Summer 2025

Summer Session 1

REL 2712: Religious Dimensions of the Middle East Crisis: Hamas, Hezbollah, and Other Actors
This course provides an analysis of the historical development of political Islam in the Middle East, with comparative consideration of the political manifestations of Christianity and Judaism in the region. Particular attention will be paid to the ideological underpinnings, strategic approaches, and political consequences of contemporary extremist Islamist militant groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, and Al-Qaeda. The course will also investigate the complex relationship between politics and religion within Middle Eastern Christian and Jewish communities, offering a comparative framework for understanding the political significance of religious identity and doctrine. Finally, the course will critically examine the sources of the current crisis in the Middle East and the potential for conflict resolution within these religious and political contexts.

Summer Session 2

REL 2380: Religion and Film
This course looks at the importance of religious thought in world cinema. It considers a wide variety of films – from independent and foreign films to mainstream Hollywood blockbusters – that are either overtly religious or that have religious themes at their core. Background readings on film theory and select world religions will help students critically assess the form and content of each film.

Fall 2025

REL 1000: Religion in a Global Context
This course introduces students to the study of religion in its cultural and historical contexts and aims to familiarize students with the multi-faceted role of religion in the world including examination of social, economic, historical, political and ethical factors.

REL 1200: Magic
Wizards and Wicca, angels and demons, entertainers and con-artists – the words and the worlds of magic beckon to us from television sets and new-age stores, speak in the language of children’s books and church sermons. But what is magic? And, more importantly, whose traditions and practices get called “magic”? This course examines the debates over magic in historic and contemporary contexts, examining traditions from Vodou to Islam. As we pay particular attention to the lines between the rational and the irrational, the authentic and the fake, and between commitment and entertainment, our investigations will ultimately lead us to ask: what is religion?

REL 1240: Death and the Afterlife
This course explores how selected religious traditions conceptualize the experience of death and the possibility of an afterlife. It considers culturally located ideas about “good” and “bad” deaths and beliefs about the care and treatment of the dead, such as burial and cremation. Together we will examine how diverse funerary and remembrance rituals may position the soul for distinct post-mortem paths, including reincarnation, liberation, salvation, and immortality. We will also ask what role ritual, grief, and mourning practices play in ongoing relationships between the living and the dead in these traditions.

REL 1750: Bible, Race and Religion
Arguably one of the most influential books (or set of books) ever written, the Christian Bible has played an enormous role in how people think about and experience race. This course examines this role while introducing students to the academic study of the Bible and religion. We begin with the biblical writings in their historical context, but much of the class focuses on how people in the United States interpret and use the Bible and, more specifically, Jesus in racialized ways. We will look at examples of how the Bible has been used to oppress and empower.

REL 1755: Religion and Psychology
This course explores the intersection of religion and psychology, with special attention paid to mindfulness as a therapeutic tool. We look at major theorists of religion and psychology and consider how “religious” and “secular” approaches impacted each thinker. We also examine classical Buddhist discourses of the mind and critically investigate the ways in which these mental disciplines have been adopted and adapted into modern therapeutic contexts. Topics include mindfulness (sati), Zen, and mandala visualizations, Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Art Therapy, and more.

REL 1820: Yoga, Karma, Dharma: Hindu Traditions
Hinduism is the world’s oldest religious tradition, yet in today’s globalizing, technology-rich environment, it continues to reinvent itself. Ancient practices like yoga and astrology have today become global commodities and pop culture mainstays. Karma and reincarnation, concepts with complex histories, are appropriated throughout the western world. The course focuses both on India, where Hindu practices incubated for centuries, and the new global homes of a diverse and cosmopolitan Hinduism. Various forms of traditional and contemporary Hindu expression, from myths to movies and rituals to politics, bring Hindu worlds to life.

REL 1850: Jewish Traditions
This course traces the history of the Jewish community from its origins in ancient Israel to the present day, considering the evolution of its major ideas and practices as well as the diversity of Jewish cultures throughout the world. A range of classical and contemporary Jewish approaches to theology, ethics, ritual, gender, peoplehood, spirituality, authority and relations with other communities will be explored.

REL 2745: Faith, Ethics, and Healing
This course explores the relationship between religion, spirituality, and healthcare, examining how faith traditions shape understandings of illness, healing, and medical ethics. Students will explore diverse religious perspectives on suffering, death, and bioethics while critically analyzing the role of spirituality in patient care and health outcomes. Students will consider historical, theological, and contemporary issues at the intersection of faith and medicine, including how religious worldviews influence medical decision-making, patient care, and institutional policies. By the end of the course, students will be equipped to integrate a nuanced understanding of religious diversity into healthcare settings, fostering more inclusive, ethical, and compassionate care.

REL 2920: Approaches to the Study of Religion
This course is designed to orient students interested in religious studies to the broader landscape of the field. In the process, students will be challenged to examine and compare a variety of methodological approaches to the study of religion. This course will also train students in advanced research and writing in the field.

REL 3300: Religion and Popular Culture
This course starts with the position that “religion” cannot be neatly confined to “beliefs,” “institutions,” or “worship,” but rather that “religion” is an expansive concept that can be found in many unexpected places. One such place is the realm of popular culture. Students in this course will explore and analyze the ways that movies, television, sports, novels, and other types of popular culture can shape, cultivate, interact with, and even serve as religion.

REL 3480: Environmental Ethics
In an exploration of the moral dimensions of the environmental crisis, students examine the roles religious and philosophical ethics play in providing frameworks for understanding environmental issues and developing guidelines for addressing specific contemporary problems.

REL 3900: Love and Ecstasy
A medieval Muslim poet wrote, “I profess the religion of love, wherever its caravan turns along the way / that is the way, the path I keep.” This course examines this “path of love,” a tradition that arose early in the history of Islam and came to influence Muslims around the world, in every period of history. The followers of this path focused – and continue to focus – on building a relationship with God based on love and sought a personal, experiential encounter with the “divine.” The course will examine the social, political, and poetic effects of love – on social protest, music, philosophy, gender, and sexuality, with a particular focus on the historical world of the Middle East and Asia.

REL 4601: Sex, Drugs, and Shamans
This course investigates extraordinary states of religious experience, in which practitioners experience heightened states of awareness or feelings of divine union through meditation, prayer, ritual or even chemical catalysts. It will critically assess major theoretical approaches to the study of these remarkable phenomena, and it will examine textual accounts and visual expressions of selected mystics throughout history. Primary emphasis will be given to Hindu-Buddhist and Christian sources, though other varieties of religious experience will also be considered.