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Description: Just what is ?religion?? Is it fundamentally belief ? a system of thought? Is it experience? Or knowledge obtained through experience? It is practice ? the repeated rituals that engage the body and the senses in conviction? How should we study religion? Do we focus on the supernatural, the Divine? Or do we focus on people and actions? Can we compare experiences, or beliefs, or practices across religions? These are just a few of the many questions that will be raised in this course, which is designed to expose students to some of the fundamental issues that inform the study of religion and familiarize them with the vocabulary and analytical tools used to describe, illuminate, and interpret religious activities and events. Throughout the course, we will examine several specific practices as sample cases, thus introducing students to the diversity of global religious activity. Among the cases will be the Muslim Hadj; the Catholic devotion surrounding the ?holy dirt? at Chimayo, NM; a Hindu pilgrimage in Northern India; Objiway philosophy of the 19th century; and Buddhist worship practice.
Class Time: 60% Lecture, 15% Film/Video, 15% Discussion, 10% Guest Speakers.
Work Load: 75 pages reading per week, 7 pages writing per term, 4 exams, 1 papers.
Grade: 60% mid exam, 20% final exam, 10% reports/papers, 10% class participation.
Instructor:
Kilde,Jeanne Halgren
(CLA-Work Group Outstdg Svc Awd)
Grading basis/credits:
Prereq: credit will not be granted if credit already received for: RelA 1034, 3034, JwSt 1034,3034, RelS 3034
Description: The course provides a general introduction to Judaism in its many ancient and modern expressions. Special attention is paid to the social, literary, historical, and cultural influences that have helped shape the varieties of Jewish traditions. The central ideas and motifs of Judaism to be addressed include: God, scripture and tradition, covenant, law, messianism and mysticism, Jewish identity, ritual and worship, political life, Jewish ethics, Jewish nationalism. Each unit compares these various aspects of Judaism in diverse times and places. Students engage with these topics through reading a wide selection of primary texts in translation. The goal of the course is to provide students with an overview of the history of Judaism, engagement with the central texts of Judaism, and a basic knowledge of Jewish religious customs. Students gain an understanding of the ancient, medieval, and modern expressions of Judaism, along with a sensitivity to the points of contact and divergence among these traditions. Full syllabus and further information available at: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~jassen/index_files/Page1222.htm
Class Time: 80% Lecture, 20% Discussion. We will also draw upon other modes learning such as film, music, and material culture.
Work Load: 30-40 pages reading per week, 12-16 pages writing per term, 2 exams, 2 papers.
Grade: 25% mid exam, 30% final exam, 35% reports/papers, 10% class participation.
Exam Format: Identifications, Short and Long Essay
Instructor: Jassen,Alex P
Grading basis/credits:
Prereq: credit will not be granted if credit already received for: RelA 1034, 3034, JwSt 1034, 3034, RelS 3034
Description: The course provides a general introduction to Judaism in its many ancient and modern expressions. Special attention is paid to the social, literary, historical, and cultural influences that have helped shape the varieties of Jewish traditions. The central ideas and motifs of Judaism to be addressed include: God, scripture and tradition, covenant, law, messianism and mysticism, Jewish identity, ritual and worship, political life, Jewish ethics, Jewish nationalism. Each unit compares these various aspects of Judaism in diverse times and places. Students engage with these topics through reading a wide selection of primary texts in translation. The goal of the course is to provide students with an overview of the history of Judaism, engagement with the central texts of Judaism, and a basic knowledge of Jewish religious customs. Students gain an understanding of the ancient, medieval, and modern expressions of Judaism, along with a sensitivity to the points of contact and divergence among these traditions. Full syllabus and further information available at: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~jassen/index_files/Page1222.htm
Class Time: 80% Lecture, 20% Discussion. We will also draw upon other modes of learning such as film, music, and material culture.
Work Load: 30-40 pages reading per week, 12-16 pages writing per term, 2 exams, 2 papers.
Grade: 25% mid exam, 30% final exam, 35% reports/papers, 10% class participation.
Exam Format: Identifications, Short and Long Essay
Instructor: Jassen,Alex P
Grading basis/credits:
Description: Student may contact the instructor or department for information.
Instructor: Matar,Nabil I
Grading basis/credits:
Equivalencies:
Prereq: credit will not be granted if credit already received for: RelA 3072, RelA 5072, RelS 5072
Description: Was Jesus a Christian or a Jewish prophet? Did later interpreters distort the simple religion of this Galilean charismatic teacher who spoke of the essence of a true religion? Was Paul an anti-feminist or a woman's liberationist? Was he an anti-Semite or a Jew on the margins and one of the most creative thinkers of the early Jesus movement? How did the early church select its scriptures for a New Testament? And why and how were only four gospels selected and many others excluded? These and other questions we will pose in this historical study of the New Testament in its Graeco-Roman and Jewish context. The course will emphasize the nature and variety of religious expression in the early Church; it will treat the gospels in their historical setting, and it will study selected heated discourses between Paul and his churches in a treatment of his letters as conversations. It will also deal with some early interpreters of Paul in the New Testament, and will consider the message of Revelation for a persecuted church. The course will finally sample texts from the Gnostic Gospels of the second century.
Class Time: 75% Lecture, 25% Discussion.
Work Load: 100 pages reading per week, 4 exams.
Grade: 20% final exam, 10% special projects, 70% quizzes.
Exam Format: 30% multiple choice, 70% essay
Instructor: Roetzel,Calvin J
Grading basis/credits:
Description: Jews and Muslim have coexisted and influenced each other over many centuries, especially in the Middle East and North Africa. While Muslim-Jewish relations in the 20th century have often been characterized exclusively by bitter enmity, in earlier centuries the interactions of Muslims and Jews have been characterized as a symbiotic relationship by some and a state of perpetual tension and conflict by others. This course will examine the diversity of social and cultural interactions between Muslims and Jews and between Islam and Judaism since 1700. It seeks to answer the question: what enabled the two religious communities to peacefully coexist and what were the causes of conflict? Why is the history of Muslim-Jewish relations such a contested issue today?
Instructor: Schroeter,Daniel J
Grading basis/credits:
Description: The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the philosophical thought and spiritual beliefs of native peoples of North America. Students will examine a broad spectrum of issues which influence the worldview of native people on this continent, including European contact and thought. Students may find some of the issues to be controversial and personally challenging, however, a thorough discussion of the impact of European influences is important to understanding native people's resistance and survival. Finally, students will also explore the ways in which native philosophy and spiritual practices shape native life experience in a society viewed by many native people as being at odds with their beliefs.
Class Time: 60% Lecture, 20% Discussion. Group work
Work Load: 100 pages reading per week, 15 pages writing per term, 2 exams, 1 papers.
Grade: 33% mid exam, 33% final exam, 17% reports/papers, 17% class participation.
Exam Format: The exams will be a take home essay.
Instructor: Ghebregzi,Alex Anthony
Grading basis/credits:
Equivalencies:
Description: Student may contact the instructor or department for information.
Instructor:
Junghare,Indira Y
(CLA Distinguished Tchg Awd)
Grading basis/credits:
Equivalencies:
Description: Student may contact the instructor or department for information.
Instructor: Snyder,Edward N
Grading basis/credits:
Equivalencies:
Prereq: credit will not be granted if credit already received for: RelA 3535, RelA 5535, CNES 3535, CNES 5535
Description: In this class we study attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors regarding death and the afterlife found in the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. Our sources include literature, funerary art and epitaphs, as well as archaeological evidence for burial practices and care of the dead. Our approach is both historical and comparative. With its focus on a matter of central concern to human societies, this course meets the Liberal Education core requirement in Humanistic Studies. One main objective is to have us confront and explore a diverse set of responses to death and beliefs about the afterlife as found in ancient societies that despite their influence may be more or less familiar to us. Art, literature, and mortuary practices alike help class participants query our own expectations and attitudes. This approach enables us to consider our experiences and expectations of death and what may follow through a critical, analytical framework of historical and cultural comparison and not merely as personal response. The themes of mortality and care of the dead carry through all the topics, arranged more or less chronologically and geographically to consider Egypt, Mesopotamia, Biblical Israel, Greece, Rome, early Judaism, and ancient Christianity. We pay attention to the historical circumstances of each culture and the specific interpretive strategies historians need to understand and interpret its characteristic features in light of our own. The fourth discussion essay or the final research paper may treat beliefs or practices surrounding death in a contemporary context that a student would like to analyze from the perspective of the course. The course will be web enhanced.
Class Time: 70% Lecture, 30% Discussion.
Work Load: 75 pages reading per week, 1 exams, 1 papers, 4 homework assignments. The "homework assignments" are reflection papers based on original sources.
Grade: 25% mid exam, 25% reports/papers, 40% reflection paper, 10% class participation.
Exam Format: midterm - short essays
Instructor: Sellew,Philip
Grading basis/credits:
Equivalencies:
Prereq: credit will not be granted if credit already received for: Clas 1024/3024
Description: Student may contact the instructor or department for information.
Instructor:
Nicholson,Oliver
(UC Outstanding Teaching Award; Arthur Motley Exemplary Tch Aw)
Grading basis/credits:
Prereq: Non-fr or instr consent
Description: The United States is home to an astonishing array of religious beliefs and institutions. While mutual toleration is a widely-held ideal, it hasn't always been this way. This course investigates the religious pluralism of early America and explores how people of differing faiths perceived, reacted to, and changed each other before 1800. We will investigate Native American, Euro-American, and African American cosmologies; culturally divergent ideas about moral conduct; the religious motivations and justifications behind efforts to reform (or transform) society; the relationship between religious worldviews and ideas about racial difference, gender relations, class structures, and relations of authority. We will also examine how religious faiths and institutions could serve as vehicles of oppression or as means of liberation in the contexts of colonization, enslavement, and revolution. In addition to offering a comparative and multi-cultural analysis of religion in early America, the course also investigates religious disagreements among Anglo-Americans, whose diverse views about religious authority and the place of religion in American politics were by no means resolved after the American Revolution. Distinct ideas about the character and demands of the Supreme Being and the nature and responsibilities of human beings resulted in disagreements over the proper relations between women and men, whites and blacks, ordained ministers and inspired laypersons, and the church and the state. By the end of the course, students will understand religion as one of the important factors that shaped society and social conflicts in early America. Students will find that the religious diversity of modern-day America had antecedents in the colonial and revolutionary periods, while freedom of conscience evolved only slowly. By learning how the intense, often coercive, and sometimes brutal conflicts over religion resulted in an eventual truce of pluralism, students will understand how freedom of conscience in this country has been hard-won rather than simply assumed or easily assured.
Class Time: 15% Lecture, 5% Film/Video, 60% Discussion, 20% Small Group Activities.
Work Load: 100 pages reading per week, 13-17 pages writing per term, 3 papers.
Grade: 70% reports/papers, 10% attendance, 20% class participation.
Instructor:
Fischer,Kirsten
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Description: A heated debate rages in the U.S. today about the proper role of religion in American politics. In arguing about the appropriate relationship of church and state, contenders on all sides frequently support their claims with references to the framers of the U.S. Constitution. Some see these men as devout Christians intent on establishing a Christian Nation, while others view them as secularists focused on separating church and state. All sides use direct quotes to make their case. Who is right? This Historical Perspectives course explores how leading political figures wrote about religion during and after the framing of the U.S. Constitution. The course also investigates competing religious currents in the early Republic, the rise of the Religious Right in the 20th century, and debates in the late-18th century and today over the proper role of religion in American politics. See the syllabus for more information.
Class Time: 70% Lecture, 5% Film/Video, 10% Discussion, 15% Small Group Activities.
Work Load: 60-150 pages reading per week, 10-14 pages writing per term, 2 exams, 2 papers.
Grade: 20% mid exam, 30% final exam, 40% reports/papers. In-class writing assignments will be worth 10% of the final grade.
Exam Format: The mid-term exam will be written during class time. The final is a take-home exam.
Instructor:
Fischer,Kirsten
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Instructor Photo
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Instructor Bio
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Syllabus
Grading basis/credits:
Description: Student may contact the instructor or department for information.
Instructor: Lower,Michael T
Grading basis/credits:
Description: Student may contact the instructor or department for information.
Instructor: Hopkins,Jasper
Grading basis/credits:
Prereq: credit will not be granted if credit already received for: RelA 3072, RelA 5072, RelS 3072, CNES 3072, CNES 5072
Description: Was Jesus a Christian or a Jewish prophet? Did later interpreters distort the simple religion of this Galilean charismatic teacher who spoke of the essence of a true religion? Was Paul an anti-feminist or a woman's liberationist? Was he an anti-Semite or a Jew on the margins and one of the most creative thinkers of the early Jesus movement? How did the early church select its scriptures for a New Testament? And why and how were only four gospels selected and many others excluded? These and other questions we will pose in this historical study of the New Testament in its Graeco-Roman and Jewish context. The course will emphasize the nature and variety of religious expression in the early Church; it will treat the gospels in their historical setting, and it will study selected heated discourses between Paul and his churches in a treatment of his letters as conversations. It will also deal with some early interpreters of Paul in the New Testament, and will consider the message of Revelation for a persecuted church. The course will finally sample texts from the Gnostic Gospels of the second century.
Class Time: 75% Lecture, 25% Discussion.
Work Load: 100 pages reading per week, 4 exams.
Grade: 20% final exam, 10% special projects, 70% quizzes.
Exam Format: 30% multiple choice, 70% essay
Instructor: Roetzel,Calvin J
Grading basis/credits:
Prereq: 1082 or RELA 1082 or 3072 or equiv credit will not be granted if credit already received for: RelA 5080, CNES 5080
Description: Pro-Seminar on Romans, Paul?s Letter to the Roman Churches The longest and generally regarded the most important of all of Paul?s surviving letters, written to churches the Apostle Paul had neither founded nor visited, Paul?s letter Romans has done more than perhaps any other to shape Christian theology. Although thousands of papyrus letters from the ancient world have survived, none more decisively shaped early Christianity or the shape of western culture than did this letter. Intensely read and interpreted by such stalwart interpreters as Marcion, Pelagius, Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, John Wesley and modern feminist critics, Romans has exerted a pervasive influence on Western Culture. Written near the end of Paul?s life when his apostolic legitimacy and gospel to heathen had come under intense criticism, this letter poses significant interpretative challenges. This seminar will be an exercise in the close reading of this text in its historical setting.
Instructor: Roetzel,Calvin J
Grading basis/credits:
Description: Student may contact the instructor or department for information.
Instructor: Soderberg,John A
Grading basis/credits:
Equivalencies:
Description:
Instructor:
Junghare,Indira Y
(CLA Distinguished Tchg Awd)
Grading basis/credits:
Prereq: credit will not be granted if credit already received for: CNES 3535, CNES 5535, RelA 3535, RelA 5535, RelS 3535
Description: Student may contact the instructor or department for information.
Instructor: Sellew,Philip