RELI 130 – Asian Religions

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

The course surveys six religious traditions founded and developed in Asian including two from India: Hinduism and Buddhism, two from China: Confucianism and Taoism, and two from Japan: Shinto and Japanese New Religions. The survey of each religion includes: 1. a primary or sacred text, 2. contemporary practices in Asia, 3. contemporary practices in America, and 4. depictions in modern media. The course studies how the central tenets and teachings of Asian religions create the cultural roots of contemporary Asian cultures and how these teachings have influenced America's religious diversity.

RELI 150B1 – Religion and Popular Culture

Tier 1 Individuals & Societies

Honors Contract

This course provides an introduction to the study of Religion and Popular Culture in modern societies. We will study what constitutes "religion" and how definitions of religion change over time. We will examine the ways popular culture becomes "religious" and how religious institutions reflect popular taste and opinion.

RELI 160D1 – Christianity and Art

Tier 1 Traditions and Cultures

The architecture, manuscript illumination, painting and other visual arts of Christianity explored within the contexts of contemporary history.

RELI 160D4 – Introduction to World Religions

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 1 Traditions and Cultures

Honors Contract

This course explores the diversity of religions and religious experiences across the globe. Religions to be examined include, but are not limited to, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, as well as indigenous traditions.

RELI 200 – Introduction to the Study of Religion

Honors Contract

The objective of this course is to introduce you to the study of the phenomenon called 'religion'. What makes people religious? How is religion defined? What are the different approaches to understanding religion in all of its diversity? Through a reading of texts from diverse backgrounds and approaches, this course will illuminate the complex and multi-dimensional elements of religion, and how the study of religion can open up new ways of seeing the world.

RELI 203 – Religion and Medicine in the Western Healing Traditions

Tier 2 Humanities

Honors Contract

An examination of the intersection between medicine and healing in western healing traditions, from ancient times to the modern era. Key scientific and humanistic questions will be addressed.

RELI 210 – Religion in the American Experience

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Humanities

Examines American religious ideas, practices, and forms of community from the colonial period to the present. Themes include the interrelation of religion with politics, immigration, gender, and racial and ethnic diversity in the United States.

RELI 211 – Life After Death in World Religions and Philosophies

Tier 2 Humanities

Honors Contract

An examination of the afterlife in major world religions, intimations of life beyond death in contemporary human experience, and key scientific, theological, and philosophical challenges to both.

RELI 212 – Introduction to American Indian Religious Traditions

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Humanities

Honors Contract

An introduction to American Indian religious systems and their larger functions in communities and in history. Of particular importance are the history and effects of colonialism and missionization on native peoples, their continuing struggles for religious freedom and cultural and linguistic survival, and the ways in which American Indians use religion, both past and present, to respond to social, cultural, political, and geographical changes.

RELI 220 – Religion in Japanese Society

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Humanities

Introduction to texts, images and activities, both historical and contemporary, that comprise Japanese religion.

RELI 222 – Introduction to Zen Buddhism

Cross Listed

This course is designed to introduce students to the history,teachings,and practice of Zen Buddhism in China,Japan, Korea and the United States. The course will discuss Zen from a variety of perspectives but will center around the question of the meaning of history. Zen is a tradition of Buddhism that claims to have inherited and to pass on, in an unbroken historical transmission from patriarch to patriarch, the living experience of the Buddha's enlightenment. The course will discuss how Zen's conception of its history is related to its identity as a special tradition within Buddhism, as well as its basic teachings on the primacy of enlightenment, the role of practice, the nature of the mind, and the limitations of language.

RELI 227 – Religion and Film

Tier 2 Arts

Honors Contract

This course explores religion and its relationship with visual storytelling culture. We will analyze, explore, and challenge various religious, pop-cultural, ideological, and moral messages as presented in various types of film, from art house cinema to blockbuster movies, and genres ranging from horror to comedy.

RELI 245 – Existential Problems

Cross Listed

Exploration of central problems of the human condition, such as meaning of life; death; self-deception; authenticity, integrity and responsibility; guilt and shame; love and sexuality.

RELI 271 – The History of Christianity

Cross Listed

This course examines the history of the great diversity of beliefs, practices, ways of life, and forms of authority among Christians, and especially conflicts about these. Not narrowly theological, the course construes Christianity broadly, treating, for example, society, culture, and art.

RELI 277A – History of the Middle East

Cross Listed

Tier 2 Humanities

Middle East history from the rise of Islam to the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, 600-1453.

RELI 277A – History of the Middle East

Cross Listed

Tier 2 Humanities

Honors Course

Middle East history from the rise of Islam to the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, 600-1453.

RELI 280 – Introduction to the Bible: New Testament

Tier 2 Humanities

Honors Contract

This course introduces students to the New Testament in light of the contexts in which it was written and compiled, and as a window into reconstructing the world of early Christianity. The course will also examine how various Christian communities have understood the meaning and authority of the New Testament.

RELI 303 – Spirituality and Sickness: Religion and Health in the U.S.

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Humanities

Honors Contract

This course explores diverse religious and spiritual conceptions of health in the United States and their relationships to experiences of sickness and healing. It will include a critical examination of historical and contemporary cases in which religious and spiritual views of health have interacted with healthcare systems, including cases of cooperation and conflict.

RELI 304 – The Question of God

Tier 2 Humanities

Study of the question of God from a theological, philosophical, and literary perspective.

RELI 305 – Greek and Roman Religion

Cross Listed

Tier 2 Individuals & Societies

Honors Contract

Writing Emphasis Course

Religious beliefs and cult practices in ancient Greece and Rome. All readings in English.

RELI 306 – Christianity in the Greco-Roman World

Tier 2 Individuals & Societies

Honors Contract

Investigates the emergence of Christianity in the first four centuries of the Greco-Roman milieu.

RELI 313 – Health and Medicine in Classical Antiquity

Cross Listed

Writing Emphasis Course

The course examines the mythology and practice of medicine in Greek and Roman times from Asclepius to Hippocrates and Galen, medical instruments and procedures, the religious manifestation of healing in Greek and Roman sanctuaries, the votive dedications by patients and cured, midwifery and child care, public hygiene and diseases. The topics cover a large spectrum of the medical practice and public health in the ancient societies of Classical antiquity, as well as how ancient worldviews, including religion and religious practice, shaped health and medicine in Greek and Roman civilization.

RELI 316 – Sex and Salvation in Latin America

Cross Listed

Tier 2 Individuals & Societies

Honors Contract

What do witches in colonial Guatemala, Mexican nuns, born-again gang members in Honduras, Catholics undergoing in-vitro fertilization in Ecuador, and lesbian Afro-Brazilian Candomblé practitioners have in common? Their experiences tell us something about the complex intersection of sex, gender, and religion in Latin America. This course takes an anthropological approach to consider two central questions: (1) What role do religious ideologies and institutions play in the social construction of sexuality and gender in Latin America? (2) How do Latin Americans enact and contest gender power relations through their religious practices, thus contributing to processes of social change in the region? To address these questions, this class focuses on gender and its relationship to sexual desires and transgressions across diverse religious traditions from the pre-Columbian period to the present.

RELI 331 – Taoist Traditions of China

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Intellectual foundations of Taoism in its two classical sources, the Lao Tzu and the Chuang Tzu, and a sampling of the varieties of religious practice which developed later.

RELI 334 – Islamic Thought

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Individuals & Societies

A consideration of Islam, one of the world's major religions, and the view of the universe and the modes of behavior and values it advocates. Most of the course will be dedicated to an examination of the majority (Sunni) opinion, but some attention will be directed also to the more significant minority (Shi'i, et al.) positions as well. The course has no prerequisite but does build on the information presented in TRAD 101 Middle Eastern Humanities.

RELI 335 – Rap, Culture and God

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Humanities

Pass/Fail Option

Honors Contract

Study of popular culture and religion in African-American and Latino/a communities, with a focus on the place of rap music in the cultural identity of these traditions.

RELI 336 – Spirituality, Psychology, and the Mind

Cross Listed

Pass/Fail Option

Honors Contract

This course is a survey of psychological theory and research investigating religious beliefs, experiences, and practices.

RELI 358 – Tibetan Buddhism

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Humanities

Honors Contract

How did Tibetans adapt Buddhism to create a distinctly Tibetan tradition? How did Buddhism come to Tibetan soil, and how did it evolve over time? Sources from the domains of art, ritual, philosophy, and literature, especially biography, will play an important role in our explorations. We will contemplate questions surrounding individual, religious, and cultural identity, and of the role of women. We will conclude by examining further transformations of Tibetan Buddhism in exile and in western settings like Tucson.

RELI 359 – Buddhism and Healing

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Humanities

Honors Contract

Writing Emphasis Course

Is Buddhism a tradition of healing? In what ways has Buddhism been involved in reviving, sustaining, and curing human individuals? This course explores relationships and encounters between Buddhism and the domains of religion, science, and medicine. It considers historical relationships between Buddhism and traditional medicine in Asia as well as contemporary Western discourses involving Buddhism in popular culture, psychology, and spirituality. Finally, it invites a critical approach to the current dialogue between Buddhism and science. In the process, it reveals hidden assumptions behind commodifying `mindfulness' and the quest to document the therapeutic impact of meditation upon health, happiness, and success in the modern age. Students will have the opportunity to apply the ideas they have learned through analysis of relevant initiatives at the U of A such as the Neuropsychology, Emotion, and Meditation [NEM] Lab and the Center for Compassion Studies as well as of broader Tucson community events like the Gem Show.

RELI 363 – Religion and Sex

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Humanities

Honors Contract

In this course we will analyze attitudes towards sexuality in the major world religions, and focus on the relationship between religion and sexuality in the contemporary U.S. context.

RELI 370A – History of the Jews: Modern Jewish History

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Individuals & Societies

Survey of major political, socioeconomic, and cultural developments in the history of Diaspora Jewry: Modern Jewish history.

RELI 370A – History of the Jews: Modern Jewish History

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Individuals & Societies

Honors Course

Survey of major political, socioeconomic, and cultural developments in the history of Diaspora Jewry: Modern Jewish history.

RELI 372A – History and Religion of Israel in Ancient Times -- The Biblical Period

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Humanities

Survey of the history and religion of ancient Israel. Biblical period through the Babylonian Exile; introduction to the Hebrew Bible.

RELI 372A – History and Religion of Israel in Ancient Times -- The Biblical Period

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Humanities

Honors Course

Survey of the history and religion of ancient Israel. Biblical period through the Babylonian Exile; introduction to the Hebrew Bible.

RELI 379 – Religion in German Culture

Cross Listed

Tier 2 Humanities

Introduction to major cultural figures of German speaking countries who have seen, imagined, or experienced what role religion may or can play in human life. Taught in English.

RELI 381 – African/Indigenous Religions

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Humanities

This course examines religious beliefs in Africa in order to illuminate connections between religion and culture on that continent, and to examine the relationship between religio-culture and the socio-economic and political forces that shape contemporary African societies.

RELI 383 – Religion and State in Islam

Cross Listed

Examines the changing relationship between Islam and politics from the time of the Prophet to the present day.

RELI 387 – The History of Anti-Semitism

Cross Listed

This course examines various definitions of anti-Semitism and traces the history of anti-Semitism (or "anti-Judaism") from the earliest arguments between Christianizing Jews and Judaizing Christians to the birth of Islam, through the period of Muslim expansion and the Crusades, to the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, and the Holocaust. It looks at the differences among various types of Christian anti-Semitism, Muslim anti-Semitism, and Jewish anti-Semitism, and concludes with a look at contemporary forms of anti-Semitism.

RELI 389 – Middle Eastern Ethnic and Religious Minorities

Cross Listed

Writing Emphasis Course

Overview of ethnic and religious minorities in the contemporary Middle East, study of ethnic and religious diversity and its origin and manifestations in the modern Middle East. Examination of how the concept of religious and ethnic minority has emerged as a key factor in state policies towards minorities as well as the cultural, economic, political, religious, and educational lives of its people.

RELI 399 – Independent Study

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

RELI 399H – Honors Independent Study

Honors Course

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

RELI 401A – Early Christian Literature: Greek Texts

Cross Listed

Honors Contract

Writing Emphasis Course

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.

RELI 420 – Archaic Greek Sanctuaries

Cross Listed

Honors Contract

Writing Emphasis Course

This course therefore concentrates on the evidence for Greek sanctuary sites between 1000 and 600 B.C. We examine the excavated material from numerous sanctuary sites, including architectural remains (temples and/or altars), votive offerings of bronze and clay, and any other evidence revealing religious practices during these formative years. The role the sanctuaries played in society is also considered with a view to their political, social, economic and spiritual implications for Archaic Greek life.

RELI 428A – Globalization, the Environment, and Indigenous Religions

Cross Listed

Honors Contract

Writing Emphasis Course

This course discusses the impact of globalization on the environment and ecology, with a particular focus on indigenous cultures and religions in the context of environmental instability.

RELI 431 – The Divine Comedy by Dante

Cross Listed

Honors Contract

This course examines Dante's masterpiece, "The Divine Comedy", the poet's life and other works. The primary focus is on "The Divine Comedy" and its influence on European literature and culture. Other texts will be included.

RELI 484 – History of East Asian Buddhism

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Buddhism in China, Korea and Japan with emphasis on the relationship between East Asian Buddhist thought and practice and the various historical contexts in which they emerged.

RELI 489 – History of Japanese Religions: Modern

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

A selective survey of the history of Japanese religion from the 16th century through the present. Topics may include Shinto and Buddhism; Christianity and its suppression; Edo-period official and popular religion; State Shinto; and Japan's "new religions" and "new new religions."

RELI 491 – Preceptorship

Specialized work on an individual basis, consisting of instruction and practice in actual service in a department, program, or discipline. Requires faculty member approval, preceptor application on file with department.

RELI 498 – Senior Capstone

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.

RELI 498H – Honors Thesis

Honors Course

Writing Emphasis Course

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.

RELI 499 – Independent Study

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

RELI 499H – Honors Independent Study

Honors Course

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

RELI 501A – Early Christian Literature: Greek Texts

Cross Listed

Writing Emphasis Course

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.

RELI 520 – Archaic Greek Sanctuaries

Cross Listed

This course concentrates on the evidence for Greek sanctuary sites between 1000 and 600 B.C. We examine the excavated material from numerous sanctuary sites, including architectural remains (temples and/or altars), votive offerings of bronze and clay, and any other evidence revealing religious practices during these formative years. The role the sanctuaries played in society is also considered with a view to their political, social, economic and spiritual implications for Archaic Greek life. Graduate-level requirements include a more extensive paper than undergraduates.

RELI 528A – Globalization, the Environment, and Indigenous Religions

Cross Listed

This course discusses the impact of globalization on the environment and ecology, with a particular focus on indigenous cultures and religions in the context of environmental instability. Graduate-level requirements include a 25-30 page double-spaced research synthesis and reflective paper that reflects your understanding of Globalization and the Environment and 4 book reviews from books used in class.

RELI 589 – History of Japanese Religions: Modern

Cross Listed

A selective survey of the history of Japanese religion from the 16th century through the present. Topics may include Shinto and Buddhism; Christianity and its suppression; Edo-period official and popular religion; State Shinto; and Japan's "new religions" and "new new religions." Graduate-level requirements include oral presentations and longer, more in-depth papers.

RELI 599 – Independent Study

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

RELI 130 – Asian Religions

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

The course surveys six religious traditions founded and developed in Asian including two from India: Hinduism and Buddhism, two from China: Confucianism and Taoism, and two from Japan: Shinto and Japanese New Religions. The survey of each religion includes: 1. a primary or sacred text, 2. contemporary practices in Asia, 3. contemporary practices in America, and 4. depictions in modern media. The course studies how the central tenets and teachings of Asian religions create the cultural roots of contemporary Asian cultures and how these teachings have influenced America's religious diversity.

RELI 160A1 – Gods, Goddesses, and Demons: Divinity in South Asia

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 1 Traditions and Cultures

Honors Contract

This course is an introduction to multiple concepts of the divine in South Asia. We will explore the different ways that the religious traditions of South Asia understand supernatural beings and forces. In order to do this we will read portions of primary texts in translation, examine iconography, and watch rituals as they unfold. In addition to learning about the South Asia traditions, we will put those conceptions of the divine in conversation with those rooted in a European context, forcing you to learn to think critically about the ways people from different cultures view the world around them.

RELI 160D4 – Introduction to World Religions

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 1 Traditions and Cultures

Honors Contract

This course explores the diversity of religions and religious experiences across the globe. Religions to be examined include, but are not limited to, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, as well as indigenous traditions.

RELI 220 – Religion in Japanese Society

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Humanities

Introduction to texts, images and activities, both historical and contemporary, that comprise Japanese religion.

RELI 220 – Religion in Japanese Society

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Humanities

Introduction to texts, images and activities, both historical and contemporary, that comprise Japanese religion.

RELI 222 – Introduction to Zen Buddhism

Cross Listed

This course is designed to introduce students to the history,teachings,and practice of Zen Buddhism in China,Japan, Korea and the United States. The course will discuss Zen from a variety of perspectives but will center around the question of the meaning of history. Zen is a tradition of Buddhism that claims to have inherited and to pass on, in an unbroken historical transmission from patriarch to patriarch, the living experience of the Buddha's enlightenment. The course will discuss how Zen's conception of its history is related to its identity as a special tradition within Buddhism, as well as its basic teachings on the primacy of enlightenment, the role of practice, the nature of the mind, and the limitations of language.

RELI 227 – Religion and Film

Tier 2 Arts

Honors Contract

This course explores religion and its relationship with visual storytelling culture. We will analyze, explore, and challenge various religious, pop-cultural, ideological, and moral messages as presented in various types of film, from art house cinema to blockbuster movies, and genres ranging from horror to comedy.

RELI 241 – Introduction to Chinese Religions

Cross Listed

Tier 2 Humanities

Honors Contract

The course is a comprehensive historical survey of the main religious traditions in China, including Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and popular religion. Through lectures, discussions, and reading of select primary and secondary sources, we will explore the formulations and subsequent transformations of key beliefs, doctrines, practices, and institutions that characterized specific religious traditions. We will also examine the patterns of interaction among different traditions, as well as the general character of religious life in both traditional and modern China.

RELI 271 – The History of Christianity

Cross Listed

This course examines the history of the great diversity of beliefs, practices, ways of life, and forms of authority among Christians, and especially conflicts about these. Not narrowly theological, the course construes Christianity broadly, treating, for example, society, culture, and art.

RELI 277A – History of the Middle East

Cross Listed

Tier 2 Humanities

Middle East history from the rise of Islam to the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, 600-1453.

RELI 300 – Christian Literature and Thought

Tier 2 Humanities

Pass/Fail Option

Writing Emphasis Course

Development of Christian thought from the New Testament through the Protestant Reformation.

RELI 304 – The Question of God

Tier 2 Humanities

Study of the question of God from a theological, philosophical, and literary perspective.

RELI 305 – Greek and Roman Religion

Cross Listed

Tier 2 Individuals & Societies

Honors Contract

Writing Emphasis Course

Religious beliefs and cult practices in ancient Greece and Rome. All readings in English.

RELI 320 – Reformations and Revolutions in Early Modern Britain, 1485 - 1714

Cross Listed

This course aims at a broad analysis of the enthralling history and legacies of the Tudor and Stuart dynasties that ruled England from 1458 to 1714. The objective is to understand how in a quarter century the radical political and religious events, and figures, transformed the social, political and religious structures of England, giving birth to the foundation of England as a united kingdom, and significant world power. The course begins by focusing on the Tudors with emphasis on Henry VIII and the English Reformation, the return to Catholicism under Mary Tudor, the creation of a new Anglican Church under Elizabeth I and its unforeseen consequences. From there, it explores the Stuarts, with attention to the catastrophic English Revolution culminating in the public execution of King Charles I in 1649, and the rise of the English republic that ended with the restoration of monarchy in 1660. The course then reflects on the transformation of the English state following the elite coup d'etat of 1688, the Glorious Revolution, a fundamental watershed that cleared the way for a constitutional monarchy, parliamentary sovereignty, and religious toleration in England.

RELI 321 – Women in Judaism

Cross Listed

Images of Jewish women in Jewish and other texts. Texts include religious, historical and literary genres from biblical, medieval, and modern sources. The course will deal with Jewish women as mothers, leaders, stereotypes, and current feminist viewpoints.

RELI 332 – The Holocaust: Witnesses and Representations

Cross Listed

This course is an exploration of the Holocaust (Shoah) through the experiences, roles and responses of Jewish individuals as represented through various media and genre including diary, testimony (oral), memoir, monument, poetry, photography, graphic novel, personal letters and film.

RELI 335 – Rap, Culture and God

Cross Listed

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Humanities

Pass/Fail Option

Honors Contract

Study of popular culture and religion in African-American and Latino/a communities, with a focus on the place of rap music in the cultural identity of these traditions.

RELI 336 – Spirituality, Psychology, and the Mind

Cross Listed

Pass/Fail Option

Honors Contract

This course is a survey of psychological theory and research investigating religious beliefs, experiences, and practices.

RELI 350 – Hindu Mythology

Gen Ed Diversity Emphasis

Tier 2 Humanities

Honors Contract

Overview of the traditional Hindu narratives found in the Vedic, epic, and puranic literature and in their many forms in regional literary and artistic forms, and the narratives influence on culture, philosophy, literature, and folklore.