Religion Impacts Us ALL
REL 495 Introduction to Jainism (Fall 2024, T/TH 12:30-1:50 starts 10/22/24)
Everything you need to know about this ancient Indian religion. This course will teach you the basics of Jainism in a creative and interesting way. Non-violence, vegetarianism, asceticism, material culture, and more. We will learn about the ideas that shaped Jainism and made it so relevant in the ancient and contemporary world. No previous knowledge of the topic is required to take this class.
REL 350 South Asian Goddesses (Fall 2024 M,W, F 12:00-12:50 starts 10/22/24)
Introduction to the most well-known Hindu goddesses, at both the pan-Hindu and local level, and explores their mythical narratives, associated powers, iconography, and rituals of worship. Presents different methodological approaches scholars employ in the interpretation of goddess worship in South Asia and abroad. Materials are drawn from textual, historical sources as well as contemporary ethnographic research, and seek to include representative figures from different regions throughout India and the Himalayan region.
REL 494 - Complicity, Responsibility, and Structural Injustice (Fall 2024, Mondays 3:00-5:00)
Many of our most pressing social issues are complex, structural, and systemic phenomena. Included among these collective problems are climate change, migrant deaths, income inequality, sweatshop labor, homelessness, and housing/school segregation. Amid such complex social evils, how should we think about blame and responsibility? In this course, we will examine Christian theological, philosophical, and sociological sources in order to better understand complicity, responsibility, and blameworthiness as it relates to structural injustices or structural sin.
REL 283 -Jewish Sacred Literature (Fall 2024 M/T/W/TH 9:00-9:50 AM: Meets 10/21/24-12/11/24)
This course examines the most famous canonical Jewish texts of all time, including the Talmud, the writings of Moses Maimonides, and Jewish Mysticism (the Book of the Zohar).
REL 419 - Jesus and Judaism (Fall 2024 T/TH 3:00-5:30: Meets 10/21/24-12/11/24)
Examines the ways Jews over the last two thousand years thought about, polemicized against, and celebrated, Jesus of Nazareth.
REL 199 - Becoming Martin and Malcolm (Spring 2024, T/TH 3:30-4:50 PM)
This course re-examines the lives and legacies of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
REL 511 - Crime, Punishment, and Redemption in America (Spring 2024 Mondays 3-5:30)
The criminal-penal system in the United States is a complex web of mutually rein-forcing institutions, practices, & moral val-ues. This course focuses on the religious concepts that have informed our moral imaginations, which in turn, inform the so-cial practices we enact and the institutions we build & maintain.
REL 335 - Religion in Contemporary America (Spring 2024, T/TH 11:00-12:20)
Examines the religious dynamics of the twenty-first century United States.
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