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 2018/19a: The Celestial Sphere: The Power of Myth. This course focuses on the powers, limitations, structures, and nuances of myth through a critical examination one of the major languages of Western Esotericism, Astrology. Beginning with an investigation of diachronic (historical evolution) versus synchronic (present symbolic system) visions of the zodiac, the course investigates the archetypes, systems of folklore, psychologies, and esoteric practices associated with astrology, repeatedly returning the semiotic question: “How and why does these things mean what they are purported to mean.” Rick Jarow.

Topic for 2018/19b: African American Religions and the Practice of Social Criticism. (Same as AFRS 250) This class introduces students to the study of African American religions. Our focus is not only the historical variety of religious practices, but equally on the way the study of African American religious practices, serve to influence, wrestle with, protest, and critique constructions of race and racial identities. By considering topics such as the religious culture of the enslaved in the antebellum South, the development of independent black churches in the late 18th and 19th centuries, expressive culture in music, sermon, and song, and the intersections of religion and black political movements, we explore the ways the category of religion functions as a contested site to think through notions of black liberation, agency, and struggle. Jonathon Kahn.

Topic for 2018/19b: Spirituality, Ecology, and the Environment. (Same as ENST 250)This course investigates the many relationships between spirituality, religion, and nature. How do emerging ecological paradigms challenge conventional religious worldviews? How have conventional religious traditions (Buddhism, Christianity, etc.) responded to this? How can Earth based traditions (Native American, South American Shamanic, etc.), Eco-feminism, and other nature-informed discourses revision our spiritual understanding of the natural world? What spiritual paradigms may emerge from the environmental movements of the last fifty-plus years? How is this relevant to myself and my community? Topics covered include environmental ethics, science and religion, cosmologies of humanity and nature, relationship between humans, plants, and animals, practices of “the wild.” Rick Jarow.

Two 75-minute periods.