Browse through the courses below to explore courses that will fulfill certain degree requirements in the Religious Studies program.
When registering for classes on the Course Timetable website, be sure to carefully read through the "Notes/Additional Fees" section of each course you select.
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Not all of the courses below will necessarily be offered in any given year.
AP/RLST 1105 9.00 Myth & Imagination in Ancient Greece & Rome
The myths of the ancient Greeks and Romans constitute a continuous tradition that stretches back beyond the writing of history down to our present day. These narratives have survived for millennia because they continue to ...
AP/RLST 1165 6.00 Gods and Humans
This course explores the interactions between Gods and humans in literature, art, and philosophy. We focus on critical questions, emotional struggles, and personal journeys that characterize interactions between humans and Gods. Special attention is given ...
AP/RLST 1400 9.00 Culture & Society in East Asia
No single course can adequately address the richness and complexity of the cultures and societies of East Asia. However, this course will introduce students to important practices and concepts from a broadly humanistic perspective and ...
AP/RLST 1710 6.00 Roots of Western Culture
This course investigates the two major branches of Western thought: the Greco-Roman and the Judeo-Christian. The course begins by critically thinking about how history is “made,” reworked and transmitted, about oral culture, and how cultural ...
AP/RLST 1844 6.00 Muslim Travel Narratives
This course explores the ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity of the Muslim world through the travelogues and memoirs of Muslim scholars, pilgrims, envoys and adventurers, who traversed its domains from the tenth century to the ...
AP/RLST 1845 6.00 Islamic Traditions
This course examines the beliefs, doctrines and institutions that have constituted the Islamic tradition from its inception until the present. While examining some of the most important primary sources that have emerged within Islamic tradition, ...
AP/RLST 1850 6.00 The Bible & Modern Contexts
This course offers a survey of much of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the Christian Bible (New Testament). We begin with a discussion of pre-Israelite religion (i.e., a reconstruction of religion in Palestine before ...
AP/RLST 1855 9.00 Buddhism and Asian Cultures
This course introduces the diversity of Buddhist ideas and practices in Asia. Exploring Buddhism as a living tradition, it focuses on the impact and interpretation of Buddhism in historical and contemporary cultures. After developing a ...
AP/RLST 1860 6.00 The Nature of Religion
Explores the nature of religious faith, religious language (myth and symbol) and clusters of religious beliefs through an examination of the primary texts of several major world religions. Methodologies for the study of religion will ...
AP/RLST 1865 6.00 Introduction to World Religions
This course introduces students to a variety of human religious experiences and traditions. This year we will explore the history, literature, practices and contemporary issues of the following religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, and Chinese and Japanese ...
AP/RLST 1870 6.00 Hebrew Bible and the Arts
This course looks at selected passages from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and their interpretative reflection in the western artistic tradition, including pictorial/representational art, music, literature, and cinema. The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament is one of the ...
AP/RLST 1875 9.00 Christianity in Context
This is an introductory course. It offers a general overview of the Christian tradition from its inception to the present day. From its beginnings, Christianity has been inextricably intertwined with the societies and cultures surrounding ...
AP/RLST 1880 6.00 Jewish Experience: Symbiosis and Rejection
An examination of the interaction of Jews and gentiles in selected periods from antiquity through the 20th century. A case study in ethnic adaptation, the course seeks to understand how Jews sometimes adapted their lives ...
AP/RLST 2035 3.00 Asian Philosophical Traditions
An introduction to the major philosophical traditions of India and China. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Multiple Cross-listed as AP/PHIL 2035 3.00.
AP/RLST 2040 3.00 Introduction to Islamic Philosophy
An introduction to some of the key figures, seminal texts, and main themes of Islamic philosophy in the classical period. Authors may include: al-Farabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), al-Ghazali, and Ibn Rushd (Averroes). RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: ...
AP/RLST 2090 3.00 Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion
Does God exist? Can religious belief be explained away? What is the relationship between faith and reason? Through a selection of classic readings, this course provides a survey of some central topics in the philosophy ...
GL/RLST 2672 3.00 Religion and Society
This course analyzes the relationship between religion, culture and social class. It observes how religion, as a social structure, organizes communities around beliefs and rituals. It introduces students to classical sociological theories about religion; looking ...
AP/RLST 2790 6.00 Islamic Civilization (622–1400)
This course explores the development and nature of Islamic civilization from the seventh century to 1400 AD. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Islam Cross-listed as AP/HIST 2790 6.00.
AP/RLST 2805 6.00 World Religions in Canada
Tracing the origins and development of different religious communities, this course identifies and analyzes ways in which the religious reflects, shapes and embodies the social and cultural diversity and plurality of everyday life in Canada. ...
AP/RLST 3095 3.00 Philosophy of Religion
How do theistic philosophies deal with the fact of evil? Are religious language and forms of knowing distinct from other forms? What are the moral and ethical issues inherent in religious propagation? RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: ...
AP/RLST 3105 6.00 Greek and Roman Religion
This course examines Greek and Roman religious beliefs and practices from an interdisciplinary perspective. Special attention is given to four major approaches to the divine (ritual, myth, art and philosophy) and their integration with other ...
AP/RLST 3106 6.00 Writing Greco-Roman Lives: Ancient Biography
Crosslisted CLST 3106/HUMA 3106 6.0/RLST 3106 6.0 Why do ancient people write about the lives of others? What were ancient people doing when they wrote about themselves? This course explores biographical and autobiographical writing in ...
AP/RLST 3110 6.00 Ancient Israel: From its Origins in the Settlement to the Babylonian Exile
A survey of the history of ancient Israel within its ancient Near Eastern context from its putative origins in the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1550-1200 BCE) through its flowering in the Iron Age (or First ...
AP/RLST 3115 6.00 Myth in Ancient Greece: Texts and Theories
This course examines Greek myths of gods and heroes in their social, religious and historical contexts through close reading of primary texts and visual representations and through analysis of modern comparative, psychoanalytical and structuralist theories. ...
AP/RLST 3320 6.00 Anthropology of Ritual and Religion
How major anthropological thinkers seek to explain the variety and complexity of human ritual and symbolic behaviour informs this course. Ethnographic examples and materials on ritual events, religious symbolism, and belief systems will enrich this ...
AP/RLST 3325 6.00 Islam Aand Europe: Past and Present
This course explores the social and political history of Muslims in post-war Europe. It emphasizes key debates and controversies, including how Muslim immigrants have focused attention on questions of citizenship and belonging, the division between ...
AP/RLST 3421 3.00 Interpreting the New Testament I
A historical and literary study of the traditions of the apostle Paul as they developed from the time of his missionary career through later generations of those who followed his teachings. The course begins with ...
AP/RLST 3422 3.00 Interpreting the New Testament II
This course takes a historical approach to writings produced in the second generation of the Jesus movements, including the gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. The course begins with a discussion of the first-century ...
AP/RLST 3423 3.00 New Testament Apocrypha
The New Testament Apocrypha—or better: non-canonical early Christian literature—has had a great impact on western culture despite attempts by mainstream Christianity to suppress it. Stories and ideas from these texts appear in literature, art, church ...
AP/RLST 3424 3.00 History of the Bible
Most people take the existence of the modern English Bible for granted—they assume it sprang fully-formed from the hands of the ancient writers or even directly from God. But the Bible has been three millennia ...
AP/RLST 3425 3.00 Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls provide an intriguing window into the development of early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. This course examines the texts, the communities which produced them, contemporary movements within Judaism and Christianity, and the ...
A study of the life and seminal ideas of Augustine of Hippo. Setting his ideas in the context of his life story, the course explores his teaching on such themes as religion, education, philosophy, grade ...
AP/RLST 3439 3.00 How Irish Saved Civilization
Examines the remarkable cultural achievements of the Irish, how they kept the lamps of learning, literature and material culture (manuscript, painting, ornamental metalwork) burning following the barbarian invasions of the fifth century and the decline ...
An introduction to Gnosticism, a second century religious movement that intersected and overlapped with Christianity and Judaism. Emphasis will be on readings of primary sources. The course objective are to acquaint students with the theories ...
AP/RLST 3481 6.00 World Religions
Examines selected religions such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism with special reference to selected texts, traditions and thought. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Multiple
AP/RLST 3510 6.00 Religion, Gender and Korean Culture
This course explores the interactions of religion and gender from the traditional to the modern period in Korea, and relates this material to the general process of cultural development. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Multiple
AP/RLST 3518 6.00 Feminist Approaches to Religion
In the last part of the 20th century in North America, an exciting re-membering of women’s voices began to emerge, sparking growth in critical consciousness and in feminist theory/methods designed to uncover, critique, and challenge ...
AP/RLST 3519 6.00 Contemporary Women's Rituals
Women have been creating their own significant rituals both inside and outside established religious movements for centuries. Understanding the nature of women's rituals allows us to comprehend more fully women's relationship to humanity and to ...
AP/RLST 3557 6.00 Superstition, Religion, and Sexuality
This course explores the intersection of religion and superstition from ancient times to the present. It analyzes issues of gender, power and sexuality through the study of goddesses, witches and the current fascination with vampires ...
AP/RLST 3560 3.00 Bad Girls In the Bible I
The Bible offers archetypal figures for Western art, music and film as well as literature. This course will analyze women in the Hebrew Bible with a focus on sexuality, seduction, murder and mayhem. Beginning with ...
AP/RLST 3561 3.00 Bad Girls In the Bible II
The Bible offers archetypal figures for Western art, music and film as well as literature. This course will analyze women in the New Testament with a focus on sexuality, seduction, murder and mayhem. From the ...
AP/RLST 3570 6.00 Anthropology, Islam and Muslim Societies
This course examines debates amongst anthropologists about the study of Islam and Muslim societies, and Muslim expressions of Islam according to anthropological themes including the body, space, ritual, knowledge, agency and representation. Students design and ...
AP/RLST 3580 6.00 Gender and Islamophobia
This interdisciplinary course examines historical and contemporary manifestations of Islamophobia. We explore both the ways those understood as Muslim have been gendered and how Islamophobia produces particularly gendered anti-Muslim racism. Each class will consist of ...
AP/RLST 3609 3.00 Women and Religion: Sex, Spirituality, and Feminine Power
This course uses sociological theories on religion to study the main issues, gains and struggles faced by women in religious traditions around the world. Students study women in religion at the macro and micro level ...
AP/RLST 3620 3.00 Japanese Religions in Canada
This course examines not only how Japanese religious/philosophical traditions were utilized for practical concerns by Japanese immigrants, but also how they came to inform the identity of Japanese Canadians in the context of a broader ...
AP/RLST 3650 3.00 Sociology of Religion
Introduces sociological approaches to religion in a contemporary social and global cultural context. Traces the changes from the sociological classics to contemporary theories of religion and secularism that reflect the intertwined nature of these categories ...
AP/RLST 3651 3.00 God/USA: Religion in American since 1491
Explores the key themes, critical questions, and entrenched conflicts about the place of religion during the long and varied history of American civic and cultural life. It analyzes Native-Newcomer religious tensions, disestablishment, uniquely American religions, ...
AP/RLST 3700 3.00 Music, Myth and Ritual
Offers a cross-cultural survey of the role of music in mythology and ritual focusing on exoteric form and esoteric meaning. Explores archetypes (e.g. deities, birds, angels, shamans, bards), mythologies, liturgies, and artistic traditions from the ...
AP/RLST 3780 6.00 History of the Christian Church: Beginnings to Reformation
Explores the stages of the developing Christian church from its origins in apostolic times to the late Middle Ages. Topics include personalities, institutional structure, leadership and rules, thought, education, liturgical and spiritual life, pastoral care, ...
AP/RLST 3795 3.00 A Cultural History of Satan
This course investigates the origins, development, significance, and social functions of personified evil--Satan and his demons--in early Judaism and in the history of Christianity. We will consider some of the most important literary and visual ...
AP/RLST 3800 6.00 God Online: Religion In The Digital Age
An interdisciplinary investigation into the changing nature of traditional religions in the digital age. This course examines ways in which religion is being shaped by digital culture, including the widespread social acceptance of new technologies ...
AP/RLST 3801 6.00 Thinking Religion in South Asia
This course explores the teachings of selected religious traditions of South Asian and examines the category of religion as it is applied to South Asia in the context of oriental discourses. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Hinduism
AP/RLST 3802 3.00 Sikh History and Thought
An overview of Sikhism, major texts of Sikh tradition, and the rich array of poetics, musical thought and languages involved. It exposes students to the Sikh geographical imagination which emerges in sacred texts, place and ...
AP/RLST 3803 3.00 Methods in the Study of Religion
Explores the key approaches to the study of religion through an examination of various methodologies. Working through well-known case studies, students investigate a variety of approaches in practice to explore how questions of method shape ...
AP/RLST 3804 3.00 Theories in the Study of Religion
Introduces students to the foundational theorists and key questions in the history of the academic study of religion. This course examines the lenses through which we view religion, that is, how differing theoretical models shape ...
AP/RLST 3810 6.00 Ancient Israelite Literature: The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in Context
The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament is one of the foundational texts of western culture. As such, it has had a history of interpretation and reinterpretation that has lasted for some 2000 years. During this period of ...
AP/RLST 3814 6.00 Gendering Islam
This course examines the representation and the construction of the gendered roles of “Muslim Woman” and “Muslim Man” in different Islamic societies. Interdisciplinary in approach, the course exposes the students to a variety of Muslim ...
AP/RLST 3815 6.00 Aspects of Islamic Thought
This course introduces students to some of the major aspects of classical Islamic thought focusing on their development, diversity, and influences. The course explores the writings of leading figures in Islamic theology, jurisprudence, mysticism and ...
This course explores the intersections between religion, culture and identity in the Balkans. It offers an interdisciplinary examination of this complex religious and ethnic mosaic through a wide range of sources, including consideration of the ...
AP/RLST 3817 6.00 Memory, Authority & Knowledge: Muslim World
This course focuses on the modes of transmission, acquisition and reproduction of knowledge in a variety of Islamic societies from the ninth century to the present. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Islam
AP/RLST 3818 3.00 Sacred Space and Ritual Practices In Islam
The course examines the plurality of rituals and devotional practices in Islam and the variety of spaces and places engendered by Muslim worship and devotion from early Islam to the contemporary period. It examines the ...
AP/RLST 3819 3.00 Outsiders Inside Religion
Religion plays an important role in inculcating and perpetuating societal norms and values. However, that is only part of the story. Many members of marginalized groups have also found within religion a space in which ...
AP/RLST 3825 6.00 Holocaust in Cross-Cultural Context: Canada, Germany, Poland
This course examines how the Holocaust is represented and taught in Canada, Germany and Poland in the context of racism and multiculturalism in these three countries. It combines aspects of cultural studies, history, religious studies ...
AP/RLST 3826 3.00 Religion and Film
This course examines the role and representation of the religious in popular film. It introduces students to the vocabularies of Religious Studies and Film Studies, and critically explores the relationship between religion and film as ...
AP/RLST 3827 3.00 Religion and Television
This course examines the role and representation of the religious on television. It introduces students to the vocabularies of Religious Studies and Media Studies, and critically explores the relationship between religion and television as aspects ...
AP/RLST 3829 3.00 A Convenient Hatred: Antisemitism Before, During and After The Holocaust
This course examines the evolution of anti-Jewish thought and behaviour as a response to the crisis of modernity. It examines the role of antisemitism in 19th- and 20th-century European ideological, political and socio-economic developments and ...
AP/RLST 3831 3.00 Torah & Tradition: Jewish Religious Expressions from Antiquity to the Present
This course offers an exploration of Jewish beliefs, institutions, and bodies of literature, emphasizing continuities and changes in religious expression within and across different places, circumstances, and times. Themes covered include God, the Jewish people, ...
AP/RLST 3835 3.00 Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Canada
This course examines contemporary manifestations of antisemitism and islamophobia in Canada. It begins by providing a brief historical review of Christian anti-Jewish thought and theology as put forward by the early Church fathers, Augustine and ...
AP/RLST 3840 6.00 Rabbinic Judaism: Thought and Institutions
This course will present a broad exposure to the history, thought, literature, and main institutions of Rabbinic Judaism from its inception, during the Second Temple period, through contemporary times. We will explore a variety of ...
AP/RLST 3843 3.00 Jerusalem: Sacred City, Contested City
Since antiquity, Jerusalem has been a focal point for both spiritual transcendence and earthly strife. This course explores the history of a city holy to three major Western religions. It focuses on the political and ...
AP/RLST 3850 6.00 The Final Solution: Perspectives of the Holocaust
The attempt of the Nazis to annihilate world Jewry was in many ways unprecedented in human annals. It was a turning-point in history, the way for which was prepared by revolutionary political, social, technological, and ...
AP/RLST 3855 6.00 Responses to the Holocaust
This course explores responses to the Holocaust in imaginative texts - fiction, poetry and film - alongside autobiographical, historical and philosophical accounts. Works by survivors and others enable us to examine forms of Holocaust memory, ...
AP/RLST 3856 3.00 Women and The Holocaust
Although the Nazi genocide targeted both men and women, writing by victims and survivors along with contemporary depictions of the Holocaust, indicates significant gender-specific differences in experience and ways of coping and remembering. Close readings ...
AP/RLST 3858 3.00 Cult and Culture in Ancient Canaan
This course surveys the material culture of the land known variously as Canaan, Israel, Judah, Judea, Palestine, and the Holy Land, from the Neolithic or "New Stone" Age (as of ca. 8500 BCE) until the ...
AP/RLST 3891 6.00 Gender, Religion and Human Rights in Cross-Cultural Perspectives
This course analyzes culturally-rooted practices and ideological and political factors that justify or rationalize the inequitable treatment of women and children and sexual or religious minorities, with special attention to the legitimizing role of religion ...
AP/RLST 3917 6.00 Contemporary Jewish Life in North America
This course develops an understanding of contemporary North American Jewry using findings of social science. Social, cultural, political, and religious issues of concern to Jewish communities are analyzed, such as assimilation, intermarriage, Jewish identity, etc. ...
AP/RLST 3918 6.00 Sephardi Jews Of Muslim Lands
The meeting between Jews and Arabs in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict is famous. Less familiar is the encounter between Muslims and Jews in Muslim lands. This course explores Jewish life under Islam from ...
AP/RLST 3975 3.00 Science and Religion
Examination of the relationship between science and religion through a study of the implications of the following intellectual developments for religious thought: the rise and triumph of Newtonian science, the Darwinian revolution, relativity theory, quantum ...
AP/RLST 4100 6.00 Selected Problems in Israelite History
Problems in the determination of the international relations of the Israelite states in the Iron Age. Sources, written and unwritten, from Israel, Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt and Israel's smaller neighbours will be examined in the course ...
AP/RLST 4107 6.00 Ancient Greek and Roman Novel
This course studies selected ancient Greek and Roman novels in English translation, the social and literary currents which shape their narratives, and their role in the cultural politics of their era. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Greek ...
AP/RLST 4178 6.00 Death of God: Atheism in the West
Nietzsche’s famous, prophetic claim that “God is dead” is often taken as describing the declining significance of God within modernity. Adopting neither a pro- nor anti- theistic stance, this course critically examines the relationship between ...
AP/RLST 4190 6.00 Faith, Reason and Modern Self-Consciousness in European Thought
This course examines texts in Ancient Greek philosophy, the Bible, and modern European thought in order to assess the fruitfulness of viewing modern self-consciousness in terms of the relationship of faith and reason. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) ...
GL/RLST 4210 3.00 Religion and International Society
The course reviews the basic teachings of the major religious traditions, including those of the indigenous people, and analyzes their role in international relations and the globalization process, through time and space, from a comparative ...
GL/RLST 4275 3.00 Beliefs In The Digital Age: Religion, Faith and Spirituality
This course is an interdisciplinary investigation of how religion is mediated in culture through mass media (television, radio, the press) as well as through electronic media (internet, video games) and popular culture (film). To de-construct ...
AP/RLST 4430 6.00 Living Confucianism
No one has had a greater impact on Chinese culture than Confucius. His ideas about self-cultivation, the proper ordering of society, the role of the individual in the social order, the relationship between humanity and ...
AP/RLST 4581 6.00 Worry and Wonder: Jewish Politics, Society and Religion in Canada
This public history seminar explores the origins, development and paradoxes of the Canadian Jewish community from its inception in the 18th century to the present. It pays particular attention to the complexities of immigration, relationships ...
AP/RLST 4653 6.00 Advanced Studies in Religion
Allows students to pursue a supervised program of research in the advanced study of religion. Topics can include focused projects in specific ancient religious texts; contemporary religious issues; or religion and literature, philosophy or psychology. ...
AP/RLST 4656 3.00 Women in Islam: Status in the Quran, Prophetic Traditions and Islamic Law
Examines the status, roles, and rights of Muslim women in the Quran, the Prophetic traditions, and the diverse Islamic laws. It explores the development of different schools of laws in diverse societies and examines the ...
AP/RLST 4750 3.00 Gender and Sexuality in Jewish Life
This course offers an exploration of distinctive Jewish approaches to questions of gender, sexuality, and the body, as formulated in their historical, religious, ethical and social dimensions. While we begin our journey with Biblical and ...
AP/RLST 4753 6.00 Christianities and Indigenous Civilizations in Colonial Latin America
This seminar explores the establishment of Christianity among the indigenous peoples of colonial Latin America, with a primary focus on Mexico and Peru. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Christianity Cross-listed as AP/HIST 4753 6.00.
AP/RLST 4755 3.00 Gender and Contemporary Religious Movements
This course explores the relationship between gender and religion through the examination of contemporary religious movements such as men's and women's spirituality movements, new religious movements, LGBTQ movements, and fundamentalist movements. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Multiple
AP/RLST 4770 3.00 Buddhism in Modern Southeast Asia: Community, Conflict and Change
Explores Buddhist responses to the changing conditions of modernity in Southeast Asia. Seeking to understand Buddhism as a living religion, it investigates how Buddhists have drawn on religious narratives, symbols and rituals to respond to ...
AP/RLST 4771 3.00 Buddhism as Seen from the West: The Colonial Encounter and the Study of Buddhism
Explores how the colonial encounter shaped the academic study of Buddhism and the image of Buddhism in the West. Reading popular and scholarly accounts of Buddhism written from the early nineteenth century to the present ...
AP/RLST 4775 3.00 South Asian Religions & Popular Culture
How have South Asian religions been represented, practiced, communicated, and transformed through popular culture? How are religious themes, images, and ideas explored in contemporary film, television, print media and music? Focusing on Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, ...
AP/RLST 4803 6.00 Church, Mosque & Synagogue: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Spain
This course examines religious, intellectual, and cultural relations between the three faith communities of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. It examines the origins of these religious communities, as expressed through their holy texts, and the ways ...
AP/RLST 4808 6.00 Sex & Violence in the Hebrew Bible
This course attempts a nuanced reading of texts dealing with sexuality and/or violence in the Hebrew Bible. The discussion focuses both on a contextual and on a contemporaneous reading of these texts. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: ...
AP/RLST 4809 6.00 The Hebrew Bible and the Literature of the Ancient Near East
This course examines various biblical literary genres and themes within the context of literature from the ancient Near East. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Judaism
AP/RLST 4810 6.00 Religion in Post-Colonial Literature
This course examines the role and status of the religious in the production and reception of contemporary post-colonial literatures in English. Interdisciplinary in approach, the course begins with an assessment of Christianity’s historical function as ...
AP/RLST 4812 3.00 Christianity & Film
This course examines the role and representation of the Christian in popular film. It identifies and analyzes ways in which contemporary cinema reflects, shapes and embodies Christian myths, histories, rituals and doctrines and non-Christian attitudes ...
AP/RLST 4813 3.00 The Arabian Nights: Morality, Sexuality, and Strategies of Interpretation
This course examines the history of the reception and interpretation of The Arabian Nights, from its first appearance in Galland’s 1701 translation to its modern editions by Husain Haddawy in 2008. Interdisciplinary in approach, this course exposes ...
AP/RLST 4814 3.00 The Qur’An and Its Interpreters
This course focuses on the Qur'an and its different interpretations. Historical, linguistic, literary, sectarian, Sufi, feminist, modernist and traditionalist approaches are considered in the discussion of selected readings from the Qur'an in English translation. COURSE ...
AP/RLST 4815 3.00 Studies in Islamic Mysticism
The course examines the development of Islamic mystical tradition (Sufism) in reference to two issues: one, the development of Sufism as a form of social organization institutionalized in the tarîqa orders, and two, the employment ...
AP/RLST 4816 3.00 Women in Islamic Literature
This interdisciplinary course focuses on the representations of women in modern-day literary, scholarly, and visual “texts,” produced by both men and women in Muslim-majority countries and their diasporas in the West. It covers a wide ...
AP/RLST 4819 3.00 Visions of The End: Early Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism
This course investigates the origins and development of apocalypticism within ancient Judaism and early Christianity, covering apocalyptic literature (e.g. Daniel, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Revelation), ancient millennial movements, and the apocalyptic world-view. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) ...
AP/RLST 4820 3.00 Transformation of Jewish Thought & Culture
Jewish thought and culture are explored over a millennium (800-1800), focusing on transformations of the classical (biblical-rabbinic) legacy and interplay with the Islamic and Christian religio-cultural spheres in which they developed. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Judaism
AP/RLST 4825 6.00 Diversity in Early Christianity
This course explores diversity in early Christian thought and practice by investigating groups traditionally viewed as “heretical.” This will include analysis of the New Testament Apocrypha, Nag Hammadi writings, and the opponents attacked in canonical ...
AP/RLST 4826 3.00 Urban Life and the Islamic City: Religion, Society and the Formation of Space
This course addresses city formation, urban space, and the socio-religious structure in Islamic cities from early Islam to the pre-modern period. The course approaches the Islamic city both as an urban phenomenon and as a ...
AP/RLST 4827 3.00 Ancient Concepts of the Soul
This course explores concepts of soul from early Greek Civilization to the early Christian era. It examines a cluster of related concepts -- soul, spirit, shade, consciousness, will, and mind - that express the self ...