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This course will explore the origins of an ancient faith through a close examination of the early traditions and laws presented in the Hebrew Bible as well as the various cultural contexts of the ancient Near East that influenced them. The course utilizes the Hebrew Bible, portions of the Babylonian Talmud, and the Zohar to trace the development of these ancient traditions and practices into the various branches of modem Judaism and the foremost concerns and challenges faced by the modem Jewish communities.
This course examines the origins of attitudes and beliefs in the Judeo-Christian traditions concerning human sexuality and the human body. Focus is on the contribution of such beliefs in the evolving relationship between the individual and society. The course begins with an exploration of Levantine fertility cults and traces their influence on early Judaism. Moving toward the emergence and eventual spread of Christianity, discussion centers on the continued influence of Near Eastern fertility traditions on gender differentiation, the “fall” of humanity, and procreation. Topics such as marriage and divorce, birth control and abortion, asceticism and celibacy, and death and resurrection of the body will be discussed within the context of Judeo-Christian tests and traditions.
In this cross-listed, interdisciplinary course, religious studies and psychological lenses are employed to examine issues of social justice, including factors which either promote or interfere with the creation of communities that value inclusion, diversity, and peace. Aiming to foster a concern for social justice, the course provides theoretical and practical tools to challenge injustice, including opportunities to think and work alongside local advocacy organizations. (This course may be taken for credit as PSYC 241.)
Students in the course encounter, understand, and appreciate Hindu and Buddhist religious life, as manifested in multiple Asian cultures as well as in twenty-first century life in the United States. Course priorities include the study of the primary practices, texts, and themes of Hinduism and Buddhism and experiential encounters with Hindus and Buddhists.
Death and the Afterlife is a critical examination of literature from the ancient Near East including the Bible, that deals with death, dying, and the “next life,” an examination of the ways Western culture has attempted to address and understand these issues, and a comparative analysis of similar themes in a variety of non-Western traditions. The course examines ways in which various constructions of “heaven” and “hell” reflect the influence of ancient religious thought and literature on modem social structures, social values, and notions of justice.
From time to time, topics will be offered under this designation to address issues of particular currency, pursue topics of interest to students, or to make faculty research projects available for student learning.
This course addresses the multitude of roles that food plays in so many religious traditions and the ways people use food to make sense of the world. Topics such as fasting, sacrifice, medicine, food laws, rituals and magic are addressed. This course introduces students to the study of religion, using food as an entry point. Through readings, lectures, slides, videos, and in-class discussion, the course investigates case studies from numerous countries and cultures, ancient and modem. Foodways such as cooking, farming, sacrifice, aesthetics, and display as they relate to myth, magic, ritual, healing, ethics, and doctrine will be explored throughout the semester. This class challenges participants to move beyond easy notions of culture, religious authority, identity and doctrine.
This course provides the student with a working knowledge of biblical and modem Hebrew. With the successful completion of this course, the student will be able to read selected passages of narrative in biblical and modem texts with the aid of a lexicon/dictionary, will gain knowledge of modem Hebrew in both written and spoken form and will strengthen her/his cultural understanding of ancient and modem Israel. Students will build a strong knowledge base in Hebrew vocabulary, verb paradigms, and grammar essentials. (This course may be taken for credit as HEBR 110.)
This course provides further advancement of a student’s knowledge of biblical and modem Hebrew. Students will become adept in the usage of a Hebrew-English dictionary/lexicon for translation of texts in biblical and modem contexts and will improve their conversational skills in modem Hebrew. Students will continue to build a strong knowledge base in Hebrew vocabulary, verb paradigms, and grammar. (This course may be taken for credit as HEBR 120.)
This course is an historical-critical analysis of the books of the Hebrew Bible that emphasizes the historical, social, and ideological dynamics of various authorial traditions within this corpus. Additionally, these texts are analyzed within modem interpretive frameworks in order to recognize the ways in which themes from the Hebrew Bible continue to play a role in the construction of Western thought and culture.
