The goal of this course will be to examine different conceptions of Buddhist meditation and how these different conceptions affect the nature of practice and the understanding of the ideal life within a variety of Buddhist traditions. Thus, the study of Buddhist meditation traditions reveals not just intricate forms of practice, but reveals the nature of the good life and how one lives it.

This course interprets humanity's changing ecological relationships through religious and philosophical traditions. It takes up ethical questions presented by environmental problems, introduces frameworks for making sense of them, and examines the symbols and narratives that shape imaginations of nature.

Surveys Islamic history from the "age of the great empires" (Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal) to the colonial period and up to the present day, including Islam in America. Islamic life and thought will be examined from multiple angles -- including popular piety and spirituality, philosophy and theology, law, gender, art, architecture, and literature -- with particular attention paid to the rise of modern Islamic "fundamentalist" movements.

Description and explanation of the diverse forms of Jewish religious life in America.

This course asks: what does "spiritual but not religious" mean, and why has it become such a pervasive idea in modern America? We'll study everything from AA to yoga to Zen meditation, with stops in Christian rock, Beat poetry, Abstract Expressionist painting and more. In the end, we'll come to see spirituality in America as a complex intermingling of the great world religions, modern psychology, and a crassly commercialized culture industry.

This course is designed to add substantive depth to a general understanding of American religious pluralism and insight into the socio-historical context of American religion through the study of Mormonism. In addition to introducing Mormonism's basic beliefs and practices, the course will explore issues raised by Mormonism's move toward the American mainstream while retaining its religious identity and cultural distinctiveness.

Islam began strange and will return to strange as it began. So blessings to the strange ones! So goes a famous saying of the Prophet Muhammad, celebrating the virtue of truth over conformity. This course examines Islamic movements that have sought to push back against religious and political norms of their times. Along the way, we read debates about orthodoxy: what are the limits of the Muslim community and how are such limits contested?

Students in this course will fashion their own approach to studying religion and develop a retrospective project that interweaves the various strands of their prior study over the course of the major. Building on earlier courses in Religious Studies, this capstone seminar completes the major's sequence by applying questions and conversations in the study of religion to some advanced theme crafted by the instructor.

Examines the Dzokchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhist Tantra focusing on its philosophical and contemplative systems and its historical and social contexts.

Theravada, Mahayana, and Tantrayana Buddhist developments in India.