time and across Asian geographies and cultures, Buddhist precepts have evolved to meet the specific needs of spiritual growth and celebration in their respective communities. This course will consider modern traditions of Zen Buddhist Peacemaker tenets and precepts in the U.S., and address how they are the basis for a variety of Buddhist ministerial practices, ceremonies, and rites of passage in the West today. Such ceremonies and other Buddhist ministerial practices will be the focus of the course, including critical aspects of the pastoral and counseling activities of leaders of contemporary American Buddhist communities. There will also be some comparative components of the course that consider parallel practices in modern Asian communities, especially in Japan. Enrollment limited to 20.
Glassman TBA Fall

HDS 3974
Hadith I: Seminar
An introduction to the Hadith literature, its historical development, its content, and its religious and cultural significance in Islam, through readings from the major Hadith collections, 'ulum al-hadith works, biographical dictionaries, and modern scholarship. Not open to auditors. Enrollment limited to 12.
Ahmed TBA Fall

HDS 3975
Hadith II: Seminar
Readings from the debate, conducted both in the Western academy and in Muslim discourses, from the 19th century to today, over the authenticity and reliability of the Hadith corpus, and of the early Muslim historical tradition at large. Not open to auditors. Enrollment limited to 12.
Ahmed TBA Spring

Last update: June 14, 2007 2:39 PM