Religion

This course provides an overview of key concepts, methods and authors in both fields. These introduce the student to the types of reasoning required for the pursuit of in-depth analysis in each discipline. Emphasis on topics and authors varies with the particular instructor.

This course examines the meanings of social categories such as gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, nationality, and species. What are the philosophical and religious foundations of the categorizations of beings operative in our contemporary cultures? How do attributions of same and different, normal and abnormal, rational and irrational, human and nonhuman shape social and political processes of inclusion and exclusion? Are social categories real, constructed, or both? This course focuses primarily on intersectional approaches to oppression and identity that see social categories such as gender, race, and class as mutually constitutive rather than separable. Course readings span a range of philosophical and religious traditions including Continental philosophy, analytic philosophy, Latina/o studies, feminist theory, queer theory, critical race theory, disability studies, and environmental studies. Students may not earn credit for both PY 2716 and RE 2716. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course offers a general introduction to modern moral theory. What makes one action wrong, and another right? What are our moral duties towards others? Do moral values change over time, making beliefs about right and wrong simply “relative,” or are moral values objective, holding true for all people, everywhere, at all times? Should emotions play a role in ethical deliberation, or should we aspire to be purely rational when engaged in moral thought and action? Is it okay to cheat on an exam, so long as everybody else does it? Do we have a right to use animals in laboratory experiments? Is eating meat ethical? Is it wrong to share a racist or sexist joke? Should abortion be legal? Students will learn how to apply key moral concepts to real-world problems and situations after closely studying several moral theories, including utilitarianism, Kantianism, and feminist care ethics. Other topics covered include moral relativism, psychological hedonism, and ethical egoism.

This course is organized around an advanced or specialized topic in philosophy and provides preparation for HU 3900 Inquiry Seminars in philosophy and religion. Emphasis on topics and authors will vary with instructor, but will typically involve the study of: a particular philosopher (e.g., Plato, Marx, Dewey, Arendt); a particular philosophical tradition (e.g., Pragmatism, Analytic Philosophy, Buddhism, Feminism); a particular philosophical problem or topic (free will, globalization, consciousness, social movement, justice); or a particular philosophical classic (Aristotle’s Ethics, Hobbes’s The Leviathan, Beauvoir’s The Second Sex). The topical theme of the course will be provided as a modified course title in the course description posted online. This course may be repeated for different topics.

This course is organized around an advanced or specialized topic in religion and provides preparation for HU 3900 Inquiry Seminars in philosophy and religion. The focus will vary, but the material will be drawn from a particular religious thinker, a particular religious tradition or a particular historical or contemporary problem. The topical theme of the class will be provided as a modified course title in the course description posted online. This course may be repeated for different topics.

The purpose of this course is to examine how the two institutions of religion and culture interact and mutually influence one another. To do this a variety of definitions of religion and culture will be presented as well as an analysis of how religion interacts with such cultural phenomena as economics, politics, the state, war and the basic problem of social change. The purpose of this is to obtain a variety of perspectives on both religion and culture so that one can begin to articulate more clearly the different influences that occur in the development of one’s own personal history and the culture in which one lives.

This course examines the ways in which religious problems of meaning have been encountered in the context of the eclipse of religion in Western culture from the Enlightenment to the present. The class emphasizes challenges presented to traditional belief systems by modern thought in areas such as the sciences, psychology, textual criticism, and historical events, as well as some religious responses to those challenges. How do religions respond to the limits of human intellectual capacity, limits of human endurance, and limits of moral comprehension?
This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

The primary aim of this course would be student literacy in global religions. The course examines, from historical, doctrinal, scriptural and/or philosophical perspectives, major world religious and spiritual traditions. Attention will be given to the social context in which these religious traditions developed and will examine their continuing influence. Students taking RE2725 should not receive credit for RE2723 or RE2724, since RE2725 replaces them.

This course will consider, from historical, doctrinal, spiritual and/or philosophical perspectives, either one religious tradition (Islam, Daoism or indigenous traditions, for example) or a constellation of traditions in the same time period or place. Attention will be given to the social context in which these traditions developed and their continuing influence. This course may be repeated for different topics.

Patriarchal religious traditions are often characterized by masculine images of the Divine, cisgendered male religious authority, male-authored scriptures and a heteronormative gendered division of religious practices. As a result, men and cultural masculinity are differently valued than women and cultural femininity; this male-female binary leaves little room for practitioners who identify as nonbinary. In this discussion-focused course, we will engage representations of gender and sexuality in different traditions and their impact on larger social contexts from philosophical, theological and ethnographic perspectives. Among the questions we will explore: Why does the idea of a female or feminine YHWH, God or Allah bother us? Can feminine representations (such as the Devi, Shakti or Shekhinah) or nonbinary representations (such as two-spirit people in indigenous communities) facilitate gender equity? Do mystical traditions (such as the Zohar or Sufism) encourage gender fluidity? How do religions influence sexuality; how does sexuality intersect with creation myths and cosmogonies? Why is a Buddhist nun expected to bow to a Buddhist monk; why does the Catholic Church not recognize women, nonbinary and / or queer priests? This combination of theoretical and methodological conversations will offer students a forum in which to recast assumptions about individual and collective identity that permeate our cultural systems and structures.