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