Catalogue 2023-2024 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Religion Department
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Chair: Christopher White;
Professors: Marc Michael Epstein, Jonathon S. Kahn, Michael Walsh, Christopher White;
Assistant Professor: Kirsten Wesselhoeft;
Visiting Assistant Professor: Agnes Veto;
Adjunct Assistant Professor: Klaus Yoder;
Postdoctoral Fellow: Nell Hawley.
Major
Correlate Sequence in Religion
Religion: I. Introductory
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RELI 100 - Introduction to American Studies Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course reveals and challenges the histories of the categories that contribute to the definition of “America.” The course explores ideas such as nationhood and the nation-state, democracy and citizenship, ethnic and racial identity, myths of frontier and facts of empire, borders and expansion, normativity and representation, sovereignty and religion, regionalism and transnationalism as these inform our understanding of the United States and American national identity. One goal of the course is to introduce students to important concepts and works in American Studies. Either AMST 100 or AMST 102 or AMST 105 will satisfy the 100-level core requirement of the American Studies major. Topics vary with expertise of the faculty teaching the course.
Topic for 2023/24a: The American Secular. (Same as AMST 100 ) Is there a distinct realm in American politics and culture called the secular, a space or a mode of public discourse that is crucially free of and from the category of religion? This class considers the sorts of theoretical and historical moments in American life, letters, and practice that have, on the one hand, insisted the importance and necessity of such a realm, and on the other hand, resisted the very notion that religion should be kept out of the American public square. We ask whether it is possible or even desirable—in our politics, in our public institutions, in ourselves—to conceive of the secular and the religious as radically opposed. We ask if there are better ways to conceive of the secular and the religious in American life, ways that acknowledge their mutual interdependence rather than their exclusivity. Jonathon Kahn.
Open to first-year students and sophomores only.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 102 - Religion, Media & American Popular Culture Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
How does the mass media change religious values and behaviors? How might we understand the relationship between American Christians and American culture? Has sports, television or entertainment replaced religion? Is popular culture hostile to faith or is it religious in wholly new and unexpected ways? In this course we explore these questions by looking in detail at American television, film, popular literature and the internet. We also examine how specific religions and religious symbols are expressed in popular culture, what happens when traditional religions borrow pop cultural forms or ideals, and how the American media is abetting a trend towards religious eclecticism and hybridity. Christopher White.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 103 - How We Got Here
1 unit(s)
(Same as CLCS 103 and HIST 103 ) This course is a dynamic introduction to the ways in which texts, traditions, concepts, and institutions throughout history have brought us to the moment in which we currently exist, and how they prepare us to meet the challenges of the future. No matter how “modern” an issue may seem—be it race, money, gender, violence—the roots or echoes of a deeper past are always there in ways that bear examining. By starting with the distant past and bringing our questions forward in time, we can find a space to explore and discuss tough issues that often polarize people today. Sources may include selections from the Bible, medieval epic, and the arts. This course has several Vassar faculty guest speakers who work on these issues in the modern period, and it also features practitioners in various fields beyond academia who discuss how their undergraduate studies in the humanities and social sciences shaped their lives. Students all have the chance to attend a dinner with one of the speakers outside of class. Nancy Bisaha, Marc Epstein.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 104 - Religion, Prisons, and the Civil Rights Movement
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 104 ) African American citizenship has long been a contested and bloody battlefield. This course uses the modern Civil Rights Movement to examine the roles the religion and prisons have played in theses battles over African American rights and liberties. In what ways have religious beliefs motivated Americans to uphold narrow definitions of citizenship that exclude people on the basis of race or moved them to boldly challenge those definitions? In a similar fashion, civil rights workers were incarcerated in jails and prisons as a result of their nonviolent protest activities. Their experiences in prisons, they exposed the inhumane conditions and practices existing in many prison settings. More recently, the growth of the mass incarceration of minorities has moved to the forefront of civil and human rights concerns. Is a new Civil Rights Movement needed to challenge the New Jim Crow? Jonathon Kahn and Quincy Mills.
Not offered in 2023/24.
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RELI 107 - This Buddhist Life Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 107 ) The Buddha, the pilgrim, the seeker, the monk, the scholar, the temple. In this six-week Intensive we will travel with and through these themes and characters to explore Buddhist lives present and past. Our readings include primary and secondary texts. Michael Walsh.
First six-week course.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: INT -
RELI 110 - Great Understanding is Broad & Unhurried: Sage Voices from China’s Past and Rethinking the Good Life
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 110 ) The first part of this course title comes from the 4th century BCE philosopher, Zhuangzi. In this class we read primary texts of some of China’s greatest teachers and discover their relevance in today’s world. Without domesticating their ideas, we explore a range of readings including Zhuangzi, Laozi, Confucius, classical poetry, Buddhist sutras, the Yijing, Mengzi, and Liezi, among others. Michael Walsh.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 111 - Christian Theology and the Body Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This introduction focuses on the relationship between spirituality and embodiment in Christian thought, ritual, and ethics. Religion 280 provides an overview of the historical development of Christianity while integrating analyses of contemporary communities, literatures, and practices. The main question that guides the class is how Christians in different times and places experience the gap between spirit and flesh. How does this binary apply to notions of the human being, the interpretation of divine revelation, and political movements? Over the course of the semester, students examine Christian concepts of the relationship between body and spirit for the ways in which they have been used to legitimate as well as subvert social hierarchies and forge new communities. Klaus Yoder.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 112 - An Introduction to Islam
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 112 ) This course introduces students to Muslim cultures, beliefs, and practices through the lens of journey, migration and quest. Voyage and migration have characterized Muslim communities ever since Muhammad sent a group of his followers to seek refuge with the Christian king of Abyssinia. Over the centuries, Islamic legal, literary, and philosophical traditions have reflected deeply on migration and journeying, and Muslim communities have settled around the world. We explore Muhammad’s miraculous journey to Jerusalem, the event of migration to Medina, the role of travel in the expansion of the Islamic world, Muslims as religious minorities in the 20th century, and the place of Islam in the contemporary global refugee crisis. Sources include scripture, theology, history, poetry and literature, ethnography, autobiography, and film. Kirsten Wesselhoeft.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 140 - China Reimagined Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 140 ) Working with an ancient Chinese cosmological schema, the luoshu, a nine-squared square, and the old adage that ‘heaven is round, earth is square,’ this class is divided into nine sections – territory, city, temple, gods, family, texts, body, food, and people. Through these nine categories we explore both alternative and traditional ways of thinking through China’s imperial and modern histories. One of our class objectives is to better understand how acts of imagination influence and shape social formations. Throughout the semester we use the themes at hand to improve our writing skills. Michael Walsh.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 150 - Jews, Christians, and Muslims
1 unit(s)
(Same as JWST 150 ) An historical comparative study of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The course focuses on such themes as origins, development, sacred literature, ritual, legal, mystical, and philosophical traditions, and interactions among the three religions. Kirsten Wesselhoeft.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 152 - Buddhists, Daoists, and Confucians Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 152 ) Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian practices over the last two thousand years had at least as much influence on East Asian peoples and the state than any other social, political, or historical form. In this course we explore many of these practices as well as read primary and secondary sources to better understand how these influences played out historically and continue today. While the course is comparative – bringing in examples from different East Asian regions – we focus most of our attention on China. Michael Walsh.
Open to all students except seniors.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 154 - Jesus: A Radical Life Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as JWST 154 ) Who was Jesus of Nazareth? Yeshua bar Yosef of the town of Nazaret in the Upper Galilee in the Roman-occupied territory Jews called “Eretz Yisrael” and the Occupation renamed “Palestine,” was a radical and extraordinary historical figure, and an even more fascinating literary figure. With the Gospels—not only the four that made it into the New Testament, but some of the hundreds of others—as our guide, we attempt to situate Jesus in his indigenous context at a crucial time in the history and development of Jewish thought, before there were either “Christians” or “Christianity.” Jesus himself asks, “Who do you say I am?” One might answer in terms we may think we understand: “Radical teacher, preacher, healer, political revolutionary.” But historically, the terms “Messiah, Son of God, God,” have also been applied to Jesus. What can we know historically? And when do we cross the line from history into theology? Marc Epstein.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 160 - Uncertainty, Probability and Spirituality: Physics in Popular Culture
1 unit(s)
(Same as PHYS 160 and STS 160 ) This course examines the cultural history of key ideas and experiments in physics, looking in particular at how non-scientists understood key concepts such as entropy, relativity, quantum mechanics and the idea of higher or new dimensions. It begins with an assumption that’s widely accepted among historians – namely, that the sciences are a part of culture and are influenced by cultural trends, contemporary concerns and even urgent personal ethical or religious dilemmas. In this course we are attuned to the ways that physicists drew key insights from popular culture and how non-scientists, including religious or spiritual seekers, appropriated (and misappropriated) scientific insights about the origin and nature of the world, its underlying laws and energetic forces, and its ultimate meaning and purpose. Brian Daly and Christopher White.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 189 - Trances, Visions, Meditative States and Altered States of Consciousness Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as STS 189 ) This course introduces students to ways of interpreting trances, visions, religious experiences, peak experiences and other altered states of consciousness. Readings range from first-hand accounts written by mystics and visionaries to interpretations of unusual experiences by psychologists, theologians, anthropologists, reporters, writers, philosophers and neuroscientists. The course raises a number of questions that we consider during the semester, including—What are the best ways to describe or explain someone else’s anomalous/religious experience? How do we talk about experiences or behaviors that seem exotic, unhealthy, deviant or odd? Should we strive for “objective,” scientific knowledge or seek other ways of appreciating religious insight and experience? Can scientific methods or tests explain the insights that religious or spiritual people experience? In addition to understanding basic characteristics of different types of experiences we also address these and other controversial questions. Christopher White.
Open only to first-year students; satisfies the college requirement for a First-Year Writing Seminar.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS
Religion: II. Intermediate
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RELI 200 - Regarding Religion Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
To study religion is to study culture and society, as well as to critically engage and participate in the humanities and social sciences. In this course we compare and critique different approaches to the study of religion and think about the category of religion in relation to other topics and social concerns. Michael Walsh.
Required for all majors. Encouraged for correlates.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 201 - Jewish Textuality Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as JWST 201 ) This course addresses characteristic forms of Jewish texts and related theoretical issues concerning transmission and interpretation. On the one hand, canonical texts–Bible, Midrash, Talmud–are considered, including some modern (and postmodern) reactivations of these classical modes. On the other hand, special attention is given to modern problems of transmission in a post-canonical world.
Andrew Bush.
Prerequisite(s): JWST 101 or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
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RELI 207 - Christian Ethics and Modern Society
1 unit(s)
This course is an introduction to Christian ideals of faith, conduct, character, and community, and to modern disputes over their interpretations and applications. Our emphasis is on how Christian thinkers have negotiated the emergence of modern values about authority, rights, equality, and freedom. In what ways have Christian beliefs and moral concepts been consonant with or antagonistic to democratic concerns about gender, race and pluralism? Some of the most prominent Christian ethicists claim a fundamental incompatibility with this democratic ethos. We examine these claims and devote special attention to how Christian thinkers have dealt with the ethics of war, sexuality and the environment. Jonathon Kahn.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 208 - Religion, Revolution, and Reaction Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Is religion fundamentally conservative or revolutionary? Is it “the opium of the masses” (Marx) or an intense political stimulant? How do different religious traditions become sources of power for both revolutionary and reactionary political movements? Why do different religious communities align themselves with left-wing or right-wing political parties to enact their visions of a well-ordered society? This course addresses these questions by examining several historical case studies of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary moments to uncover the complex and diverse ways religions have contributed to massive political, social, and cultural change. These will include movements less frequently identified as “religious” such as the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution(s), Fascism, National Socialism, and the Chinese Revolution of 1949, as well as movements with easily-discernible religious aspects, including the German Peasant Rebellion of 1525, the Haitian Revolution, and the 1979 Iranian revolution. Working with these case studies helps us think about the relationship between religion and politics and particularly where and when the boundaries between these two spheres of life start to crumble. Klaus Yoder.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 211 - Islam in Europe and the Americas Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 211 ) Various processes of migration and conversion have contributed to the development of Muslim minority communities in Europe and the Americas, dating back to the 17th century. From enslaved Muslims in the Americas, to the Nation of Islam, to colonial and post-colonial migrations, to the debates over whether and how to define “European,” “American,” and “Latin@” Islams, this course covers the history of these religious communities and movements, their relationships with European and American states, and how contemporary European and American Muslims have described and theorized the experience of being a religious minority or diaspora. Key themes include race & ethnicity, gender & sexuality, transnational media, political resistance, ethics, and spirituality. Kirsten Wesselhoeft.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 219 - New and Alternative Religious Movements in the United States
1 unit(s)
All religions, new and old, have a beginning, and all religions change over time. Even the most established and popular religions today, like Islam and Christianity, began as small, marginalized sects. In this class, we think carefully about how religions develop and change by examining closely religious movements in one of the most vibrant religious nations in world history, modern America. We study radical prophets, doomsday preachers, modern messiahs, social reformers and new spiritual gurus and we talk about how their new religious movements developed and interacted with more mainstream religious currents in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. This course proceeds in a roughly chronological fashion, beginning with new and alternative religions in the nineteenth century and moving on to more recent groups. Some of the questions we consider as we proceed are: Why do new religions begin? Why do people join them? How do they both challenge and conform to wider American norms and values? How should the American legal system respond to them? How do more mainstream believers respond to them? Christopher White.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 222 - Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Islamic Spaces
1 unit(s)
(Same as WFQS 222 ) This course explores the relationship between Islam, gender, and sexuality through a focus on space. The course is organized through six key spaces that have formed gendered bodies in Islamic contexts and diasporas: the home, the mosque, the baths (hammam), the school, the public square, and the interior soul. As we move through each of these spaces, we explore how sexual difference, gender, sexuality, and religious practice take on different shapes in different settings, and at different life stages. We read canonical works of Muslim feminist thought, as well as the classical sources they engage with. We pay attention to gender diversity in the classical traditions and contemporary Islamic contexts, coming-of-age and other life stages, and to the role of gender and sexuality in mystical relationship with the divine. Kirsten Wesselhoeft.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 225 - Ethnography of Religion
1 unit(s)
This course is an introduction to religion as a set of cultural practices. We explore different ways that people have confronted “big questions,” such as how to live well in community with others, why bad things happen to good people and what to do about it, whether or not there is a life beyond the visible one and how to influence it, and how to produce ultimate meaning in an unpredictable world. Our entry point to these questions is a series of ethnographies of religion, secularism, and spirituality: accounts of religious culture that are grounded in immersive participant observation, interviews, and engaged, collaborative research. We consider how the categories of “religion” and “secular” have been produced through ethnographic texts, confront ethnography’s colonial legacy, and work with a range of innovative ethnographic genres, including performance, creative writing, and film. Based upon their fieldwork, students enrolled in this Intensive craft original ethnographic projects in a genre of their choice, such as writing, performance, or short film. Students may also enroll in Religion 225 without enrolling in the intensive; they do other coursework in lieu of an original ethnographic project. Contact Professor Wesselhoeft for more details about the relationship of the Intensive to this course. Kirsten Wesselhoeft.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 230 - Jewish Law in Action Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as JWST 230 ) An introduction to the heart of Judaism—the law developed by the rabbis over the course of millenia. We explore highly challenging legal institutions including themes of marriage and divorce, conversion, the relationship between Jews and non-Jews, gender and sexuality, questions of authority and rebelliousness. How were these practices—seemingly around forever— first established? How have they developed over the centuries, and how are they are being reconfigured in post-modernity by contemporary halakhic activism?
Topic for 2023/24a: Chained Women and Recalcitrant Husbands: Marriage and Divorce in Jewish Law. While one obviously has to be married to divorce, marriage is surprisingly not institutionalized in the Hebrew Bible, while divorce is. Jewish religious law was exceedingly careful about divorce to begin with, but centuries of androcentrism turned divorce into a profoundly punitive and misogynistic tool. We examine the real emotional damage the process of Jewish religious divorce can produce, the development of tools on the part of legislators to mitigate this pain, and contemporary feminist efforts to change religious laws surrounding divorce. Agnes Veto.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 233 - The Buddha in the World
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 233 ) The Buddha and his followers have had a profound influence on Asian cultures for more than two millennia. In this class we explore a variety of Buddhist imaginaries and practices beginning with ones that emerged in the first centuries after the historical Buddha, and tracing the development of these practices throughout Asia with an emphasis on China. We engage themes such as suffering, death, monastic institutionalism, the role of women and gender, the challenges of Euroamerican colonialisms, and the tensions between textual ideals and everyday practices. Michael Walsh.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 241 - The Land of Israel Before the State of Israel
1 unit(s)
(Same as JWST 241 ) This course deals with the Holy Land in Jewish (as well as Christian and Muslim) reality and imagination before Zionism. Love of and attachment to the Land in religious texts, poetry, art, literature and music, as well as the tensions between such sentiments and diasporist thought; and the collusions and collisions between and among the communities which claimed these attachments from antiquity through the Ottoman Period. Agnes Veto.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 242 - From Anti-Judaism to Anti-Semitism Semester Offered: Spring
1 1 unit(s)
(Same as JWST 242 ) An exploration of the historical trajectory from religious to racial Jew-hatred through the study of religious, historical, political and sociological sources as well as art, literature and music. Agnes Veto.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 245 - Making Waves: Topics in Feminist Activism Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as WFQS 245 ) Topic for 2023/24a: Feminism, Religion, and Spirituality. Feminism and religion are ordinarily understood to be at odds with one another. Religion is often coded as patriarchal and restrictive, feminism as secular and liberatory. This class interrogates this presumption by taking up the multiple relationships between feminism, religion, and spirituality, from resistance to reform to resourcefulness. The course draws on a wide range of religious and spiritual traditions and global feminist movements. We take up gender and sexuality as central categories for understanding religion as a social phenomenon, and we engage multiple feminist methodologies, including womanist, mujerista, Muslima, and queer critical methods. Written assignments invite students to think self-reflexively, theorize from experience, and critically consider the relationship between religion, spirituality, and “living a feminist life,” in Sara Ahmed’s words. Kirsten Wesselhoeft.
Prerequisite(s): WFQS 130 or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 246 - Judaisms Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as JWST 246 ) An exploration of Jewish practice and belief in all its variety. The course traces the evolution of various “Judaisms” through each one’s approaches to the text of scripture and its interpretations, Jewish law and the observance of the commandments. It analyzes the Jewish life-cycle, calendar and holidays from a phenomenological perspective, and traces the development of the conceptualization of God, Torah, and the People and Land of Israel in Jewish life, thought, and culture from antiquity through the present day. Marc Epstein.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 249 - Unlocking the Bible Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as JWST 249 ) This course has a tripartite aim. First, to familiarize students with the various literary genres of the Biblical corpus — myth, treaty, legal collection, prophecy, political propaganda, historiography — in order to highlight the diversity and richness of the corpus as a literary product. Second, we seek to establish the agenda of some sections of the Biblical text and to understand how the widely different genres can and do contribute to a complex theological message. Finally, we attempt to unveil and analyze the underlying assumptions of the differing scholarly opinions concerning the meaning of the Biblical texts.
In the course of the semester students read important samples of the Biblical texts and will be introduced to the most influential scholarly views of the field. Agnes Veto
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 250 - Across Religious Boundaries: Understanding Differences Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
The study of a selected topic or theme in religious studies that cuts across the boundaries of particular religions, allowing opportunities for comparison as well as contrast of religious traditions, beliefs, values and practices.
Topic for 2023/24a: Yoga: A Twisted History. (Same as ASIA 250 ) Yoga: Is it physical or mental? Is it religious, secular, spiritual? Is it ancient or modern? We all know what yoga looks like—or at least we think we do—but while yoga has become an indelible part of transnational physical culture, many of us would struggle to explain what it is or where it comes from. What many in the U.S. call “yoga”—a postural activity that takes place largely in classes and that is practiced by certain social groups—takes root in a whole range of religious traditions in South Asia, develops in conversation with Western practices, and experiences a firm relocation in India in the twentieth century while continuing to proliferate in the West. Interrogating the contemporary history of yoga requires confronting questions about religion, colonialism, body culture, and capitalism. Engaging with early and premodern articulations of yoga means coming into contact with South Asia’s religious traditions and superlative intellectual history. Students in this course achieve two analytical objectives: they will be able to relate sources of yoga (written and visual texts, as well as experiences) to a historically and geographically broad set of conceptions about what yoga is and does; and they will be able to make arguments about the idea and practice of yoga that are grounded in primary evidence, supported by secondary scholarship, and enriched by an awareness of historical, social, and cultural contexts. Nell Hawley.
Topic for 2023/24b: Superstories: The Popular Culture of the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata. (Same as ASIA 250 ) Superstories is an introduction to the epic literature of Hinduism for the comic book reader, the fan fiction writer, the Marvel Cinematic Universe theorist, the cosplayer, and anyone who has ever “binged” on literature in any medium. Students analyze selections from the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, in tandem with their retellings in more contemporary epic mediums: television series, movies, fantasy fiction, comic books, and graphic novels. Students focus their reading by assessing the boundaries that the Hindu epics transgress—those between canonicity and creativity, classical and popular, and reader and author. Along the way, we recognize the phenomenon of the marvel—a supernatural being or event that provokes wonder in the onlooker—and consider its place in Hindu thought and practice, as well as religion more broadly. Throughout the course, we welcome productive comparisons with local superhero literature (e.g., Black Panther, Wonder Woman) and popular Western epics (Star Wars, Game of Thrones). Nell Hawley.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 254 - A Hundred Gospels and the Confusing, Conflicted Life of Jesus
1 unit(s)
(Same as JWST 254 ) Who was Jesus? What does the Bible say about him? How did it come to say what it does? Was he a humble carpenter? A divine being? A revolutionary? A rabbi? Was he learned in ancient wisdom, or simple and charismatic and fresh in his teaching? The sources dance in, about and around the issues as they alternately confirm and confound definitions. The canonical Gospels-accounts of Jesus’ life accepted as authoritative by Christians-number four. But even these four contradict each other and require “harmonization” in the eyes of believing Christians. And they are only four out of ten completely preserved examples. In addition to these ten, there are a further six Gospels describing only the childhood of Jesus, four partially preserved Gospels (including the Gospel of Mary Magdalene), and tens of fragmentary, reconstructed, and completely lost Gospels. Once thing is certain from all of these documents: Jesus wasn’t a Christian. How, then, did he come to be regarded as the founder of a new religion, a religion that would be called Christianity? And how did he come to be understood as God, the Son of God, or both at the same time? Marc Michael Epstein.
Two 75-minute periods.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 255 - Western Mystical Traditions Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as JWST 255 ) Textual, phenomenological and theological studies in the religious mysticism of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. May be taken more than once for credit when content changes.
Topic for 2023/24b:Hasidism: Roots and Branches. Hasidism, the first reform movement in modern Judaism, was a radical, joyous, grassroots mystical movement, which has, over the years, transformed into an ultra-Orthodoxy. We examine the roots and branches of the Hasidic movement and chart its influence upon and implications for contemporary Jewish life and for the larger picture of spirituality in America, Israel and Europe. Marc Epstein.
Prerequisite(s): Any 100-level course in Religion or Jewish Studies or permission of the instructor.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 256 - Theology of the Prison Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
How might the experience of imprisonment have influenced the development of Christian ideas about the body, salvation, and justice? Does the contemporary crisis of America’s “prison-industrial complex” demand new attention to this aspect of the Christian tradition? In this course, students analyze the experience and representation of imprisonment in influential theological, philosophical, and literary texts from antiquity to the present. At the same time, we examine how inmates in contemporary American prisons are using a wide range of theologies and spiritual practices to heal, gain perspective, and critique unjust institutions. Doing so allows us to assess how the Christian tradition may be employed and critiqued for the purposes of interpreting and challenging American notions and policies of punishment and rehabilitation. Throughout the semester, we also encounter authors from different traditions who conceptualize the challenges of incarceration in ways that are comparable with and challenging to the categories we see in the Christian sources. Klaus Yoder.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 264 - Controversies in Science, Technology & Religion Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as STS 264 ) This course introduces students to new and controversial topics in the study of religion, science, technology and spirituality. We examine controversial issues such as evolution/creation, artificial intelligence, science fiction as spirituality, religious and secular views of the mind, issues in biomedical ethics such as cloning, the neurology of religious experience, technologically-mediated spirituality, pseudo-science and parapsychology. Christopher White.
Two 75-minute periods.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 282 - Howard Thurman, Blackness, and Vassar College Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 282 ) This Intensive explores the relationship between the Reverend Howard Thurman, one of the most important and neglected Black theologians of the 20th century, and Vassar College. During the time when his works, such as Jesus and the Disinherited and The Creative Encounter, contributed to the architecture of the Civil Rights Movement, Thurman repeatedly lectured at Vassar. In fact, between 1928 and 1957, Thurman delivered about a dozen lectures at Vassar, and his daughter Olive ‘48 was one of the College’s first openly Black graduates. Our work together focuses on recovering Reverend Thurman’s speeches, as well as researching the occasions of his visits. More broadly, Thurman’s visits offer a compelling lens through which to think through and with Blackness and African American experiences at Vassar. This Intensive emerges, in part, in response to the college’s announced Vassar Inclusive History initiative, and our class seeks ways to contribute to a more critical account of Vassar’s institutional history while honoring and illuminating the Black experience at the college. Jonathon Kahn.
Two 2-hour periods.
Course Format: INT -
RELI 290 - Community-Engaged Learning Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Supervised community-engaged learning in the community in cooperation with the Office of Community-Engaged Learning.
Course Format: INT -
RELI 298 - Independent Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
The department.
Prerequisite(s): One semester of appropriate intermediate work in the field of study proposed.
Permission of instructor required.
Course Format: OTH
Religion: III. Advanced
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RELI 300 - Senior Seminar Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
An exploration of critical issues in the study of religion. Christopher White.
Senior Religion majors only.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 301 - Senior Thesis Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
Written under the supervision of a member of the department; taken in the Spring semester. Christopher White.
Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
Course Format: INT -
RELI 302 - Intensive in Religion, Media & Pop Culture
1 unit(s)
In this small intensive we examine in detail special topics in religion, media and popular culture. Our reading list is tailored to student interest and may include in-depth readings on media effects theory, film and mysticism, multi-platform imaginary fictional worlds such as Harry Potter or Star Wars, mobile technologies and religion, iphones and spiritual practices, science fiction and spirituality, and other topics. Christopher White.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: INT -
RELI 315 - Jews, Jewish Identity and the Arts Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as JWST 315 ) Topic for 2023/24b: People of the Image: Jews and Visual Art. This course investigates the ways in which Jews have used visual culture to express religious ideas and address political circumstances, primarily in the premodern era. It interrogates the ideas of creation and creativity, the permissibility or impermissibility of the image in Judaism, the authorship of “Jewish” visual culture and whether/why this matters, the construction of individual and communal Jewish identity through art, architecture, and texts, and relations— collusions as well as collisions— between Jews and non-Jews as they play out in the realm of visual and material culture. Marc Epstein.
Prerequisite(s): One course in Jewish Studies, Religion or permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 330 - Religion, Critical Theory, and Politics Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
Advanced study in selected aspects of religion and contemporary philosophical and political theory. May be taken more than once for credit when content changes. Michael Walsh.
Topic for 2023/24a: Restless Empire: China, Religion, and the Nation-State. (Same as ASIA 330 ) This seminar takes as its starting point a question posed by one of China’s most eminent scholars, Wang Hui, who asks: “What is the nature of the historical emergence or construction of modern Chinese identity, ideas of geography, and senses of sovereignty?” Within the mechanics of the nation-state there is a structural connection between texts (constitutions, legal codes, national histories), ostensibly universal and normative categories (race, religion, citizen, freedom, human rights), and territoriality (the integrity of sovereignty and the claim and control over resources and people). These are three foundational components of the nation-state, but a fourth binds them together: the sacred, or more specifically, a process of sacralization. Further examining this process allows us to think about new ways of understanding China’s approach to legality, control of the populace, religious freedom, human rights, and the structuring of international relations. In doing so we raise existential questions about the fundamental nature of the nation-state. Michael Walsh.
Topic for 2023/24b: Race and Political Theology. (Same as AFRS 330 ) In recent years, “political theology” has emerged as a crucial notion in the humanities. Most narrowly, political theology refers to Carl Schmitt’s claim that all “significant political concepts” of the modern nation-state have theological and religious roots. Until very recently, theorists of political theology have ignored the ways in which race functions as a significant political concept of the state. This seminar explores the intersection between race and political theology. We examine multiple conceptions of political theology. And we ask most centrally: In what ways are constructions of race rooted in theological concepts and histories? We ask this question both from the perspective of the state as well as from accounts of African American experience in historical and literary texts. We consider writings by Carl Schmitt, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, Albert Raboteau, and Toni Morrison. Jonathon Kahn.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 345 - Violent Frontiers: Colonialism and Religion in the Nineteenth Century
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 345 ) What is the relationship between religion and colonialism and how has this relationship shaped the contemporary world? During the nineteenth century the category of religion was imagined and applied in different ways around the globe. When colonialists undertook to ‘civilize’ a people, specific understandings of religion were at the core of their undertakings. By the mid-nineteenth century, Europe’s territorial energy was focused on Asia and Africa. Themes for discussion include various nineteenth-century interpretations of religion, the relationship between empire and culture, the notion of frontier religion, and the imagination and production of society. Michael Walsh.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 350 - Comparative Studies in Religion Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)
An examination of selected themes, issues, or approaches u see in illuminating the religious dimensions and dynamics within particular cultures and societies, with attention to the benefits and limits of the comparative method. Past seminars have focused on such topics as myth, ritual, mysticisms, and iconography. May be taken more than once for credit when content changes.
Topic for 2023/24a: Imagining Gender in Hindu Literature. (Same as ASIA 350 and WFQS 350 ) Literature is prime territory for thinking about gender in Hindu traditions as an expansive, contested, interrogative category. Given that gender is often understood to exhibit deep dimensions of performance and affect—not to mention the idea of its being more social construction than ontological truth—perhaps it is no surprise that when it comes to Hinduism, we find some of the most intricate, profound reflections on gender in sources that are highly aware of the social and emotional realities of human life: epics, narratives, poems, and performance genres. Inspired by Mrinalini Sinha’s challenge to “distinguish between merely exporting gender as an analytical category to different parts of the world and rethinking the category itself in light of those different locations,” (2012) this course asks how works of Hindu literature develop and convey their own theories of gender and sexuality. What tensions do they explore? Where do they seem to prescribe, and where do they seem to question? How do the specifics of literary forms and Hindu practices allow them to do that? The course is organized thematically, with students exploring early, medieval, and contemporary sources in each unit. Themes include: impersonation and performance; ritual possession; devotional voices; masculinity when threatening and masculinity when threatened; epic heroines (Sītā, Draupadī); and stories of gender transformation and affirmation.
Topic for 2023/24b: Ecospirituality and Planetary Consciousness. (Same as STS 350 ) This course examines twentieth-century space exploration and emerging discourses about “one world,” planetary consciousness, the environment, and spirituality. It begins with the Apollo space technologies and how they produced a set of unexpected reflections about the earth and its place in the cosmos. That process began in 1968 when the Apollo 8 astronauts captured the now-famous “Earthrise” photograph of the Earth rising above the lunar surface. Seeing the earth from space for the first time led to a kind of “no frames, no boundaries” mysticism for many astronauts, who reported feeling awe that all humans lived together on a tiny, glittering, blue planet. This mysticism was taken up by many others in the wake of Apollo—by key figures in the counter-culture, new religious and spiritual figures, “Gaia” movement preachers and ecologists, cosmologists such as Carl Sagan, esoteric engineers at NASA such as Jack Parsons and many others convinced that technology had delivered a new era of planetary awareness and spiritual evolution. Christopher White.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 355 - The Politics of Sacred Space
1 unit(s)
(Same as ASIA 355 ) Are places inherently sacred or are they made that way through human action? In this seminar we examine the relationship between spatial and temporal orientation and connect this to the fundamental importance of sacrality in human action and existence. We explore comparatively how space is produced, maintained, and made sacred. We also investigate how social groups and nation-states work to produce spaces of control within which their citizens must reside. Some of our questions include: What is the relationship between power and sacrality, between nation-state and a state of being? How are places made sacred through human action? To what extent is sacrality a process of emplacement? What role does sacredness play in local and global geopolitical environments? Michael Walsh.
One 2-hour period.
Not offered in 2023/24.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 360 - Religion, Sex, and the Modern State Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as WFQS 360 ) This course examines the intertwined regulation of religion and sexuality by modern states through six case studies from around the world: Nigeria, France, Norway, Iran, Uganda, and India. These cases take us through a range of political systems and both religiously homogenous and religiously diverse societies, showing how in each case the state is intimately concerned with the relationship between religion, sexuality, and sexual difference. Through our analysis of these cases, we cover topics including comparative secularisms, race and citizenship, Islamic law, postcolonial feminist and queer theory, the sociology of religious revival, and religion and global media. At the end of the course, students will have a globally-informed and nuanced understanding of the stakes of contemporary debates about religious freedom, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights around the world. Kirsten Wesselhoeft.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS -
RELI 399 - Senior Independent Work
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
Course Format: OTH
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