Department of Religious Studies
Course Offerings: Fall, 2000
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 br iefly 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 impor tance 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.
This course introduces students to the study of religion through consideration of some important religious traditions of the Western world. The ancient religious expressions of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Canaan will set the context for the living and inte rtwined belief systems of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The course will provide a basic familiarity with these traditions, and will place special emphasis on exploring the origin, history, major developments, and variety within each of these monotheis tic traditions. Topics covered will include: History, Scripture, Monotheism, Authority, Worship and Ritual, Ethics, Material Culture, Religion and the Political Order, Gender Issues and New Religious Movements
Course web page: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~rs2
The complex web of values, beliefs, and practices that make up religious traditions have far-reaching impact in human cultures. This course hopes to open up for students the ways in which religious ideas are found in the world of imaginative literature. W e will read and discuss narrative fiction, drama, and poetry from authors ranging from the pious to the satirical, from various centuries and nationalities, and both men and women. The emphasis this semester will be on Christian literature, but other reli gious traditions will also be considered.
Ever wonder why a Penn philosophy major might join the Hare Krishnas? Or what could make a Jewish professor of English become a follower of Reverend Moon? Or even why Scientology manages to attract all those movie stars? In the fall 2000 semester we wi ll discuss these questions as well as a few others: Is a neopagan “witch” the same as a witch in Satanism? What’s all the fuss about the Millennium about? Why do cult opponents use Jim Jones and David Koresh as typical cult leaders? What are cults, anyway ? Can they be explained by psychology? By sociology? How “religious” are they, really? We may also explore some 19th century American cults and/or some major courtroom cases. The course requires a midterm and final exams and either recitation participatio n (with weekly one-page papers) or a term paper. Optional recitation will be scheduled in September on a first-come first-serve basis.
The study of four paradigmatic and classic Jewish texts so as to introduce students to the literature of classic Judaism. Each text will be studied historically—“excavated” for its sources and roots—and holistically, as a canonical document in Jewish t radition. While each text will inevitably raise its own set of issues, we will deal throughout the semester with two basic questions: What makes a “Jewish” text? And how do these texts represent different aspects of Jewish identity? All readings will be i n translation.
An introduction to psychological interpretations of religious belief, experience, and behavior. 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, parapsychological research) will occasionally be included. No prerequisites.
Close analysis of writings on religion by thinkers who have been influenced by major issues in modern philosophy. This semester’s topic will focus on existentialist views on religion—from the perspective of believers and that of nonbelievers. Readings wil l be drawn from fiction (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Kafka), as well as philosophy and theology (Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Marcel, Tillich, Buber). Film may also be used to illustrate major themes.
No pre-requisites required, but some background in religious studies or philosophy will be helpful. Requirements: Active participation in class discussions, short papers.
This course deals with the ways in which current standards for social and public order have been influenced by the interaction between American Jewish and Christian values and American secular and civil values. Issues treated include: racial and ethnic at titudes, sexual equality/morality, pornography, abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, mental health, economic justice, and environmental issues.
A broad introduction to the history of Jewish civilization from its Biblical beginnings until the Middle Ages, with the main focus on the formative period of classical rabbinic Judaism and on the symbiotic relationship between Judaism, Christianity, and I slam.
This course will survey the central concepts of Jewish life through its many manifestations. Issues to be discussed include biblical heritage, liturgy, religious law, mysticism, philosophy, theology and family life.
Christianity did not begin in a vacuum – indeed it emerged for the complex Jewish world of which we catch a glimpse in the “Dead Sea Scrolls” and it blossomed into various forms among the “mystery religions” of the Greco-Roman world around the Mediterrane an Sea and farther east. In this course we will explore those developments in the first two centuries of the common era, with special focus on the evidence preserved in the earliest surviving Christian writings, including the “New Testament” collection. T he goal of the course is neither conversion nor its opposite, but understanding as best we can from this distance what the participants in the various developments thought was happening, and how they shaped and were shaped by their worlds. We will get ver y involved in discussing what can be known about the period, and how much we as interpreters contribute to any resulting “historical” picture. Get down and dirty with ancient materials; it shouldn’t hurt much! Join the excursion into some of the deepest r oots of western society.
Online course materials can be accessed through the instructor’s homepage.
Last year the United States Supreme Court Justices convened a special session. The ruling: Patrons and sculptor of the figure of Muhammad in the historical frieze encircling their courtroom had only honorable intentions. Concerns about depicting the Proph et of Islam, raised by some American Muslims, were addressed and the frieze remains unchanged. Aversion to figural art is a well-known sentiment among many Muslims, Jews, and, at certain periods, Christians. What else does Islam, the last of the three Abr ahamic monotheistic religions, share with Judaism and Christianity? Of the world's one billion Muslims, about five million reside in the United States today. How is the "fastest-growing religion in America" practiced by Muslims from a wide range of backgr ounds, especially in the African-American community?
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 Qu’ran, sayings of Muhammad, le gal texts, and mystical works 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; conversio n 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 commu nities; modern reaffirmation of Islamic identity; and Islam in the American environment.
A sample syllabus, with requirements and a schedule of topics, is available at the instructor's web site. Course web page: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~brvs/intro.html
This course will explore the rich variety of religious beliefs and practices that we today label as Hinduism. We will focus on how these doctrines and practices have both reflected and informed cultural life on the Indian subcontinent in their historical developments from the earliest Vedic times down to contemporary revivalist movements. We will treat such basic issues as the nature of self and the body, divinity and the cosmos, and social norms and values, in all the variety of their religious expressio n – from ascetic yoga to ritual devotionalism; from high philosophy to spirit possession. Materials will include readings on the original texts in translation, and historical, ethnographic, and film studies.
Topical study of the Taoist religion and its relations throughout history to philosophical Taoism, popular religion, and science.
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 Jews into differ ent 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.
Topic for Fall 2000: Introduction to Midrash
This is intended to introduce students to midrash, the activity of Biblical interpretation as practiced by the Rabbis in the ancient world; to its literature, its literary forms, and its techniques of interpretation; and to modern scholarship on midrash. We will study various texts from different periods in the history of midrashic literature, and attempt to apply different critical and disciplinary methodologies--literary, historical, theological--to the task of analyzing these texts. We will also seek t o situate midrash within the larger history of Jewish Biblical interpretation and within the context of Jewish literary creativity through the ages, including our own. Class discussion will be held in English, but students must be able to read unpointed H ebrew texts. No other previous background in the literature is necessary.
Requirements: Students must be able to read unpointed Hebrew texts.
This course is an introduction to the use of computers in the humanities and the effect of computer technology on humanistic thought and scholarship. Methodological issues such as the interplay between technological potential and ideals of humanistic research will be addressed, along with ethical/legal problems (e.g. copyright, fair use) and practical applications of various sorts. Students will learn what resources are available and how to use them responsibly. Each student will develop a humanities project (e.g. a web site, new electronic texts, images, etc.) that can contribute to study in the student's major field. The class will utilize a combination of lectures, discussion, student presentations, and practical lab experience -- including a bri ef introduction to simple programming concepts using JavaScript and Perl as well as an understanding of basic HTML for web applications and XML for advanced applications with textual markup.
Course web page: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~kbanner/rs302
At the end of World War II, West Philadelphia was a middle class community of Jewish, Catholic, and main-line Protestant families. At the close of the twentieth century, as the population of West Philadelphia has become increasingly African-American and A sian-American, synagogues have been turned into Pentecostal churches, Protestant churches have become mosques, and many small “storefront” chapels of various Christian traditions have appeared. This course will explore the changing religious traditions an d religious communities of West Philadelphia in the second half of the twentieth century, focusing on the relationship between religious, racial, ethnic, and economic change. The course will involve both library and field work, and will require each stude nt to make a connection with at least one West Philadelphia religious community. We will also have a connection to a class at University City High School.
An overview of Jewish intellectual and cultural history from the late 18th century until the present. The course considers the Jewish enlightenment Reform, Conservative and Neo-Orthodox Judaism, Zionist and Jewish Socialist thought, and Jewish thought in the 20th century, particularly in the context of the Holocaust. Readings of primary sources including Mendelsohn, Geiger, Hirsch, Herzl, Achad-ha-Am, Baeck, Buber, Kaplan, and others. No previous background is necessary.
Please obtain section numbers from the department office or from the faculty member with whom you will be working.
A critical assessment of early Christian traditions about Jesus (to ca. 200 C. E.), with special attention to methodology. Emphasis on applying consistent critical criteria in the analysis of ancient materials and traditions concerning Jesus, from whateve r source (opponents, enthusiastic advocates, relatively uninvolved reporters). Problems encountered by any historian dealing with any subject of which the historian was not an eyewitness will be illustrated and elaborated in the investigation of what is k nown about Jesus.
Online course materials can be accessed through the instructor's homepage.
An introduction to the history and cultural role of Buddhism in Japan. Emphasis is on Buddhism as a component in the religious, intellectual, and cultural life of the Japanese, with special attention directed to the modern period. Includes a short review of prior Buddhism in India and China.
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.
Topic for Fall 2000: Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.
Undergraduates are advised to consult with the instructor before enrolling in this course.
This seminar is a close reading of Hegel’s seminal Phenomenology of Spirit. Participants will bring with them a variety of backgrounds (training in modern religious thought, literary theory, philosophy, German literature), but all must be ready for intensive immersion in the text in preparation for weekly discussions of it in class. We shall use Miller’s translation. Secondary sources will be recommended, but the emphasis is upon a hermeneutical approach, that is, direct engagement with the text mo re to understand its various levels and ambiguities than to argue for or against the claims Hegel makes. Use of the original German is encouraged but not required.
Over the past decade there has been a growing awareness of the importance of such basic aspects of human diversity as culture, ethnicity, economic status, gender, age, and disability in health care as in other areas of life. This course will deal with (1) the social and cultural foundations of health care in the modern world and (2) the ways that diversity affects and is affected by health care. Because simplistic views of diversity reinforce stereotypes, the course necessarily recognizes that each indivi dual belongs to more than a single group—each person has a cultural background, a gender, an age, may have one or more disabilities, and so by dealing with these political, social and cultural aspects of diversity and health care, this course will introdu ce students to complex and basic issues of social construction ranging from cultural dimensions of medical ethics to the importance of differing health traditions (from folk medicine to foodways to such beliefs as the idea that AIDS is a genocidal govern ment conspiracy). In this course students will learn how to discover and understand the viewpoints of patients and their families as these are influenced by their culture, gender, ethnicity and other aspects of human diversity.
An overview of the past two decades of feminist scholarship about Christian and post-Christian historians and theologians who offer a feminist perspective on traditional Christian theology and practice. This course is a critical overview of this material, presented with a summary of Christian biblical studies, history and theology, and with a special interest in constructive attempts at creating a spiritual tradition with women’s experience at the center. Part of the focus of the course will be on the wor ks of the Boardman Lecturer for 2000, Elizabeth Johnson.
The class will be connected electronically with a literary hermeneutics class at the University of Trent in Italy, so questions of interpretation will be especially highlighted.
Readings in Arabic Sufi Texts with an emphasis on metaphysics, leading to Ibn `Arabi (d. 1249) and his school.
Topical study of the Taoist religion and its relations throughout history to philosophical Taoism, popular religion, and science. This is the graduate level of the course.
This course will trace a history of signs, using Greek divination as the primary focus. We will explore ancient and contemporary sign theories and their usefulness in illuminating ancient practices of divination--or the reading of signs thought to be embe dded in the world. Participants in the seminar will be expected to contribute an expertise in one (or more) of three general areas: Greek literature, Greek and Roman religions, and contemporary theory in the humanities. The course is open to graduate stud ents without Greek as well as classicists--though please register appropriately. The particular areas we cover will to some extent be determined by the interests of the participants, but will surely include: divination by dreams, entrails, and oracles as attested by literary and (to a lesser extent) archaeological evidence; Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic and Neoplatonic theories of signs; and contemporary semiotics as articulated mainly by Saussure, Barthes, and Eco. Ancient authors will include: Homer, Xe nophon, Sophocles, Cicero, Artemidorus, and Iamblichus.
Teachers, school administrators, journalists, public policy specialists, social workers and health care professionals all encounter situations in which the religious sensitivities of “clients” (students, parents, readers, etc.) challenge the traditional w ays in which professionals have discharged their duties. This seminar is an introduction to six of the most difficult issues: diversity and deviance in American religions; church-state relations and the Constitution; problems in teaching about specific ea stern and religious religions; religious dimensions of contemporary ethical and social debates (abortion, euthanasia, minority and gender roles); religious art, music and holidays in the public sphere; the prevailing understanding of religion in the media and modern society. The seminar serves as introduction to the Religion in Public Life concentration within the MLA Program. Permission restricted to graduate students, with priority given to MLA candidates.
Topic to be announced.
Online course materials can be accessed through the instructor's homepage.
Please obtain section numbers from the department office or from the faculty member with whom you will be working.
Please note: many of these offerings are cross-listed with other departments. Please consult the SAS Fall 2000 Course Roster for cross-listings.
