This course critically explores the categories of "religion," "spirituality," and "the sacred" as they relate to American Indian communities, traditions, lifeways, histories, narratives, ceremony, and land. Focusing on both the plurality of indigenous lifeways and shared characteristics, some major topics that will be examined include the role of religion both in the colonization of Native people as well as in resistance to colonization, the importance of land/place/ecosystem and conceptions of sacred space, and issues of religious freedom and the fight for traditional land. Throughout we will analyze the efficacy of the terms "religion" and "spirituality" as well as engage with concerns regarding the academic study of Native American religions more broadly.

This course is designed to offer tools for engaging religious and cultural diversity within healthcare settings, which includes consideration of religious patients, religious healthcare workers, faith-based healthcare institutions, and the impact of religious communities on healthcare laws and services. To develop skills for navigating intercultural differences, students will practice applying academic approaches to religion to health-related case studies.

This is a discussion-based seminar that focuses on theoretical approaches to the body and religion. Using Transgender Studies, Intersex Studies, Disability Studies, and Critical Race Theory, we will examine how religions approach the body. Graduate-level requirements include a 20-25 page paper that cites at least five academic sources. They will present their research to the class. They will pick a reading from the syllabus and facilitate class discussion on that reading.

Early Christian and late antique literatures document one of the most significant periods of the human past. This period witnessed and helped to inaugurate the gradual transformation of classical society, government, and religion into three distinct cultures: the Medieval West, Byzantine, and Islamic. The western Mediterranean formed a European, Christian society made up of distinct European nations. In the eastern Mediterranean, the Roman Empire continued as the "Byzantine Empire," and the seventh century saw the birth of another major world religion, Islam, along with the Islamic caliphate. Early Christian and late antique literatures are characterized by a rich interdisciplinarity, but the social, religious, and political impact of Christianity is at the core of the Latin literature of this period. One particular focus of the course will be the "conflict" between Christian and pagan Latin literature -- the problem of how to reconcile the literary inheritance of the pagan past with the Christian present. The texts of Tertullian and Jerome are the loci classici for the discussion of Christian attitudes to pagan literature and culture, a theme we will address first in their texts and then in all subsequent readings. Although our course will include source readings from the wider Latin West (e.g. North Africa and Gaul), our focus will be upon the dramatic transformation of fourth-century Rome into the Primatial See of the Catholic Church and the destination of religious pilgrimage -- the new Jerusalem. Graduate-level requirements include a ten-page research paper or instructional module. Alternatively, a graduate-level translation of Latin texts may be an option with the approval of the instructor.

This course involves in depth study of early Christian texts together with related contemporary Jewish and Greco-Roman literature. Students will engage in careful analysis of individual texts in the New Testament and from the first four centuries of the Common Era, focusing on questions of genre, authorship, and meaning. Alongside these, students will examine writings by contemporary Jewish, Greek, and Roman authors (e.g., Philo, Josephus, Seneca, and Plutarch) as illustrative of the wider literary and religious culture. For students who have completed GRK 201, an option for readings in ancient Greek will be available as part of the course. Graduate level requirements included a extended research papers drawing on appropriate levels of training in language, literature, and knowledge of the ancient world.

Qualified students working on an individual basis with professors who have agreed to supervise such work.

Qualified students working on an individual basis with professors who have agreed to supervise such work.

An honors thesis is required of all the students graduating with honors. Students ordinarily sign up for this course as a two-semester sequence. The first semester the student performs research under the supervision of a faculty member; the second semester the student writes an honors thesis.

A culminating experience for majors involving a substantive project that demonstrates a synthesis of learning accumulated in the major, including broadly comprehensive knowledge of the discipline and its methodologies. Senior standing required.

This course focuses on Islamic Law and Society, topics such as the life and teachings of Muhammad, political and theological controversies, and the classical tradition of Islam.