Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Confucianism, and Shinto - the essential beliefs, doctrines, institutions, and practices of the major religious traditions in Southern and Eastern Asia. Historical backgrounds and development will be surveyed briefly to provide context for the course's central focus: understanding the distinctive worlds of meaning created and maintained and expressed in these religions. Reading and discussion of representative primary texts in translation will be emphasized in this effort to understand basic attitudes and beliefs. Particular attention will be devoted to answering questions about the persisting influence and vitality of these religious traditions - about the nature and significance of change and about the importance of these great religions in shaping the sense of identity, aspirations, and expectations of their adherents in the face of contemporary technological and ideological challenges.

Requirements: No prerequisites. Moderate reading load. Short papers.
In-class midterm and final examinations.

What is “religion” in the Western world? Some have argued that organized religion is losing force in the twenty-first century. Yet, recent political events suggest that religion is still a potent force in politics and national movements. Is this because of something inherent in the monotheistic religions of the West? Or is this because of change rather than continuity? Are we in the midst of a struggle between fundamentalism and tolerance in religious traditions? This course will consider these and similar questions as it introduces students to the academic study of religion. We will look through the lenses provided by the major religious traditions of the West from Asia Minor to the Americas. The history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam will set the context of the living and intertwined belief systems of the twenty-first century. We will also consider the nature of institutional change and syncretism (the melding of religious concepts and practices).

Since September 11, 2001, America has become more aware than ever that there is a connection between religion and violence. But what is it? Why do religious people embrace violence? Are all cults prone to violence? And do terrorists tend to belong to cults? This course will introduce students to representative terrorist groups from five different religious traditions and to cults that have taken the path of group suicide. We will also examine a number of ways to understand religious terrorism, religious suicide, and cult affiliation in general.

Note: Since this is a new course that is combining aspects of RELS 006: Understanding the Cult Controversy and RELS 108: Religion and Violence, it is not open to students who have taken either of those courses without special permission from the instructor.

Historically, India has held a prominent yet paradoxical place in the Western imagination – as a land of ancient glories, a land of spiritual profundity, a land of poverty, social injustice and unreason. In this course, we examine these and other images of India as presented in European and American fiction, travel literature, news reportage, and film. We will consider the power and resonance of these images, how they have served Western interests, and how they may have affected Indian self-understanding.

This course is an introduction to psychological interpretations of religious belief, experience, and behavior. There will be emphasis upon such major theorists as James, Freud, Jung and Allport. More recent investigations (e.g. psychohistory, state of religious development, religious roots of psychoanalysis, transpersonal psychologies, and parapsychological research) will occasionally be included.

This freshman seminar examines the history of diverse religious expression in Philadelphia. Students will explore the contemporary religious landscape of the city with special attention to University City and West Philadelphia. Through readings, site visits, and special projects, students will become familiar with the current manifestation of religiously historic Philadelphia.

A survey of the major themes and ideas of the Bible, with special attention paid to the contributions of archaeology and modern Biblical scholarship, including Biblical criticism and the response to it in Judaism and Christianity.

An introduction to the literary and legal sources of Jewish law within an historical framework. Emphasis will be placed upon the development and dynamics of Jewish jurisprudence, and the relationship between Jewish law and social ethics.

When did the Bible become the Bible? What was the nature of canon and authority in early Israel and Judaism, and how did biblical communities think about their sacred texts? How and what did the Bible mean to ancient readers? The answers to these questions are varied and surprising. This course looks at early biblical and Jewish texts that both write and re-write the tradition’s own central texts. We will think widely and creatively about ancient textuality, orality, interpretation, composition, and authority. Drawing on literary theory, the course will examine the ways that biblical and post-biblical literature from the Second Temple to the rabbinic period manifest complex ideas about power, meaning, and religiosity in early Judaism.

A comprehensive introduction to Islamic doctrines, practices and religious institutions in a variety of geographic settings from the rise of Islam in the seventh century to the present. Translated source materials from the Qur’an, sayings of Muhammad, legal texts, and mystical works will provide an overview of the literary expressions of the religion. The course aims, as well, to view Islam in the immediacy of everyday life. Among the topics to be covered are: The Qur’an as scripture and as liturgy; Conversion and the spread of Islam; Muhammad in history and in the popular imagination; Concepts of the feminine; Muslim women; Sectarian developments; Transmission of religious knowledge and spiritual power; Sufism and the historical elaboration of mystical communities; Modern reaffirmation of Islamic identity; and Islam in the American environment.

An examination of the fundamentals of Buddhist thought and practice. In addition to reading and discussing selected primary Buddhist sources (in English translation), we shall review the history and development of Buddhism from its Indian origin through its spread to Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan.

The Jews are among the few nations and ethnic groups whose oral tradition occurs in literary and religious texts dating back more than two thousand years. This tradition changed and diversified over the years in terms of the migrations of the Jews into different countries and the historical, social, and cultural changes that these countries underwent. The course attempts to capture the historical and ethnic diversity of Jewish folklore in a variety of oral literary forms. A basic book of Hasidic legends from the 18th century will serve as a key text to explore problems in Jewish folklore relating to both earlier and later periods.

This class is a reading-and discussion-intensive seminar that addresses several recurring questions with regard to the Middle East and North Africa. How have Islam, Judaism, and Christianity influenced each other in these regions historically? How have Jews, Christians, and Muslims fared as religious minorities? To what extent have communal relations been characterized by harmony and cooperation, or be strife and discord, and how have these relations changed in different contexts over time? To what extent and under what circumstances have members of these communities converted, intermarried, formed business alliances, and adopted or developed similar customs? How has the emergence of the modern nation-state system affected communal relations as well as the legal or social status of religious minorities in particular countries? How important has religion been as one variable in social identity (along with sect, ethnicity, class, gender, etc.), and to what extent has religious identity figured into regional conflicts and wars? The focus of the class will be on the modern period (c. 1800-present) although we will read about some relevant trends in the early and middle Islamic periods as well. Students will also pursue individually tailored research to produce final papers.

Please obtain section numbers from the department office or from the faculty member with whom you will be working.

There has been much debate about the origins, transmission, and significance of that body of diverse pieces of ancient Jewish literature found in the mid-20th century near the Dead Sea. In this seminar setting, we will explore these materials with a special focus on the questions of who produced them, and for what purposes – what information do the Scrolls provide about “Judaism(s)” around the beginning of the common era, and how can that information be integrated with what else we think we know about the period? The various writings will be studied in English translation, with special attention to “sectarian” texts, “apocrypha and pseudepigrapha,” and “biblical” texts and their interpretations. Access to the internet and computer resources is essential.

This course gives an overview of Christian culture from the early church to the first age of reform (200-1000). Topics covered will include the intellectual tradition (systematic theology and debates about orthodoxy, heterodoxy, heresy) as well as lived religion seen in liturgy, spirituality, and forms of communal religious life. The course will feature attention to the role of laity, especially women and readings from a variety of primary and secondary sources.

This course introduces students to the development of Jewish and Christian biblical interpretation by focusing on ancient, medieval, and modern interpretations of the Song of Songs. Students will encounter a variety of important interpreters, guided by appropriate secondary materials. The course will touch on issues of gender and religious language, on allegory and interpretation, on mystical and feminist readings of scripture, and on the interplay of the ascetic and the erotic in religion. This course has no prerequisites. The readings will be made available in English. The Song of Songs (also known as the Song of Solomon and as Canticles) is part of the Hebrew Bible. The book appears to be a collection of poetry on the theme of human love, but most interpreters have understood it as an allegory. Its evocative, enigmatic, and often frankly erotic poetry raises significant issues of interpretation in Western culture. It was “the most frequently interpreted book of medieval Christianity” and it inspired many medieval Jewish commentaries as well. There has been a rebirth of interest in the Song during the last two decades, especially among feminist circles, because it provides non-traditional ways of understanding scripture.

This seminar explores the relationship between the ideas of history and religion, particularly in the context of the study of South Asia. We will investigate seminal works from the History of Religions, read critiques of modern western historiography, and seek to understand the relationship between orality, writing, historiography, and memory. We will evaluate reasons why some recollections of past events constitute bona fide histories while others receive attention as myths or simply beliefs. In pursuit of answers, we will find ourselves questioning the play of power in the creation of historical authority and religious sentiment.

A study of the various ways of interpreting religion as a phenomenon in human life. Analysis of the presuppositions involved in psychological, sociological, and phenomenological approaches. Authors include James, Weber, Freud, Otto, and contemporary writers offering historical, anthropological and philosophical perspectives.

This course will examine traditional systems of supernatural belief with an emphasis on the role of personal experience in their development and maintenance. The course will focus on subjects of belief generally conceived as being "folk” in some sense (e.g., beliefs in ghosts), but will not exclude a consideration of popular and academic beliefs where appropriate (e.g., popular beliefs about UFO's and theological doctrines of immortality of the soul). The course will be multidisciplinary in scope.

The Second Vatican Council (“Vatican II”), convened by Pope John XXIII in 1962, and closed by Pope Paul VI in 1965, was a turning point in Roman Catholicism. This course will examine the major changes in liturgy, religious life, and popular devotion within Roman Catholicism as well as understandings of those changes in the wider world. Other contemporary movements such as liberation theology, feminist theology, and issues of race and culture will also be considered. The focus will be on America. A research paper will be required.

Intensive readings of the Qur’an along with tafsirs representative of different exegetical approaches (historical, legal, grammatical, sectarian, mystical, literary, and modernist). We will discuss introductory material on the history of the written text, Arabic diglossia and Qur’anic language, revelation and prophecy in Islam, and Qur’anic recitation (ahkam al-tajwid).

Requirements: Two or more years of Arabic grammar and syntax

In-depth study of a special topic or problem in biblical studies.

Requirements: Facility in Biblical Hebrew

This course introduces students to the historiography and key scholarly debates in modern Jewish history. The course focuses on Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and America since the 18th century, exploring the pivotal social, political, cultural and intellectual developments of Jewish modernity. Classic works in the field as well as current scholarship will be emphasized.

Please obtain section numbers from the department office or from the faculty member with whom you will be working.