Graduate Program - Proposed Courses

Proposed Graduate Courses

840:501. Theories in the Study of Religion (3)
Theories that attempt to explain religious phenomena. These include social, psychological, economic, political, Orientalist, structuralist and post-modern paradigms put forward by such thinkers as Marx, Freud, Durkheim, and Weber, in the light of the socio-cultural context within which these thinkers were themselves embedded.

840:504. Oriental and Eastern Orthodox Christians in America (3)
The religious, social, and political experience of Eastern Orthodox (for example, Greek and Russian) and Oriental Orthodox (for example, Egyptian) Christians in America from colonial times to the present.

840:505. Apocalypticism: Religious Movement and the End of Time (3)
Ancient, medieval, and contemporary apocalyptic literature and movements with particular attention to theories of apocalypticism and millenarian movements.

840:512. Major Figures and Ideas in Western Christian Tradition (3)
Major ideas in the development of Western Christian tradition (God, Christ, sin, grace, atonement, salvation, love) and major figures in Catholic and Protestant thought (Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and selected recent figures) as they have dealt with these ideas.

840:514. Origins of Western Morality (3)
The ways early Christian groups appropriated Jewish and Hellenistic moral traditions and reshaped them according to their developing interests. Issues include the variety of ancient options available for thinking about moral psychology, the concept of porneia (harlotry), the family/household and opposition to it, wealth/poverty, slavery, sexual ethics and gender norms.

840:515. Christians, "the other", and violence in History (3)
The ways that Christians have described and rejected the "other" (Jews, heretics, Muslims, "secular humanists"), emphasizing historical continuities and differences from the earliest Christian texts through the Protestant Reformation.

840:516. Religious Fundamentalism and Modernism in America (3)
The historical development of religious fundamentalism and modernism in the United States, comparing scholarly definitions of fundamentalism and modernism, and representative groups' interactions with and impact on U.S. culture.

840:521. The History of Yoga in the West (3)
How the term yoga was understood in the earliest Sanskrit sources. The origins of the postural practices that are associated with the term in the present-day West, focusing on the two primary exponents of these practices, Krishnamacharya and Shivananda. The main influences of the colonial period in which these teachers operated that were formative to the construction of modern yoga, including Western macho-nationalism and the emergence of gymnastics, European esotericism and spiritualism in the Victorian period, and the emergence of Hindu nationalism and the quest for indigenous authenticity. How authenticity in an ancient past is sought and construed to legitimate a tradition reconfigured to suit the exigencies of modernity.

840:523. Buddhism in America (3)
The most popular forms of Buddhism introduced to the US, including Zen, Tibetan and others; major intellectual and social issues Buddhism has confronted in its transmission to and its transformation in the modern West.

840:524. Western Encounter With Hinduism (3)
The encounter with and reception of Hinduism in Western literary sources, beginning with early Greek representations, and culminating with the 60s counter culture. Romantic appropriations and Orientalist constructions of Hindu thought throughout the colonial period. The contexts in which notions of the ‘Other’ are produced and perpetuated.

840:526. Contemplation on the Self in Buddhism (3)
The central issue of self/no-self in the Buddhist philosophical tradition and its ethical, psychological and existential implications, as well as its contemporary development.

840:527. Religious Pluralism in America (3)
Religious pluralism in North America and especially the United States, focusing on interpretive paradigms and methodologies employed by scholars assessing the role of pluralism throughout American religious history.

840:543. The Psychological Roots of Religious Terrorism (3)
The role of violence and terrorism in the religions of the world and the psychology behind it, from the perspective of contemporary psychoanalytic theory but also including material from social psychology and comparative religions.

840:545. Hindu Gurus in the West (3)
The emergence of Hindu Gurus on the Western alternative religious landscape, and the Hindu traditions they attempted to transplant. The construction of notions of a ‘spiritual’ India in contradistinction to a ‘materialistic’ West, the first Hindu apologists in Bengal, and the arrival of Vivekananda in the West at the end of the 19th century. The lives and teachings of some of the most prominent Hindu Gurus of the 60s, with particular attention directed to the social dynamics of the counter culture milieu, which provided fertile terrain for the reception of such teachings. The post-charismatic social after-effects of the Movements these gurus attempted to establish.

840:547. Just War and Jihad Traditions and Their Current Use (3)
Major sources in the religious traditions of just war and jihad of the sword and of prominent contemporary examples of the use of these traditions in religious thought on war.

840:549. Sanctifying Violence and Biblical Tradition (3)
The relationship between biblical traditions and sanctifying violence, through critical analysis of how violent acts may be justified by appeal to notions of the divine. Instances of ritual violence and sanctified combat from ancient Mesopotamian literature, iconography, and the Bible, as well as the use of biblical “scripture” to frame violence within early Jewish and Christian traditions. Current comparative and theoretical discussions of religious violence.

840:550. Violence in Buddhist Literature and History (3)
Worldly and otherworldly forms of violence in Buddhist literature and history. Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese and vernacular literary texts. Historical manifestations of Buddhist violence through secondary and primary sources, including inscriptions, chronicles, monastic records, travel accounts, art, novels, and films. Divine punishment and curses, protective rituals and technologies, state aggression and warfare, interreligious and social conflict, protest and millenarian revolt, and structural and symbolic violence.

840:552. Meditation and Contemplation in Religion and Science (3)
Contemporary scientific research into some of the religious, psychological and psycho-physiological dimensions of contemplation and meditation. The meditation practices and models of human selfhood found in Christianity and Buddhism. Several relevant and controversial areas in contemporary psychology and psycho-physiology.

840:556. Islamic Spirituality (3)
The historical development of the mystical traditions, with a particular interest in their relationship to the dominant forms of scholastic Islam over the centuries. The most influential theories of mysticism in relation to Islamic theological dogmas, on the basis of English translations of Arabic and Persian primary sources. The diversity of Sufisms as well as the spiritual traditions outside of Sufism among Shi’i Muslims.

840:557. Krishna (3)
The primary sources associated with perhaps the most popular of all the Hindu deities, Sri Krishna. The emergence of this deity in the earliest Sanskrit sources and the development of Krishna theology in subsequent texts, particularly the Bhagavata Purana, culminating in the 16th century tradition stemming from the Bengali, mystic Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. How theologies develop over time. Analyses of this deity from various reductionist perspectives of the western academic study of religion.

840:558. Bhagavad Gita (3)
The reading of the primary source will consider the diametrically different theologies that have been extracted from the text by two primary traditional Hindu exegetes, the 9th century Shankara, and the 11th century Ramanuja. The reception and construal of the text by Western intelligentsia of the 19th century and its appropriation and reconfiguration by Hindu apologists and nationalists of the colonial period. The social contexts within which the meanings of texts are not only construed, but also transmitted and interpreted.

840:566. Bhakti Yoga (3)
The development of the theologies, practices, rituals, and cultural contexts of the main religious expressions of what has come to be known as ‘Hinduism,’ viz., bhakti, devotional yoga. With deep roots prior to the common era, there are three main streams of bhakti, each of which centers on a manifestation of one of the great pan-Indic deities: Vishnu, Shiva, and the Goddess. Each consecutive offering of this course will focus on one of these three deities in revolving fashion.

840:568. The Vedanta Sutras (3)
The history of hermeneutics focuse on one of the most important Hindu theological texts, the Vedanta Sutras. A reading of the earliest genre of philosophical texts in ancient India, the Upanisads, of which the Vedanta sutras are themselves an exegetical exposition. The liberties taken by later Schools of thought in seeking authenticity by attempting to locate their specific (and very disparate) theologies in these ancient texts.

840:569. Buddhist Philosophy(3)
Major philosophical schools of Buddhism, especially Mahayana Buddhism, including Madhyamaka, Yogacara, and Chan/Zen. Focus on core concepts and their developments: Dependent Origination, Impermanence, Emptiness, No-Self, Karma, and Buddha Nature.

840:570. Buddhism, Society, and Politics in Southeast Asia (3)
An exploration of the histories of Buddhist social and political culture in Southeast Asia from premodernity to the present. We read primary literary and historical texts, inscriptions, and art historical and archaeological evidence, as well as current interdisciplinary scholarship in Buddhist and Southeast Asian Studies, to consider how Buddhism has played, and continues to play, a vital role in the construction of norms and habits of the sociopolitical domain. Examples of particular thematic foci include diverse regional Buddhist practices and understandings of law, gender, class, political authority, the family, monastic institutions, colonialism, and economic life.

840:574. Islamic Thought (3)
The historical rise and development of Islamic theological and jurisprudential writings, and the relationship of the dynamism in these traditions with changing historical contexts. The wide diversity of Muslims today and the harmony and tensions between them, based largely on primary sources translated into English from Arabic.