This course is built around the "big" questions Jews in the modern period have faced--such as "Who is a Jew?," "Are there divine commandments?," "Must a Jew believe anything?," "Can there be God after Auschwitz?" Each unit will approach a different question from a variety of perspectives and sources--secular and religious--offering tools to understand complexities, acknowledge context, and ask new questions.

This course examines the relationship between black religion and the criminal justice system in the U.S. from Jim Crow to the Black Lives Matter era. We will focus on the ideas, lived experiences, and activism of the incarcerated; religious engagements with policing; and movements for criminal justice reform and prison abolition. Authors likely will include Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Elijah Muhammad.

An exploration of religious concepts, practices and issues as addressed in African literature and film. We will examine how various African authors and filmmakers weave aspects of Muslim, Christian and/or traditional religious cultures into the stories they tell. Course materials will be drawn from novels, memoirs, short stories, creation myths, poetry, feature-length movies, documentaries and short films.

This course will explore the role of religion in the black freedom struggle in the United States, with a focus on the twentieth century to the present. We will consider the question, how have black people harnessed religion to conceptualize and fight for various notions of black progress and the salvation of black people (broadly construed) amid the persistence of racial inequality?

This topical course provides upper level undergraduate students in Religious Studies an opportunity for advanced coursework in Buddhism

This course offers third- and fourth-year Religious Studies majors resources for conceiving and executing a major research project. As a follow-up, students usually take RELG 4900 ("Distinguished Major Thesis"), which affords them an opportunity to write the research project they have conceived in this course. Whether you plan to write a thesis or not, RELG 4800 offers an accessible introduction to the craft of research in Religious Studies.

Students write a thesis, directed by a member of the department, focusing on a specific problem in the theoretical, historical or philosophical study of religion or a specific religious tradition. The thesis grows out of the project proposal and annotated bibliography developed in the Research Methods seminar.Prerequisite: Selection by faculty for Distinguished Major Program and completion of RELG 4800.

Systematic readings in a selected topic under detailed supervision. Prerequisite: Permission of departmental advisor and instructor.

This seminar will examine some of the most profound and influential writings about love from the Islamic intellectual and poetic traditions. Perhaps more than any other civilization, the literary and philosophical traditions of Islamic civilization have been "love-centric." In this course we will closely read and discuss various philosophies and theories of love from the mundane to the mystical.

An examination of religion and culture of the rabbinic movement (c. 70-600 CE) in the social and cultural contexts of Greco-Roman antiquity. Among the issues to be examined: rituals and institutions of the rabbis, social organizations within the rabbinic movement, engagement with other sectors of Jewish and gentile society.