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Gnosticism, Esotericism and Mysticism 1

Gnosticism, Esotericism and Mysticism 1

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GNOSTICISM, ESOTERICISM William B. Parsons Associate Professors AND MYSTICISM Claire Fanger Brian Ogren Contact Gnosticism, Esotericism and Mysticism Assistant Professor https://reli.rice.edu/ Niki Clements 225 Building 713-348-2092 For Rice degree-granting programs: To view the list of official course offerings, please see Rice’s Elias K. Bongmba Course Catalog (https://courses.rice.edu/admweb/!SWKSCAT.cat? Department Chair p_action=cata) [email protected] To view the most recent semester’s course schedule, please see Rice's Course Schedule (https://courses.rice.edu/admweb/!SWKSCAT.cat)

The Department of offers the Certificate in Gnosticism, Religion (RELI) Esotericism and Mysticism (GEM). The GEM certificate provides graduate RELI 101 - INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF RELIGION students with a theoretical orientation, which they then can apply to Short Title: WHAT IS RELIGION? their chosen concentrations (i.e., African-American ; African Department: Religion religions; and Beyond; ; ; ; ; Grade Mode: Standard Letter ; American Religion; and New Religious Movements, Course Type: Lecture and Early Christianity; etc.). Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Traditionally the study of religion has privileged the authoritative Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate of the religious experts and the scriptural texts that uphold orthodox Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. . GEM is a new approach to the study of religion that does not Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level privilege the public orthodox framings but takes seriously the heterodox Description: Comparative and interdisciplinary analysis of key elements and esoteric currents that have been actively repressed, censored, or (including scripture, religious , of the divine, religious marginalized in a variety of sociological, psychological, philosophical, and practices) of two Western and two non-, of the and political ways. GEM takes into account the plurality of religious scholarly study of religion, and of the role of religion in the contemporary voices and expressions, including the neglected currents, in order to . reconceive religion. This approach also engages the and the phenomenology of , rather than relying exclusively on RELI 104 - INTRODUCTION TO the authorial framings taught by the faith traditions and transmitted in Short Title: INTRO TO JEWISH MYSTICISM their scriptural texts, interpretations and . Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Gnosticism, Esotericism and Mysticism does not currently offer an Course Type: Lecture academic program at the undergraduate level. Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Certificate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate • Certificate in Gnosticism, Esotericism and Mysticism (https:// Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. ga.rice.edu/programs-study/departments-programs/humanities/ Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level gnosticism-esotericism-mysticism/gnosticism-esotericism- Description: Surveys the historical development and central themes mysticism-certificate/) of Jewish mysticism. From the bible to ancient mysticism to medieval to modern expressions, we will critically reflection the ideas such as in the world, the cultivation of insight and Chair, Department of Religion magical powers, contemplative and restorative practices, and charismatic Elias K. Bongmba authority. -list: MDEM 103. Advisors April D. DeConick Jeffrey J. Kripal Professors Marcia Brennan David Cook April D. DeConick Anne C. Klein Jeffrey J. Kripal

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RELI 105 - INTRODUCTION TO MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN THOUGHT RELI 111 - INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN RELIGIONS Short Title: MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN THOUGHT Short Title: INTRO AFRICAN RELIGIONS Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Lecture Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Description: Survey of major medieval Christian thinkers. Primary focus Description: Introduction to the structures of African religions through on high and late (12th-15th century), with some attention to readings. Topics include community, , , ethical values, spiritual and apocalyptic writings and dissenting thought in this period. , witchcraft, possession, contribution to , social Cross-list: MDEM 105. change, religion and art, and transplantation of African Religions in the RELI 108 - INTRODUCTION TO JUDAISM Americas. Short Title: INTRODUCTION TO JUDAISM RELI 112 - COMPARING CHRISTIANITIES Department: Religion Short Title: COMPARING CHRISTIANITIES Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Lecture Grade Mode: Standard Letter Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Description: Survey of post-biblical Judaism as reflected in the Description: This course maps the pluralistic of early Christianity of the classical rabbinic , mysticism, medieval biblical from its grassroots beginnings in a in Jerusalem to Rome and commentary, legal codes and , and modern movements such the conversion of Emperor Constantine, Different Christian movements as Hasidism, denominational Judaism, Zionism, and feminist Judaism. include the Apostolic , , Marcionites, Thomasians, Jewish material such as , illuminated Montanists, Monarchians, Modalists, Arians, and a variety of Gnostic manuscripts and ritual artifacts will be included. Students will not receive Christians will be studied comparatively as well as historically. credit for both RELI 108 and RELI 209. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot RELI 113 - INTRODUCTION TO register for RELI 108 if student has credit for RELI 209. Short Title: INTRO TO CHRISTIANITY AFRICA RELI 109 - RELIGION AND Department: Religion Short Title: RELIGION AND LAW Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Lecture Grade Mode: Standard Letter Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Credit Hours: 3 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: An introductory reading course examining the dynamics Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level of African Christianity from the early to the present. Course will Description: : origins, differentiation, relation to include studying the African church during the Patristic era, the Colonial legitimacy and stability of basic . Law school, professional period, Prophetic Movements, nationalism, racial tensions, the role of life, quest for a fitting career in the search for meaning and authentic women, and the of a distinct theological voice. selfhood. Required: willingness to share the personal roots of your interest in law and your take on the Big Picture.

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RELI 116 - MYSTICISM THROUGHOUT THE AGES RELI 124 - RELIGION AND THE ART OF Short Title: MYSTICISM THROUGHOUT THE AGES Short Title: RELIGION & ART OF HAPPINESS Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Lecture Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Description: This course examines the historical development of Description: Students at Rice University consistently self-report as mysticism in Western thought, placing the Christian experiential "happiest" by rankings like the Princeton Review. Course analyzes traditions in comparison with Jewish developments. Through mystical what we mean when we talk about "happiness" in the study of religion, texts, we will explore key , such as visions of and spiritual assessing the role of community, habits, meaning, and positive thinking in journeys, as developed during , the middle-ages, and into the religious and psychological texts, as well as lived experience. . Cross-list: MDEM 116. RELI 125 - INTRODUCTION TO BIBLICAL HEBREW I RELI 122 - THE BIBLE AND ITS INTERPRETERS Short Title: INTRO TO BIBLICAL HEBREW I Short Title: THE BIBLE AND ITS INTERPRETERS Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 3 Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Credit Hours: 3 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: An introduction to Biblical Hebrew with emphasis on Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level grammar and vocabulary. Cross-list: HEBR 125. Graduate/Undergraduate Description: An introduction to the /. Equivalency: RELI 507. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 125 if Compares modern-critical reading with early Jewish and Christian, often student has credit for RELI 507. fanciful interpretations. RELI 126 - INTRODUCTION TO BIBLICAL HEBREW II RELI 123 - INTRODUCTION TO WORLD CHRISTIANITY Short Title: INTRO TO BIBLICAL HEBREW II Short Title: INTRO TO WORLD CHRISTIANITY Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 3 Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Credit Hours: 3 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: Continuation of RELI 125. We will finish the grammar in the Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level second half of this semester and then read selections from the Hebrew Description: This course is designed to introduce students to world Bible. Cross-list: HEBR 126. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: Christianity from historical and thematic perspectives. Readings RELI 511. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 126 if student has and lectures for the course will draw from interdisciplinary research credit for RELI 511. and scholarship to situate world Christianity as a dynamic spiritual, RELI 127 - INTERMEDIATE BIBLICAL HEBREW III , cultural, and communal tradition. This course will introduce Short Title: INTERM BIBLICAL HEBREW III students to Christianity in the Americas, , Asia, Africa, and the Department: Religion Pacific using historical analysis to probe the of the Christian Grade Mode: Standard Letter movement, its global distribution, its texts and practices, Course Type: Lecture social engagement, and roles it has a place in a changing world. Credit Hours: 3 Interdisciplinary texts will be used to probe selected topics including Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate but not limited to proselytization, leadership, the dynamic competitive Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. relations between mainline churches, emerging Christian communities, Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level and the social and political of world Christianity. Prerequisite(s): RELI 125 and RELI 126 Description: Readings in the Hebrew Bible as well as in some unvocalized texts from the . Review of grammar and vocabulary. Instructor Permission Required. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 512. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 127 if student has credit for RELI 512.

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RELI 157 - RELIGION AND HIP HOP CULTURE IN AMERICA RELI 203 - JUDAISM OF AND HILLEL Short Title: RELIGION AND HIP HOP Short Title: JUDAISM OF JESUS AND HILLEL Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Lecture Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Description: Hip Hop culture has changed how life is discussed and Description: This course examines the history and literature of Judaism conducted. However, one of the under-explored dimensions of Hip Hop during the Second Temple period, which produced such religious leaders culture involves its religious sensibilities. Using lectures, discussions, as Jesus and Hillel. Topics include: Jewish , scribes and the films, and video presentations, this course explores Hip Hop culture's growth of Scripture, temple and the first , diaspora religious dimensions through its musical language-rap . Mutually religion, Jesus and the birth of Christianity, and the origin of Rabbinic Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 157 if student has credit for RELI 311. Judaism. Counts for the Minor in . Cross-list: HIST 201. RELI 158 - LIBERATION RELI 213 - THE PROPHET JEREMIAH: THE BIBLICAL BOOK AND ITS Short Title: LIBERATION THEOLOGIES RECEPTION IN JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY Department: Religion Short Title: THE PROPHET JEREMIAH Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Lecture Grade Mode: Standard Letter Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Description: This course seeks to acquaint students with examples Description: A seminar on the book of Jeremiah and its reception. Topics of liberation , as they relate to the following issues: racism, to be explored: ancient Near Eastern and Israel’s of sexism, classism, and environmental destruction. Attention is given to ; the composition, production, and transmission of a biblical the context, construction, form, and aims of American liberation book; the life of the prophet; the transformation of Jeremiah’s message in theology, , , and Theology in the later, post-biblical texts attributed to him. Intersections. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 158 if student RELI 215 - MYSTIC CINEMA: KABBALAH IN FILM has credit for RELI 548. Short Title: MYSTIC CINEMA RELI 191 - STAR WARS AND RELIGION Department: Religion Short Title: STAR WARS AND RELIGION Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Seminar Grade Mode: Standard Letter Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Description: This course explores uses by the film industry of ideas drawn Description: The Star Wars films contain one of the richest fictional from Jewish mysticism. We will examine themes such as monsters, of our . In this course, we use the theories and methods spirits, and the , as portrayed in classic film and of (e.g., comparison, psychology, the paranormal, through to contemporary Hollywood. Emphasis will be placed on the religion and technology) to analyze the Star Wars as a modern medieval textual and folkloric traditions behind such portrayals. Cross- mythology. Student can expect to gain a working of tools list: FILM 215. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 215 if student utilized in the humanities as well as a novel of Star Wars has credit for FILM 114/FSEM 141/RELI 114. films and fandom.

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RELI 216 - RELIGION AND BLACK LIVES RELI 223 - QUR'AN AND COMMENTARY Short Title: RELIGION & BLACK LIVES MATTER Short Title: QUR'AN AND COMMENTARY Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Lecture Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Description: Survey of the major themes of the Qur'an and selected types Description: This course explores the intersections of religion, , of commentary on it from the early Islamic period until the present day. and social during the period of history marked by the emergence RELI 230 - ASIAN RELIGIONS IN AMERICA and activities of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Short Title: ASIAN RELIGIONS IN AMERICA RELI 217 - SHI'ISM: ASSASSINS AND AYATULLAH Department: Religion Short Title: SHI'ISM: ASSASSINS & AYATULLAH Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Lecture Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Lecture Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Credit Hours: 3 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: A survey course on Hinduism, Buddhism, , and Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level in America, from the colonial period to the present, with a special Description: Ranging from the violent disputes at the beginnings of Islam focus on American metaphysical religion, the , the New to the mysterious and misunderstood Assassins, Shi’ism is more than Age, and the history of Western , transcultural encounter, about and . Ayatullahs rule, Alawis in Syria fight , Isalamis translation and immigration. Cross-list: ASIA 230. in London are at the cutting edge of Muslim —Shi’ism is much RELI 231 - AMERICAN METAPHYSICAL RELIGION more than you would expect. Short Title: AMERICAN METAPHYSICAL RELIGION RELI 219 - THE AND RELIGION Department: Religion Short Title: THE SUPERNATURAL AND RELIGION Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Lecture Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Lecture Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Description: Beginning with a historical survey of the American Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. metaphysical tradition, this course turns to a close study of the Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level in Big Sur, California, as a unique window into some Description: This course will treat the history of the supernatural from of the different ways the tradition has appropriated Asian religions, the biblical materials on the miraculous "," through the birth of the psychological models of the unconscious, and contemporary scientific "supernatural" in medieval Christianity and the canonization of , . Cross-list: ASIA 231. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: to the mediating categories of the "" and the modern RELI 505. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 231 if student has "paranormal." Comparative categories and materials in other cultural credit for RELI 505. and religious complexes will also be treated. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot RELI 232 - RELIGIONS FROM register for RELI 219 if student has credit for RELI 519. Short Title: RELIGIONS FROM INDIA RELI 221 - THE LIFE OF THE PROPHET Department: Religion Short Title: LIFE OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Lecture Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Lecture Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Description: This course will survey the religions of India, namely Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity, Islam, and . Emphasis Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level will be placed on the study of scriptures of these traditions and their Description: This course will examine the life of the Prophet Muhammad, continuing global relevance, particularly in American history and culture. focusing on its significance for and for non-Muslims. Readings Cross-list: ASIA 232. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 500. in The Qur'an, Ibn Hisham, and Haykal. Cross-list: ASIA 221. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 232 if student has credit for RELI 500.

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RELI 233 - INTRODUCTION TO TIBETAN LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND RELI 270 - INTRODUCTION TO THE BLACK CHURCH IN THE UNITED CULTURE STATES Short Title: INTRO TO TIBETAN LANG & LIT Short Title: INTRO BLACK CHURCH IN THE US Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Lecture Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Description: Introducing the Tibetan alphabet and basics of grammar Description: Much of what has historically taken place within Black through reading section of a classic Tibetan text. In addition, readings communities has been shaped by Black Christian churches. These in English in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist materials, also on the art, churches are resources for those interested in understanding religious history, geography and /or modern era in those areas. Final includes a expression and within the Black community. This course paper drawn from readings and class discussion. Cross-list: TIBT 233. provides an introduction into the history, thought, and worship of the Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 502. Mutually Exclusive: major Black denominations. Cannot register for RELI 233 if student has credit for RELI 502. RELI 271 - MEDIEVAL POPULAR CHRISTIANITY RELI 234 - INTERMEDIATE TIBETAN LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND Short Title: MEDIEVAL POPULAR CHRISTIANITY CULTURE Department: Religion Short Title: INT TIBETAN LANG LIT & CULTURE Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Lecture Grade Mode: Standard Letter Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 3 Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Credit Hours: 3 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: For much of the Middle Ages, literacy was a luxury that Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level ordinary people could not afford. How could peasants participate in Description: Continued in Tibetan language-extending vocabulary Christian traditions? Course surveys devotional practices engaged by and facility with grammar. Final includes a paper drawn from readings the , including penance, , plays, charms and spells, as well and class discussion. Cross-list: TIBT 234. Graduate/Undergraduate as traditions of lay interaction with dead saints and ghosts. Cross-list: Equivalency: RELI 564. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 234 if MDEM 271. student has credit for RELI 564. Repeatable for Credit. RELI 282 - INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIANITY RELI 238 - SPECIAL TOPICS Short Title: INTRO TO CHRISTIANITY Short Title: SPECIAL TOPICS Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Internship/Practicum, Laboratory, Lecture, Lecture/ Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Laboratory, Seminar, Independent Study Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 1-4 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Description: Multidisciplinary exploration of Christian religious Description: Topics and credit hours may vary each semester. Contact experience, , and social with examples from Africa, the department for current semester’s topic(s). Repeatable for Credit. Americas, Asia, and Europe during the last two thousand years. Themes RELI 243 - THE include search for lasting marks of amid change and diversity as Short Title: THE BOOK OF GENESIS well as the issue of Christianity's relation to processes of modernization Department: Religion and . No prior background in religious studies required. Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Description: A critical reading in English of the Book of Genesis with close attention to the artistry and theological dimensions of the text. Compares pre-modern modes of interpretation and modern .

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RELI 294 - RELIGION IN AND FILM RELI 302 - : JUDAISM AND SCRIPTURE Short Title: RELIGION IN FICTION AND FILM Short Title: PEOPLE OF THE BOOK Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Credit Hours: 3 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: The sacred in interreligious, international, and Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level interdisciplinary encounter, approached via social , theology, Description: Examines Judaism as a "People of the Book," recognizing theories of literature and mythology. Authors and directors can include Judaism's dominant religious preoccupation for millennia to be the Waugh, Mishima, Mann, Proust, Hesse, Percy, Gardner, Updike, Gibson, reading, study and performance of Jewish scripture, particularly the Sterling, Coupland, Ray, Resnais, Fellini, Bergman, Anderson, Bunnel, or the first 5 books of the Hebrew Bible Topics: book culture, act and Nutley. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 514. Mutually of reading, canonization, revelation, and rabbinic, philosophical, mystical Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 294 if student has credit for RELI 514. interpretations. All readings are in English. Graduate/Undergraduate RELI 300 - RELIGIONS IN AMERICA Equivalency: RELI 526. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 302 if Short Title: RELIGIONS IN AMERICA student has credit for RELI 526. Department: Religion RELI 304 - JESUS AND THE Grade Mode: Standard Letter Short Title: JESUS AND THE GOSPELS Course Type: Lecture Department: Religion Credit Hours: 3 Grade Mode: Standard Letter Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Type: Lecture Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Description: Examines the religions and religious practices of America Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. from colonial encounter with native peoples to the contemporary period Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level with a special focus on the morphing and historical complexities Description: Explores the various portraits of Jesus in the New Testament of American Christianities, and . Graduate/ and extra-canonical gospels (including the gospels of Thomas Philip, Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 504. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register Mary and Judas) in order to reconstruct each 's Christological for RELI 300 if student has credit for RELI 504. interpretation of Jesus as well as the "historical" Jesus himself. RELI 301 - NIETZSCHE AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT RELI 307 - BASIC COPTIC 1 Short Title: NIETZSCHE & RELIGIOUS THOUGHT Short Title: BASIC COPTIC 1 Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Lecture Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: A first semester introduction to Coptic grammar and Description: Nietzsche's thought and background: his impact on religious vocabulary. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 591. Mutually thinkers and cultural critics; his influence on understanding of God, Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 307 if student has credit for RELI 591. faith, values, ; his connection with Schopenhauer, Wagner, Tillich, Repeatable for Credit. Mann, Barth, Buber, Freud, Jung, D.H. Lawrence, Heidegger, antibourgeois RELI 308 - BASIC COPTIC 2 cultural criticism, , , and . Short Title: BASIC COPTIC 2 Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 515. Mutually Exclusive: Department: Religion Cannot register for RELI 301 if student has credit for RELI 515. Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Prerequisite(s): RELI 307 Description: Second semester introduction to Coptic grammar and vocabulary, with selected readings from the Coptic New Testament, , and monastic literature. Prerequisite: Introduction to Coptic Language I. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 592. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 308 if student has credit for RELI 592.

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RELI 309 - BASIC COPTIC 3 RELI 315 - AND ISLAM Short Title: BASIC COPTIC 3 Short Title: GENDER AND ISLAM Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 1-3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: Varied readings in original language to include the New Description: Explores the lives of Muslim women in Asia, the Middle Testament, Nag Hammadi, and monastic literature. Prerequisite: Coptic East, Europe, and ; analyze constructions of gender in the 1 and 2. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 593. Mutually Islamic world over time, the challenges faced from such diverse quarters Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 309 if student has credit for RELI 593. as colonial administrators, Western feminists, and states, as well as Repeatable for Credit. movements and individuals within the . Cross-list: ASIA 315, RELI 311 - RELIGION AND HIP HOP CULTURE IN AMERICA SWGS 315. Short Title: RELIGION AND HIP HOP RELI 318 - THE BIBLE: A BRIEF Department: Religion Short Title: BIOGRAPHY OF THE BIBLE Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Lecture Grade Mode: Standard Letter Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: Hip Hop culture has changed how life is discussed and Description: An investigation of how the of the Bible conducted. However, one of the under-explored dimensions of Hip Hop changed from antiquity to the 21st century. The course is structured culture involves its religious sensibilities. Using lectures, discussions, chronologically. A close reading of the works of major thinkers from each films, and video presentations, this course explores Hip Hop culture's period, together with specific examples of biblical . Graduate/ religious dimensions through its musical language-rap music. RELI 311 Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 518. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register requires additional work above the RELI 157 counterpart, including a term for RELI 318 if student has credit for RELI 518. paper, etc. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 311 if student has RELI 322 - INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHISM credit for RELI 157. Short Title: INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHISM RELI 312 - THE RELIGIOUS THOUGHT OF MARTIN L. KING, JR. AND Department: Religion MALCOLM X Grade Mode: Standard Letter Short Title: MLK AND MALCOLM X Course Type: Lecture Department: Religion Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Description: Buddhist ideas, art, and . Exploration of the Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Buddhism in India, , and Japan and their impact in the USA today. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Readings include Buddhists and contemporary responses from Description: Although many figures played a prominent role during the mediators and . Cross-list: ASIA 322. Graduate/Undergraduate Civil Movement, Martin L. King, Jr. and Malcolm X made unique Equivalency: RELI 572. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 322 if contributions. Their work sparked important conversation concerning student has credit for RELI 572. the methods, goals, and consequences of struggle toward liberation. This course examines their religiosity, theological sensibilities, and the major themes which surface in their writings and public work. Graduate/ Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 546. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 312 if student has credit for RELI 546.

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RELI 328 - RELIGION AND GLOBAL POVERTY RELI 333 - KNOWING BODY/GLOWING : BUDDHIST OF Short Title: RELIGION & GLOBAL POVERTY AND ANALYSIS Department: Religion Short Title: KNOWING BODY/GLOWING MIND Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Lecture Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Credit Hours: 3 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: Advanced study of religion and poverty in global context. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course materials will address religious, ethical anthropological Description: Buddhism is a performing art engaging both mind and body. theories of development, analyze specific themes economic and social Our course investigates Buddhist and other literature, development, examine the role of Faith Based Organizations and do and rituals with an eye to how they speak to contemplative practice. specific case studies. Students will be graded on short reflections papers Contemplative practice itself, in class and out, supplements our and a final term paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 528. exploration of the interplay between traditional Asian and contemporary Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 328 if student has credit for Western perspectives. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 573. RELI 528. Recommended prerequisite(s): One course in Buddhism. Mutually RELI 329 - THE BIBLE AS LIVED EXPERIENCE Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 333 if student has credit for RELI 573. Short Title: THE BIBLE AS LIVED EXPERIENCE Repeatable for Credit. Department: Religion RELI 334 - Grade Mode: Standard Letter Short Title: PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION Course Type: Seminar Department: Religion Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Description: Even in today’s seemingly secular landscape, the Bible is Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. a strong artistic, social, and political influence. We will explore ways in Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level which the Bible is brought to life in contemporary culture by analyzing Description: An overview of the basic approaches in the psychological biblical references in music, film, art, and contemporary religious practice. understanding of religious belief and practice. Topics to be addressed in We will show how American culture shapes understandings of the Bible religious systems East and West include: sex, religious experience, ritual, and versa. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 329 if student , saintliness, , God and meditation. has credit for RELI 529. RELI 335 - MEDICINE AND THE MUSEUM: CLINICAL AND RELI 332 - ADVANCED TIBETAN LANGUAGE & CULTURE THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, HOUSTON Short Title: ADV TIBETAN LANGUAGE & CULTURE Short Title: MEDICINE AND THE MUSEUM Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Seminar Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Prerequisite(s): RELI 132 or TIBT 132 Description: Through weekly visits to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Description: This class builds on RELI 232 and 234, now including this class develops key skills and engages relevant themes relating more challenging material in Tibetan, and continuing the trajectory to medicine and caregiving, including and description, of gaining familiarity with Buddhist philosophical systems as these embodiment and motion, and , vulnerable populations, grief touch on epistemology, , and contemplative practice. Cross- and loss, mortality and spiritual . list: TIBT 332. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 532. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 332 if student has credit for RELI 532. Repeatable for Credit.

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RELI 336 - RELIGION & THE SOCIAL SCIENCES RELI 339 - APOCALYPSE THEN AND NOW Short Title: RELIGION & THE SOCIAL SCIENCES Short Title: APOCALYPSE THEN AND NOW Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Seminar Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: A close reading of some early Jewish and Christian Description: Designed to introduce the student to classic and apocalypses, a discussion of the apocalyptic , and an contemporary texts in the social scientific study of religion. Topics examination of America's fascination with the Apocalypse in media include: mysticism, the social construction of gender, the -disciple and . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 510. Mutually relationship, secularization, healing traditions East and West, cross- Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 339 if student has credit for RELI 510. cultural debates. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 336 if RELI 340 - THEOLOGY IN AFRICA student has credit for RELI 260/RELI 609. Short Title: THEOLOGY IN AFRICA RELI 337 - , SAINTS, & SAGES Department: Religion Short Title: SHAMANS, SAINTS, & SAGES Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Lecture Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Lecture Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Description: Introductory readings on theological thinking in Africa. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course will address methodological issues as well as constructive Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level theological work on enculturation, social and economic justice, gender, Description: Familiarize the student with diverse texts (secular and health, and liberation. Read 5 major texts, write a major review, lead religious, East and West) found in mystical literature. Emphasis will be class discussions, discuss texts used, and write 20 page research paper. placed on psychological and comparative methods. Mutually Exclusive: Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 539. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 337 if student has credit for RELI 262. Cannot register for RELI 340 if student has credit for RELI 539. RELI 338 - THE CHURCH OF AFRICA RELI 341 - AMERICAN JUDAISM: RELIGION AND THOUGHT Short Title: THE CHURCH OF AFRICA Short Title: AMERICAN JUDAISM Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Seminar Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: A reading course designed to examine Christianity in Description: This course will examine the distinct of Jewish Africa. Course materials and readings will address the development religion and thought as it has taken shape in America, including its of the church from the Patristic era to the present, paying attention to incorporation within secret and the . Topics to be theological developments, missionization, colonialism, nationalism, examined are American Jewish denominationalism, interfaith relations, prophetic movements, race relations, the role of women, and social pluralism and , and developments in American Jewish issues. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 540. Mutually . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 542. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 338 if student has credit for RELI 540. Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 341 if student has credit for RELI 542.

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RELI 342 - NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN AFRICA RELI 348 - CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM IN AFRICA Short Title: NEW RELIG MOVEMENTS IN AFRICA Short Title: CHRISTIANITY & ISLAM IN AFRICA Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Lecture Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: Discusses new religious movements and the religious, Description: This course will focus upon the history and conflict of sociological, and political factors leading to their rise, also Christianity and Islam in Africa, with emphasis placed upon indigenous and colonial reactions to them. Examines their relationship to indigenous African developments, cultural and artistic themes, and conversion religions, political , and their focus on this-worldly in the as well as exploring the co- and conflict of the two wake of political and economic marginality. Cross-list: ANTH 343. major of the continent. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 343 - SEMINAR ON RELI 348 if student has credit for RELI 536. Short Title: SEMINAR ON LOVE RELI 350 - DEMONS, MENTAL ILLNESS AND MEDICINE Department: Religion Short Title: DEMONS/MENTAL ILLNESS/MEDICINE Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Seminar Grade Mode: Standard Letter Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: This seminar explores the themes of love, sex, and spirit Description: Treats complex connections between religious beliefs/ from the classical era through the postmodern age. We will examine practices and formulation of human psychology in western tradition, literary, philosophical, and artistic expressions in painting, sculpture, through a historical reckoning with . Consider the way cinema, novels, poetry, , religion, and culture. Cross-list: demons are represented -- from semi-corporeal to marks of mental HART 347. illness -- by looking at texts from the ancient world to modern . RELI 344 - SEMINAR ON THE END OF LIFE Cross-list: MDEM 350. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 350 if Short Title: END OF LIFE SEMINAR student has credit for RELI 605. Department: Religion RELI 356 - MAJOR ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY ISLAM Grade Mode: Standard Letter Short Title: MAJ ISSUES CONTEMPORARY ISLAM Course Type: Seminar Department: Religion Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 4 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Credit Hours: 3 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: This course examines themes associated with death and Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level dying from the historical through the contemporary periods. The class Description: This course will focus on the major issues confronting will adopt highly multidisciplinary approach that combines the critical contemporary Islam including Islamic unity, the place of the Qur'an and perspectives of biomedicine, religious studies, art history, philosophy, traditions, , , da'wa, , science and , , and cultural studies as we consider life at the Islam, and medical . end of life.

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RELI 357 - WHAT'S RELIGIOUS ABOUT BLACK RELIGION? RELI 362 - RELIGION AND SCIENCE Short Title: IS BLACK RELIGION RELIGIOUS? Short Title: RELIGION AND SCIENCE Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Seminar Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: This advanced seminar analyzes interdisciplinary efforts Description: This course examines two questions: How is religion by scholars of religion to engage scientific research in the cognitive and defined within the study of lack religion? What constitutes the nature neuro- sciences. We assess the possibilities for collaboration, as well as and meaning of blackness within black religion? These questions provide conflict, between humanistic and scientific disciplines, asking how the opportunity to explore how scholars explain what it has meant to be tools of interpretation and might enrich our understanding of black and religious within the . Graduate/Undergraduate religious phenomena. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 563. Equivalency: RELI 547. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 357 if Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 362 if student has credit for student has credit for RELI 547. RELI 563. RELI 359 - IN THE CRUCIBLE OF RELI 363 - : GREAT THINKERS AND THEMES IN GLOBALIZATION JEWISH THOUGHT Short Title: RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE Short Title: JEWISH PHILOSOPHY Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Lecture Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: Explores context and consequences of the of Description: An introduction to the main figures and themes in Jewish religious tolerance in the crucible of globalization politics. Background philosophy. Topics to be discussed include vs faith and prophetic in settlement of -era religious wars; American attitudes; revelation; Israel’s chosenness vs human ; creation vs impetus for tolerance policies and their implementation, 1945 to present ; and necessity vs ; , justice, and (including governmentality and surveillance); results for historically divine ; , contemplation, and divine and human Christian populations, esp. in US and Europe. Graduate/Undergraduate . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 567. Mutually Equivalency: RELI 580. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 359 if Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 363 if student has credit for RELI 567. student has credit for RELI 580. RELI 365 - PAUL AND THE NEW TESTAMENT RELI 361 - THE HUMANITIES OF CARE & END OF LIFE Short Title: PAUL & THE NEW TESTAMENT Short Title: THE HUMANITIES OF CARE Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Credit Hours: 3 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: Examines the growth of Christianity from its origins as a Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Jewish group to a religion in the mid-second century that distinguished Description: Pairing the perspectives of medicine, bioethics, and the itself from Judaism. Includes discussion of Acts, Paul's letters, Johannine medical humanities with thematic case studies in art, literature, cinema, corpus, , Pastorals, Catholic letters, Hebrews, and and visual culture, the class examines the humanities of care and the end Revelation. of life.

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RELI 367 - REPRESENTING THE IN AND RELI 371 - CHRISTIANITY IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH ART Short Title: CHRISTIANITY IN GLOBAL SOUTH Short Title: REPRESENTING Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: Readings on Christianity in the Global South analyzing Description: This course focuses on representations of the Devil, demons, historical developments, mission and colonial encounters, growth and and ambiguous spirits in Christian sources from the early medieval to expansion; diversity of expression, the development of local initiated early modern period. Students examine theological as well as ritual Churches, , and public role of the Church. Graduate/ sources ( and ), and popular, narrative, dramatic, and Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 561. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register artistic representations of evil. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: for RELI 371 if student has credit for RELI 561. RELI 557. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 367 if student has RELI 375 - EPIPHANIES: SEEING IN A NEW LIGHT AND RECOGNIZING credit for RELI 557. THE RADIANCE RELI 368 - RISE OF THE NONES: AND HUMANITIES Short Title: EPIPHANIES Short Title: RISE OF THE NONES Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Seminar Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: This course will look at the rise of the “nones,” that is, Description: Epiphanies are events or objects that can note a striking individuals who affiliate with no religious tradition, through both a appearance or manifestation, just as an epiphanic experience contains a history of secular thought in the West and a close reading of key texts significant moment of revelation. This course examines expressions of and figures. , , secularism and the “spiritual but not epiphanies in modernist art, literature, film, sacred experience, and in the religious” will all be treated as key categories. Graduate/Undergraduate mundane details of life itself. Cross-list: HART 328. Equivalency: RELI 568. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 368 if RELI 378 - MIND AND ART, FILM AND LITERATURE IN BUDDHISM student has credit for RELI 568. Repeatable for Credit. Short Title: BUDDHIST ART AND LITERATURE RELI 369 - READING WRIGHT: AND ATHEISM IN THE WRITINGS Department: Religion OF RICHARD WRIGHT Grade Mode: Standard Letter Short Title: READING RICHARD WRIGHT Course Type: Lecture Department: Religion Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Description: What is mind? What is self? What can a human Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. become? Drawing on a wealth of Buddhist-related art, film, and literature, Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level this course introduces you to Tibetan and other Buddhist approaches to Description: Richard Wright's fiction and nonfiction are important these crucial questions. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 578. resources for understanding the nature of radicalized life in the United Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 378 if student has credit for States. This course explores his writings for what they tell us about RELI 578. the role of religion in the development of identity and life meaning, and RELI 381 - THE we will juxtapose the role of religion with Wright's commentary on the Short Title: THE MESSIAH nature and significance of atheism for countering injustice. Graduate/ Department: Religion Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 606. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register Grade Mode: Standard Letter for RELI 369 if student has credit for RELI 606. Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: Examines the historical origins of . The Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other ancient texts reflect a surprising diversity of Messianic expectations in early Judaism. These form the background of early Christian depictions of Jesus of Nazareth.

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RELI 382 - LOST : THE APOCRYPHAL WRITINGS RELI 385 - GOD, TIME AND HISTORY Short Title: LOST JUDAISMS Short Title: GOD, TIME AND HISTORY Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 3 Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Credit Hours: 3 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: After the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament canon was closed, Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level and Christians continued to compose texts and attributed them to Description: How is the passage of time given meaning, and what role-- the biblical figures of the past. Seminar offers a close reading of some if any--is assigned to in shaping the direction of events? Course of these apocryphal/pseudepidgraphic little known texts. Graduate/ explores various forms of recording and interpreting events, drawing from Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 509. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register ancient Mesopotamia, Israel, and the Greco-Roman world--the cultures for RELI 382 if student has credit for RELI 509. in which modern ideas of history began. Cross-list: HIST 381. Mutually RELI 383 - THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 385 if student has credit for RELI 585. Short Title: THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS RELI 387 - : METHOD AND THEORY Department: Religion Short Title: WESTERN ESOTERICISM Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Seminar Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Lecture Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Credit Hours: 3 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: A survey of the Dead Sea Scrolls as a window into the Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Second Temple period. A close reading of the scrolls will lead to a Description: This course explores the relation between esoteric texts discussion of the theological and historical issues of the time, a period and the of "Western Esotericism." We will look at primary writings pivotal for the formation of and Early Christianity. from Agrippa to Madame Blavatsky and consider the historical and Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 553. Mutually Exclusive: methodological approaches emerging as Esotericism is constructed Cannot register for RELI 383 if student has credit for RELI 553. as an academic area. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 587. RELI 384 - PILGRIMAGE AND CRUSADE Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 387 if student has credit for Short Title: PILGRIMAGE AND CRUSADE RELI 587. Department: Religion RELI 388 - THE PSALMS Grade Mode: Standard Letter Short Title: THE PSALMS Course Type: Lecture Department: Religion Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Description: Focus on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Mecca by Jews, Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Christians, and Muslims within the context of the crusade period. Also Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level covers the historical religious events of the (approximately Description: A seminar on biblical poetry. The Psalms have constituted 1000-1300) from both a Muslim and a Christian perspective. Mutually a book of study, devotion, and prayer for Jews and Christians for two Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 384 if student has credit for RELI 608. millennia. This course explores the psalms’ poetic force, liturgical setting in ancient Israel, theology, and enduring significance today. Counts for the Minor in Jewish Studies. RELI 612: Additional readings and longer paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 612. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 388 if student has credit for RELI 612.

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RELI 390 - SEARCH FOR GOD IN THE POSTMODERN WORLD RELI 393 - MUTANTS AND MYSTICS: RACE, SEXUALITY, AND THE Short Title: SEARCH FOR GOD OF THE HUMANITIES Department: Religion Short Title: MUTANTS AND MYSTICS Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Seminar Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Credit Hours: 3 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: Explore forms of theistic religious experience, concentrating Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level on the Western Christian tradition; past and present cultural and Description: This is a course about the deep historical and conceptual philosophical challenges to traditional religious belief; the possibility connections between the of science fiction, the paranormal, of Christian faith and the struggle for justice and meaning. Mutually and social transformation around race, gender, sexuality, and the human. Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 390 if student has credit for RELI 280. We will see that such events tend to erupt in the “gaps” or “fractures” RELI 391 - THE REFORMATION & ITS RESULTS of society and within both personal and historical traumatic contexts in Short Title: THE REFORMATION & ITS RESULTS order to both deconstruct the reigning social formations, , Department: Religion and —usually of an objectivizing, colonizing, and scientistic Grade Mode: Standard Letter nature--but also supply the foundations for the imagining of Course Type: Lecture new humanities, or what queer theorist Ramzi Fawaz calls our emerging Distribution Group: Distribution Group I “mutanity.” Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 589. Mutually Credit Hours: 3 Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 393 if student has credit for RELI 589. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate RELI 395 - LOSING YOUR RELIGION IN FILM & FICTION & MUSIC Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Short Title: LOSING YOUR RELIGION IN FILM Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Department: Religion Description: Theology and church- issues from 16th-century Grade Mode: Standard Letter Reformation to 17th-century; medieval background; Luther and Calvin, Course Type: Seminar the Catholic Reformation; religious wars; Protestant ; Pietist Distribution Group: Distribution Group I spirituality; Puritanism; and calls for . Cross-list: MDEM 391. Credit Hours: 3 Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 391 if student has credit for Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate RELI 286. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. RELI 392 - JERUSALEM: HOLY CITY IN TIME AND IMAGINATION Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Short Title: JERUSALEM Description: , sex, despair, obsession, in directors, writers, Department: Religion musicians wanting spiritual reboot, 1890-2015: such as , Grade Mode: Standard Letter Oscar Wilde, D.H. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, H.P. Lovecraft, , and Course Type: Seminar Ingmar Bergman. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 503. Credit Hours: 3,4 Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 395 if student has credit for Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate RELI 503. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. RELI 396 - PENTECOSTALISM Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Short Title: PENTECOSTALISM Description: A course on Jerusalem's past and present, its religious Department: Religion meanings in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and its role in the modern Grade Mode: Standard Letter conflict in the . Instructor Permission Required. Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: An introduction to Pentecostalism in a global context focusing historical developments, expansion in Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 595. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 396 if student has credit for RELI 595.

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RELI 399 - CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE RELI 403 - SENIOR THESIS I Short Title: CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE Short Title: SENIOR THESIS I Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Activity Course Course Type: Independent Study Credit Hour: 1 Credit Hours: 1-6 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: Literary and artistic , religious experience, and Description: For the duration of their senior year, qualified students can textual interpretation often draw on focused states of elect to write a senior thesis. To complete the thesis, the student elects made possible by contemplative practices. The practice will provide RELI 403 "Senior Thesis I” in Fall semester and RELI 404 "Senior Thesis historical information about such practices and offer opportunities to II" in Spring semester and works with a Religion supervisor for the participate in techniques ranging from meditation and observing breath year. Instructor Permission Required. to freeform writing and T'ai Chi. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 404 - SENIOR THESIS II RELI 597. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 399 if student has Short Title: SENIOR THESIS II credit for RELI 597. Repeatable for Credit. Department: Religion RELI 400 - SENIOR THESIS Grade Mode: Standard Letter Short Title: SENIOR THESIS Course Type: Independent Study Department: Religion Credit Hours: 1-6 Grade Mode: Standard Letter Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Type: Independent Study Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Prerequisite(s): RELI 403 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: For the duration of their senior year, qualified students can Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level elect to write a senior thesis. To complete the thesis, the student elects Description: Consisting of the writing of a thesis of considerable length, RELI 403 "Senior Thesis I” in Fall semester and RELI 404 "Senior Thesis depth, and research, this course will function as the capstone course on II" in Spring semester and works with a Religion faculty supervisor for the writing in the discipline. Required of all majors. year. Instructor Permission Required. RELI 401 - INDEPENDENT STUDY RELI 406 - CHRISTIANITY AND LATE ANTIQUITY Short Title: INDEPENDENT STUDY Short Title: CHRISTIANITY & LATE ANTIQUITY Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Independent Study Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 1-6 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: Multiple sections of this course are offered. Repeatable for Description: This advanced seminar treats the formation of Christinaity Credit. as an instituional power in relation to the . Starting RELI 402 - INDEPENDENT STUDY with the Edict of Milan in 313 CE, which put an end to persectution Short Title: INDEPENDENT STUDY of Christians, and closing with the in 451 CE, Department: Religion which established normative Christian , we will move through Grade Mode: Standard Letter this development in seven roughly chronological units. Graduate/ Course Type: Independent Study Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 506. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 406 if student has credit for RELI 506. Credit Hours: 1-6 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: Multiple sections of this course are offered. Repeatable for Credit.

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RELI 407 - ARCHIVES OF THE IMPOSSIBLE RELI 416 - NEW TESTAMENT / CHRISTIAN ORIGINS Short Title: ARCHIVES OF THE IMPOSSIBLE Short Title: NEW TESTAMENT/CHRISTIAN ORIG Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Research Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: After reading Prof. Kripal's Authors of the Impossible as Description: How did Christianity emerge as a a basic theoretical structure for the semester, this advanced archival in the Roman Empire? Covers the history and literature of the first research seminar will involve students engaging original historical generations of Christians, focusing on Post-Temple developments, documents contained in Rice University's archive on Paranormal Currents issues of authority and leadership, rise of regional forms of Christianity, in American Culture toward the writing of a graduate or undergraduate and formation of distinct Christian identities. Graduate/Undergraduate thesis. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 607. Mutually Equivalency: RELI 616. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 416 if Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 407 if student has credit for RELI 607. student has credit for RELI 616. RELI 410 - CONCEPTS IN THE STUDY OF RELIGION RELI 417 - GNOSTIC AMERICA Short Title: CONCEPTS IN RELIGION Short Title: GNOSTIC AMERICA Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: This course introduces useful concepts and key Description: Covers the rise of Gnostic spirituality in American religion methodological problems in the discipline of religious studies. It aims and culture, from the Colonial period to the present. Explores the to provide a theoretical toolkit for graduate students at the Masters alpha conduits (Boehme, Blavatsky, Jung, academia). Examines the level and advanced undergraduates, especially those contemplating or roles of revelatory experience, artifact migration, historical criticism, engaged in honors or MA theses in the Religion department. Graduate secularization, hybridity, , and popularization. Case studies vary students must take a final exam and write an additional three to four depending on students' research goals. 5000-word research paper. thousand words. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 610. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 517. Mutually Exclusive: RELI 415 - SECRET RELIGION Cannot register for RELI 417 if student has credit for RELI 517. Short Title: SECRET RELIGION RELI 419 - MYSTERY RELIGIONS Department: Religion Short Title: MYSTERY RELIGIONS Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Seminar Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Credit Hours: 3 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: Examines religious currents that operate in the margins Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level of traditional religion: the gnostic, esoteric and mystical. Covers how Description: Covers literature, practices, and archaeology of esoteric these categories were theorized. Explores how they continue to identify within the context of religion in Roman Empire (, the Great , contemporary religious currents that are considered transgressive and , , , Isis, Mithras, , Qumran, Christianity, are rejected by conventional religious authorities. Class is grounded in Gnostic groups). Case studies vary depending on students' research antiquity and historical method. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: goals, including comparison with and modern esoteric RELI 615. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 415 if student has initiatory groups. 5000-word research paper; GRAD equivalent: 7500- credit for RELI 615. word paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 619. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 419 if student has credit for RELI 619.

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RELI 420 - ART OF INTERPRETING THE BIBLE RELI 424 - RELIGION AND POLITICS IN AFRICA Short Title: ART OF INTERPRETING THE BIBLE Short Title: RELIGION & POLITICS IN AFRICA Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Credit Hours: 3 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: Explores issues of history, , and Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level within the context of . While traditional forms of Biblical Description: Course explores interdisciplinary perspectives on religion criticism are covered, the bulk of the course focuses on intertextuality, and politics in Africa focusing on indigenous religious, Christianity, reception history, sociological methods, feminist views, and cognitive and Islam. Readings will reflect theoretical perspectives, historical approaches. Graduate students (7500 word paper, seminar leadership, developments, regional , and contemporary issues such as , and oral presentation); Undergraduate students (5000 word paper and gender, and reconciliation as political options. Graduate/Undergraduate oral presentation). Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 620. Equivalency: RELI 534. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 424 if RELI 421 - FOUCAULT & THE HERMENEUTICS OF SELF student has credit for RELI 534. Repeatable for Credit. Short Title: FOUCAULT & THE SELF RELI 426 - RELIGION AND LITERATURE IN AFRICA Department: Religion Short Title: RELI AND LITERATURE IN AFRICA Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Seminar Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Description: Best known for analyzing domination and power, Michel Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Foucault shifts his attention to ethics and “technologies of the self” in Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level 1976. In this advanced seminar, we study and Foucault’s turn Description: Analysis of the religious imagination and gender issues in to western antiquity through his lectures and volumes of foregrounding postcolonial literature in Africa focusing on Islam, Christianity, indigenous resistance to power through religion, politics and ethics. Graduate/ religions and African Initiated Churches. Religious and gender issues Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 569. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register addressed include identity crises, power, clash of cultures, modernity, for RELI 421 if student has credit for RELI 569. cosmology, community, and socio-religious conflicts in a postcolonial RELI 423 - AFRICAN AND RITUALS world. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 426 if student has Short Title: AFRICAN MYTHS AND RITUALS credit for RELI 538. Department: Religion RELI 427 - HISTORY AND METHODS: NINETEETH CENTURY Grade Mode: Standard Letter Short Title: HISTORY AND METHODS: 19TH CENT Course Type: Lecture Department: Religion Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Credit Hours: 3 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: Explore and analyze specific myths and rituals which provide Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level legitimation for community and that serve as a basis for the Description: Focused discussion of the history and methods of the study negotiation of power and for members within that community. of religion via close readings of classical texts and narratives of the Readings from classic theorists: Durkheim, Levi-Strauss, Edmond Leach, field from 1800-1900. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 527. Gennap and Turner, and contemporary theorists: Werbner, Heusch, Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 427 if student has credit for Comaroff, and Ray. Cross-list: ANTH 423. Graduate/Undergraduate RELI 527. Equivalency: RELI 537. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 423 if student has credit for RELI 537.

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RELI 428 - HISTORY AND METHODS: TWENTIETH CENTURY RELI 433 - TIBETAN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE Short Title: HISTORY AND METHODS: 20TH CENT Short Title: TIBETAN LANGUAGE & CULTURE Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: Focused discussion of the history and methods of the study Description: Readings in Tibetan texts -- debates, philosophical of religion via close readings of classical texts and narratives of the field treatises of various kinds, meditation texts for contemplative practice from 1900-present. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 559. -- accompanied by supportive readings in English and discussion of the Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 428 if student has credit for thematic issues raised by the material, with an emphasis on cultural RELI 559. . Repeatable for Credit. RELI 430 - RELIGION, PSYCHOLOGY & CULTURE RELI 440 - ISLAM'S MYSTICAL AND ESOTERIC TRADITION Short Title: RELIGION, PSYCHOLOGY & CULTURE Short Title: ISLAM'S MYSTICAL TRADITION Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: A survey of the historical development of the psychology Description: Explores the ascetic and Sufi aspects of Islam from the of religion and its conversation with theology, comparative studies, middle Islamic period until the present day. Readings from al-Ghazali, gender studies, , and anthropology. Topics include: mysticism, Ibn al-Arabi, Sa'di, Hafiz and . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: , conversion, feminism, psychobiography. Examples drawn from RELI 522. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 440 if student has a variety of religious traditions. Readings include: Freud, Jung, Tillich, credit for RELI 522. Erikson, Kristeva, Kakar. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 584. RELI 441 - MAGIC AND POPULAR RELIGION Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 430 if student has credit for Short Title: MAGIC & POPULAR RELIGION RELI 584. Department: Religion RELI 431 - RELIGION AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE Grade Mode: Standard Letter Short Title: RELIGION AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE Course Type: Lecture Department: Religion Credit Hours: 3 Grade Mode: Standard Letter Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Type: Seminar Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Description: This course will examine the popular religion in the Middle Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. East from Late Antiquity until the 19th century, focusing on healing Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level practices, , protection, amulets, seasoned/life-cycle rituals, and Description: Interdisciplinary approach founded on biological, cross- other popular beliefs common to Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Cross- cultural, evolutionary, neurological and cognitive studies of religion. list: ASIA 441. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 525. Mutually Explores extreme religious , ritualized behaviors, Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 441 if student has credit for RELI 525. and religious therapy, religious community, universality of religion, and RELI 442 - CLASSICAL AND CONTEMPORARY TEXTS transmission of religious ideas and practices. 5000 word research paper. Short Title: ARABIC TEXTS Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 531. Mutually Exclusive: Department: Religion Cannot register for RELI 431 if student has credit for RELI 531. Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: Study and read classical Arabic texts with the goal of learning the material as well as the syntax and grammar of Arabic. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 541. Repeatable for Credit.

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RELI 444 - VISIONS AND VISONARY PRACTICES: MEDIEVAL TO MODERN RELI 470 - BUDDHIST TEXTS Short Title: VISIONS & VISIONARY PRACTICES Short Title: BUDDHIST WISDOM TEXTS Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: This course examines accounts of visions, comparing Description: Indo-Tibetan analyses of the mind and its functions, medieval and modern visionary techniques and processes and relating especially differing views on the role of reasoning and the nature of the visionary writings to cultural and personal contexts. Includes some "ultimate" in major philosophical schools of Tibet and India. Graduate/ Christian theology along with other theoretical frameworks, but emphasis Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 570. Repeatable for Credit. on praxis. Cross-list: MDEM 444. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 472 - KABBALAH SEMINAR RELI 644. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 444 if student has Short Title: KABBALAH SEMINAR credit for RELI 644. Department: Religion RELI 449 - EARLY CHRISTIAN CONTROVERSIES Grade Mode: Standard Letter Short Title: EARLY CHRISTIAN CONTROVERSIES Course Type: Seminar Department: Religion Credit Hours: 3 Grade Mode: Standard Letter Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Type: Seminar Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Description: This seminar will delve into literature known as "kabbalah." Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. through close readings of first-hand accounts of thinkers and mystics Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level known as "kabbalists," will explore themes like secrecy and mystery, the Description: Seminar examines controversies and debates among the nature of the divine, and . Graduate/Undergraduate early Christians as catholic Christianity emerged from a diversity of Equivalency: RELI 582. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 472 if Christian movements. Literature reviewed will vary. Students will select student has credit for RELI 582. to focus on one controversy and write a research paper (undergraduates, RELI 476 - FROM DECOLONIZATION TO GLOBALIZATION 5000 words; graduate students, 7500 words). Oral discussion and Short Title: FROM DECOLONI TO GLOBALIZATION presentations will be required. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: Department: Religion RELI 549. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 449 if student has Grade Mode: Standard Letter credit for RELI 549. Repeatable for Credit. Course Type: Lecture RELI 458 - MYSTICISM: THEORIES AND METHODS Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Short Title: MYSTICISM Credit Hours: 3 Department: Religion Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Grade Mode: Standard Letter Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Type: Seminar Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Credit Hours: 3 Description: Taught in English. Novels, and films, from North and Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate West Africa, and the immigrant population in , from 1960 Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. to 2010. Emphasis on the tensions between narratives of political Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level emancipation, modernity, secularism, and religious and Description: A history of the development of the modern category of mysticism. Extra reading for graduate students in theories of colonialism, "mysticism" from the seventeenth century to today, with side studies , globalization. Cross-list: FREN 324, POLI 324. Graduate/ of cognate terms like "spirituality," "metaphysical religion," and the Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 604. Recommended Prerequisite(s): "paranormal," as these forms of extreme religious experience are by Any 200 level course or above in English or French, or HUMA 101 or social-scientific and humanistic methods. RELI 558: Additional readings HUMA 102, or a FWIS course. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for and writing. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 558. Mutually RELI 476 if student has credit for RELI 604. Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 458 if student has credit for RELI 558.

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RELI 477 - SPECIAL TOPICS RELI 500 - RELIGIONS FROM INDIA Short Title: SPECIAL TOPICS Short Title: RELIGIONS FROM INDIA Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar, Lecture, Laboratory, Internship/Practicum Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 1-4 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 232. Mutually Description: Topics and credit hours may vary each semester. Contact Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 500 if student has credit for RELI 232. department for current semester's topic(s). Mutually Exclusive: Cannot RELI 502 - INTRODUCTION TO TIBETAN LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND register for RELI 477 if student has credit for RELI 353. Repeatable for CULTURE Credit. Short Title: INTRO TO TIBETAN LANG & LIT RELI 481 - GNOSTICISM SEMINAR Department: Religion Short Title: GNOSTICISM SEMINAR Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Seminar Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Graduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Description: Introducing the Tibetan alphabet and basics of grammar Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. and Tibetan literary genres. Topics vary; Buddhist literature and art, Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level personal narrative, core cultural characteristics. Readings in English and Description: In depth examination of one (or more) within Tibetan. RELI 531: write a paper approximately one-third longer than the its literary, social, historical, and religious landscapes. Graduate/ undergraduate equivalent (RELI 233) and complete a more substantial Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 581. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register presentation. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 233. Mutually for RELI 481 if student has credit for RELI 581. Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 502 if student has credit for RELI 233. RELI 488 - THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS SCHOOLS RELI 503 - LOSING YOUR RELIGION IN FILM & FICTION & MUSIC Short Title: HISTORY OF RELIGIONS Short Title: LOSING YOUR RELIGION IN FILM Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level Description: Doubt, sex, despair, obsession, ecstasy in directors, writers, Description: An historical survey of the History of Religions School that musicians wanting spiritual reboot, 1890-2015: such as Allen Ginsberg, emerged in the 1960s and 70s at the University of Chicago and came Oscar Wilde, D.H. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, H.P. Lovecraft, John Updike, and to such an important role in the comparative study of religion. Ingmar Bergman. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 395. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 588. Mutually Exclusive: Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 503 if student has credit for Cannot register for RELI 488 if student has credit for RELI 588. RELI 395. RELI 490 - AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND RELIGION RELI 504 - RELIGIONS IN AMERICA Short Title: AF/AM LITERATURE & RELIGION Short Title: RELIGIONS IN AMERICA Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Lecture Distribution Group: Distribution Group I Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Course Level: Graduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students. Description: Examines the religions and religious practices of America Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level from colonial encounter with native peoples to the contemporary period Description: In this seminar students will read and analyze African with a special focus on the morphing natures and historical complexities American literature in order to explore the various ways in which African of American Christianities, religious pluralism and secularism. Graduate Americans have understood and articulated the nature and meaning students will be required to read a standard and well-known two-volume, of African American religious experience and practice. Graduate/ 1,200-page collection of primary historical sources. They will also write a Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 590. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register research paper (25-30 pages) that is approximately twice as long as the for RELI 490 if student has credit for RELI 590. undergraduate paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 300. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 504 if student has credit for RELI 300.

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RELI 505 - AMERICAN METAPHYSCIAL RELIGION RELI 510 - APOCALYPSE THEN AND NOW Short Title: AMERICAN METAPHYSICAL RELIGION Short Title: APOCALYPSE THEN AND NOW Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Course Level: Graduate Description: Beginning with a historical survey of the American Description: A close reading of some early Jewish and Christian metaphysical tradition, this course turns to a close study of the Esalen apocalypses, a discussion of the apocalyptic worldview, and an Institute in Big Sur, CA, as a unique window to some of the different examination of America's fascination with the Apocalypse in media ways tradition has appropriated Asian religions, psychological models and science. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 339. Mutually of the unconscious, and contemporary scientific paradigms. Graduate/ Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 510 if student has credit for RELI 339. Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 231. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register RELI 511 - INTRODUCTION TO BIBLICAL HEBREW II for RELI 505 if student has credit for RELI 231. Short Title: INTRO TO BIBLICAL HEBREW II RELI 506 - CHRISTIANITY AND LATE ANTIQUITY Department: Religion Short Title: CHRISTIANITY & LATE ANTIQUITY Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Lecture Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Graduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Description: Continuation of RELI 507. We will finish the grammar in Course Level: Graduate the second half of this semester and then read selections from the Description: This advanced seminar treats the formation of Christinaity Hebrew bible. Write an exegetical paper on a Hebrew text of your choice. as an instituional power in relation to the Roman Empire. Starting Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 126. Mutually Exclusive: with the Edict of Milan in 313 CE, which put an end to persectution Cannot register for RELI 511 if student has credit for RELI 126. of Christians, and closing with the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE, RELI 512 - INTERMEDIATE BIBLICAL HEBREW III which established normative Christian doctrine, we will move through Short Title: INTERM BIBLICAL HEBREW III this development in seven roughly chronological units. Graduate/ Department: Religion Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 406. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register Grade Mode: Standard Letter for RELI 506 if student has credit for RELI 406. Course Type: Lecture RELI 507 - INTRODUCTION TO BIBLICAL HEBREW I Credit Hours: 3 Short Title: INTRO TO BIBLICAL HEBREW I Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Department: Religion Course Level: Graduate Grade Mode: Standard Letter Prerequisite(s): RELI 125 and RELI 126 Course Type: Lecture Description: Readings in the Hebrew Bible as well as some unvocalized Credit Hours: 3 texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Review of grammar and vocabulary. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Write an exegetical paper on a Hebrew text. UG/GR Equivalent: RELI 127. Course Level: Graduate Instructor Permission Required. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: Description: An introduction to Biblical Hebrew with emphasis on RELI 127. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 512 if student has grammar and vocabulary. Write an exegetical paper on a Hebrew text of credit for RELI 127. your choice. Instructor Permission Required. Graduate/Undergraduate RELI 514 - RELIGION IN FICTION AND FILM Equivalency: RELI 125. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 507 if Short Title: RELIGION IN FICTION AND FILM student has credit for RELI 125. Department: Religion RELI 509 - LOST JUDAISMS: THE APOCRYPHAL WRITINGS Grade Mode: Standard Letter Short Title: LOST JUDAISMS Course Type: Lecture Department: Religion Credit Hours: 3 Grade Mode: Standard Letter Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Type: Seminar Course Level: Graduate Credit Hours: 3 Description: The sacred in interreligious, international, and Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. interdisciplinary encounter, approached via social sciences, theology, Course Level: Graduate theories of literature and mythology. Authors and directors can include Description: After the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament canon was closed, Waugh, Mishima, Mann, Proust, Hesse, Percy, Gardner, Updike, Gibson, Jews and Christians continued to compose texts and attributed them to Sterling, Coupland, Ray, Resnais, Fellini, Bergman, Anderson, Bunnel, the biblical figures of the past. Seminar offers a close reading of some and Nutley. Term paper twice as long as undergraduate requirement. of these apocryphal/pseudepidgraphic little known texts. Students Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 294. Mutually Exclusive: in RELI 509 will additionally conduct a research project. Graduate/ Cannot register for RELI 514 if student has credit for RELI 294. Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 382. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 509 if student has credit for RELI 382.

2021-2022 General Announcements PDF Generated 09/23/21 Gnosticism, Esotericism and Mysticism 23

RELI 515 - NIETZSCHE AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT RELI 522 - ISLAM'S MYSTICAL AND ESOTERIC TRADITION Short Title: NIETZSCHE & RELIGIOUS THOUGHT Short Title: ISLAM'S MYSTICAL TRADITION Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Course Level: Graduate Description: . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 301. Mutually Description: . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 440. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 515 if student has credit for RELI 301. Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 522 if student has credit for RELI 440. RELI 517 - GNOSTIC AMERICA RELI 523 - INDEPENDENT STUDY Short Title: GNOSTIC AMERICA Short Title: INDEPENDENT STUDY Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Independent Study Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 1-15 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Course Level: Graduate Description: Covers the rise of Gnostic spirituality in American religion Description: Multiple sections of this course are offered. Repeatable for and culture, from the Colonial period to the present. Explores the Credit. alpha conduits (Boehme, Blavatsky, Jung, academia). Examines the RELI 524 - INDEPENDENT STUDY roles of revelatory experience, artifact migration, historical criticism, Short Title: INDEPENDENT STUDY secularization, hybridity, heresy, and popularization. Case studies vary Department: Religion depending on students' research goals. 7500-word research paper. Grade Mode: Standard Letter Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 417. Mutually Exclusive: Course Type: Independent Study Cannot register for RELI 517 if student has credit for RELI 417. Credit Hours: 1-9 RELI 518 - THE BIBLE: A BRIEF INTELLECTUAL HISTORY Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Short Title: BIOGRAPHY OF THE BIBLE Course Level: Graduate Department: Religion Description: Multiple sections of this course are offered. Repeatable for Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit. Course Type: Seminar RELI 525 - MAGIC AND POPULAR RELIGION Credit Hours: 3 Short Title: MAGIC & POPULAR RELIGION Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Department: Religion Course Level: Graduate Grade Mode: Standard Letter Description: An investigation of how the perception of the Bible Course Type: Lecture changed from antiquity to the 21st century. The course is structured Credit Hours: 3 chronologically. A close reading of the works of major thinkers from each Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. period, together with specific examples of biblical exegesis. Graduate Course Level: Graduate students will have one extra reading assignment per week and complete Description: This course will examine the popular religion in the Middle a 14-15 page paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 318. East from Late Antiquity until the 19th century, focusing on healing Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 518 if student has credit for practices, astrology, protection, amulets, seasoned/life-cycle rituals, RELI 318. and other popular beliefs common to Islam, Judaism and Christianity. RELI 521 - ADVANCED STUDY OF ISLAM Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 441. Mutually Exclusive: Short Title: ADVANCED STUDY OF ISLAM Cannot register for RELI 525 if student has credit for RELI 441. Department: Religion RELI 526 - PEOPLE OF THE BOOK: JUDAISM AND SCRIPTURE Grade Mode: Standard Letter Short Title: PEOPLE OF THE BOOK Course Type: Seminar Department: Religion Credit Hours: 3 Grade Mode: Standard Letter Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Type: Seminar Course Level: Graduate Credit Hours: 3 Description: The purpose of this course will be to give graduate students Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. a working knowledge of Islam historically and religiously. Course Level: Graduate Description: Examines Judaism as a "People of the Book," recognizing Judaism's dominant religious preoccupation for millennia to be the reading, study and performance of Jewish scripture, particularly the Torah or the first 5 books of the Hebrew Bible Topics: book culture, act of reading, canonization, revelation, and rabbinic, philosophical, mystical interpretations. All readings are in English. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 302. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 526 if student has credit for RELI 302.

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RELI 527 - HISTORY AND METHODS: 19TH CENTURY RELI 531 - RELIGION AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE Short Title: HISTORY AND METHODS: 19TH CENT Short Title: RELIGION AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Course Level: Graduate Description: Focused discussion of the history and methods of the study Description: Interdisciplinary approach founded on biological, cross- of religion via close readings of classical texts and narratives of the field cultural, evolutionary, neurological and cognitive studies of religion. from 1800-1900. Graduate course will require reading of more books and Explores extreme religious experiences, ritualized behaviors, shamanism a longer paper to write. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 427. and religious therapy, religious community, universality of religion, and Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 527 if student has credit for transmission of religious ideas and practices. GR: seminar leadership, RELI 427. 7500 word research paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 528 - RELIGION AND GLOBAL POVERTY RELI 431. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 531 if student has Short Title: RELIGION & GLOBAL POVERTY credit for RELI 431. Department: Religion RELI 532 - ADVANCED TIBETAN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE Grade Mode: Standard Letter Short Title: ADV TIBETAN LANGUAGE & CULTURE Course Type: Lecture Department: Religion Credit Hours: 3 Grade Mode: Standard Letter Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Type: Seminar Course Level: Graduate Credit Hours: 3 Description: Advanced study of religion and poverty in global context. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course materials will address religious, ethical anthropological Course Level: Graduate theories of development, analyze specific themes economic and social Prerequisite(s): RELI 131 development, examine the role of Faith Based Organizations and do Description: This class builds on RELI 500 and 564, now including specific case studies. Students will be graded on short reflections papers more challenging material in Tibetan, and continuing the trajectory and a final term paper. Graduate students taking the course will be of gaining familiarity with Buddhist philosophical systems as these assigned 4 additional texts, do a major review of one of the texts, and do touch on epistemology, ontology, and contemplative practice. Graduate/ two class presentations on one of the texts. Graduate/Undergraduate Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 332. Recommended Prerequisite(s): Equivalency: RELI 328. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 528 if Basic reading ability in Tibetan. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for student has credit for RELI 328. RELI 532 if student has credit for RELI 132/RELI 332. Repeatable for RELI 530 - PEDAGOGY PRACTICUM Credit. Short Title: PEDAGOGY PRACTICUM RELI 534 - RELIGION AND POLITICS IN AFRICA Department: Religion Short Title: RELIGION & POLITICS IN AFRICA Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Internship/Practicum Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 2 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Graduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Description: As an integral part of the department's apprenticeship Course Level: Graduate program, this is a semester-long practicum through which a graduate Description: Course explores interdisciplinary perspectives on religion student apprentices with a faculty member teaching an undergraduate and politics in Africa focusing on indigenous religious, Christianity, course in order to be trained in all aspects of course design, lecturing, and Islam. Readings will reflect theoretical perspectives, historical advising, and grading. Required of all graduate students. Repeatable for developments, regional angels, and contemporary issues such as Credit. sharia, gender, and reconciliation as political options. RELI 534 requires additional reading, review a book on the subject, and write a 25 page research paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 424. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 534 if student has credit for RELI 424. RELI 537 - AFRICAN MYTHS AND RITUALS Short Title: AFRICAN MYTHS AND RITUALS Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Description: . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 423. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 537 if student has credit for RELI 423.

2021-2022 General Announcements PDF Generated 09/23/21 Gnosticism, Esotericism and Mysticism 25

RELI 539 - THEOLOGY IN AFRICA RELI 546 - THE RELIGIOUS THOUGHT OF MARTIN L. KING, JR. AND Short Title: THEOLOGY IN AFRICA MALCOLM X Department: Religion Short Title: MLK AND MALCOLM X Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Lecture Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Graduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Description: Introductory readings on theological thinking in Africa. Course Level: Graduate Course will address methodological issues as well as constructive Description: . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 312. Mutually theological work on enculturation, social and economic justice, gender, Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 546 if student has credit for RELI 312. health, and liberation. RELI 539: read 5 major texts, write a major RELI 547 - WHAT'S RELIGIOUS ABOUT BLACK RELIGION? review, lead class discussions, discuss texts used. and write 20 page Short Title: IS BLACK RELIGION RELIGIOUS? research paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 340. Mutually Department: Religion Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 539 if student has credit for RELI 340. Grade Mode: Standard Letter RELI 540 - THE CHURCH OF AFRICA Course Type: Seminar Short Title: THE CHURCH OF AFRICA Credit Hours: 3 Department: Religion Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Level: Graduate Course Type: Lecture Description: This course examines two questions: How is religion Credit Hours: 3 defined within the study of lack religion? What constitutes the nature Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. and meaning of blackness within black religion? These questions provide Course Level: Graduate opportunity to explore how scholars explain what it has meant to be Description: . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 338. Mutually black and religious within the United States. Additional requirements for Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 540 if student has credit for RELI 338. RELI 547: Write 5 reflection papers; lead at least two class discussions; RELI 541 - CLASSICAL AND CONTEMPORARY ARABIC TEXTS complete a 30-page research paper; and complete additional readings. Short Title: ARABIC TEXTS Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 357. Mutually Exclusive: Department: Religion Cannot register for RELI 547 if student has credit for RELI 357. Grade Mode: Standard Letter RELI 549 - EARLY CHRISTIAN CONTROVERSIES Course Type: Seminar Short Title: EARLY CHRISTIAN CONTROVERSIES Credit Hours: 3 Department: Religion Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Level: Graduate Course Type: Seminar Description: Study and read classical Arabic texts with the goal of Credit Hours: 3 learning the material as well as the syntax and grammar of Arabic. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Graduate students will have an additional assignment of a paper (15-20 Course Level: Graduate pgs) analyzing their text. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 442. Description: Seminar examines controversies and debates among the Repeatable for Credit. early Christians as catholic Christianity emerged from a diversity of RELI 542 - AMERICAN JUDAISM: RELIGION AND THOUGHT Christian movements. Literature reviewed will vary. Students will select Short Title: AMERICAN JUDAISM to focus on one controversy and write a research paper (undergraduates, Department: Religion 5000 words; graduate students, 7500 words). Oral discussion and Grade Mode: Standard Letter presentations will be required. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: Course Type: Seminar RELI 449. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 549 if student has Credit Hours: 3 credit for RELI 449. Repeatable for Credit. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. RELI 553 - THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS Course Level: Graduate Short Title: THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS Description: This course will examine the distinct character of Jewish Department: Religion religion and thought as it has taken shape in America, including its Grade Mode: Standard Letter incorporation within secret societies and the occult. Topics to be Course Type: Lecture examined are American Jewish denominationalism, interfaith relations, Credit Hours: 3 pluralism and individualism, and developments in American Jewish Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. spirituality. Grad students will write a 25-30pp research paper. Graduate/ Course Level: Graduate Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 341. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register Description: . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 383. Mutually for RELI 542 if student has credit for RELI 341. Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 553 if student has credit for RELI 383.

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RELI 555 - HISTORICAL OF RELIGION RELI 560 - ADVANCED READINGS IN TIBETAN TEXTS Short Title: HISTORICAL ANTHROPOLOGIES Short Title: READING TIBETAN TEXTS Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 1-4 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Course Level: Graduate Description: This course will address the study of the religious past Description: This course is to accommodate Grad students' requests to through conjunctions of anthropology and history. Readings will include read more widely in Tibetan texts and genres. Our focus is reading and books and selections by , Marshall Sahlins, Victor Turner, disciplined discussion of the texts. Repeatable for Credit. Jacques Le Goff, Aron Gurevich, and others. Cross-list: ANTH 550. RELI 561 - CHRISTIANITY IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH RELI 557 - REPRESENTING THE DEVIL IN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY AND Short Title: CHRISTIANITY IN GLOBAL SOUTH ART Department: Religion Short Title: REPRESENTING THE DEVIL Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Seminar Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Graduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Description: Readings on Christianity in the Global South analyzing Course Level: Graduate historical developments, mission and colonial encounters, growth and Description: This course focuses on representations of the Devil, demons expansion; diversity of expression, the development of local initiated and ambiguous spirits in Christian theological, ritual, and narrative Churches, Pentecostalism, and public role of the Church. Graduate sources from the early medieval to early modern period. Graduate students will lead class on a church in a country of their choice. Each work includes added reading (30-50 pp weekly above undergraduate graduate student will prepare and lead a seminar on one aspect of the requirements), article length essay (8 to 10 thousand words) and two region or country. Each graduate student will also present in class an in- presentations. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 367. Mutually depth study of a selected theme. Graduate students will read additional Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 557 if student has credit for RELI 367. books selected from a list of texts discussed with instructor. They will RELI 558 - MYSTICISM: THEORIES AND METHODS also write a 25 page research paper on any topic in Global Christianity. Short Title: MYSTICISM Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 371. Mutually Exclusive: Department: Religion Cannot register for RELI 561 if student has credit for RELI 371. Grade Mode: Standard Letter RELI 563 - RELIGION AND SCIENCE Course Type: Seminar Short Title: RELIGION AND SCIENCE Credit Hours: 3 Department: Religion Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Level: Graduate Course Type: Seminar Description: A history of the development of the modern category of Credit Hours: 3 "mysticism" from the seventeenth century to today, with side studies Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. of cognate terms like "spirituality," "metaphysical religion," and the Course Level: Graduate "paranormal," as these forms of extreme religious experience are by Description: This advanced seminar analyzes interdisciplinary efforts social-scientific and humanistic methods. RELI 558: Additional readings by scholars of religion to engage scientific research in the cognitive and and writing. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 458. Mutually neuro- sciences. We assess the possibilities for collaboration, as well as Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 558 if student has credit for RELI 458. conflict, between humanistic and scientific disciplines, asking how the RELI 559 - HISTORY AND METHODS: TWENTIETH CENTURY tools of interpretation and empiricism might enrich our understanding of Short Title: HISTORY AND METHODS: 20TH CENT religious phenomena. Graduate students will lecture one course session and will engage additional secondary literature throughout the semester. Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 362. Mutually Exclusive: Course Type: Seminar Cannot register for RELI 563 if student has credit for RELI 362. Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Description: Focused discussion of the history and methods of the study of religion via close readings of classical texts and narratives of the field from 1900-present. Graduate course will require reading of more books and a longer paper to write. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 428. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 559 if student has credit for RELI 428.

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RELI 564 - INTERMEDIATE TIBETAN LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND RELI 569 - FOUCAULT & THE HERMENEUTICS OF SELF CULTURE Short Title: FOUCAULT & THE SELF Short Title: INT. TIBETAN LANG LIT & CULTUR Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Course Level: Graduate Description: Best known for analyzing domination and power, Michel Description: Continued training in Tibetan language-extending vocabulary Foucault shifts his attention to ethics and “technologies of the self” in and facility with grammar. Final includes a paper drawn from readings 1976. In this advanced seminar, we study and critique Foucault’s turn and class discussion. RELI 564: Write a paper approximately one-third to western antiquity through his lectures and volumes of foregrounding longer and complete a more substantial oral presentation. Graduate/ resistance to power through religion, politics and ethics. Graduate/ Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 234. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 421. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 564 if student has credit for RELI 234. Repeatable for Credit. for RELI 569 if student has credit for RELI 421. RELI 567 - JEWISH PHILOSOPHY: GREAT THINKERS AND THEMES IN RELI 570 - BUDDHIST WISDOM TEXTS JEWISH THOUGHT Short Title: BUDDHIST WISDOM TEXTS Short Title: JEWISH PHILOSOPHY Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Course Level: Graduate Description: Indo-Tibetan analyses of the mind and its functions, Description: An introduction to the main figures and themes in Jewish especially differing views on the role of reasoning and the nature of the philosophy. Topics to be discussed include reason vs faith and prophetic "ultimate" in major philosophical schools of Tibet and India. RELI 570: revelation; Israel’s chosenness vs human universalism; creation vs More difficult readings and two longer papers required. Graduate/ eternity; divine providence and necessity vs free will; evil, justice, and Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 470. Repeatable for Credit. divine omnipotence; prayer, contemplation, and divine and human RELI 572 - INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHISM: ARTS FOR LIFE perfection. Graduate students are required to write a research paper Short Title: INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHISM (25-30 pp.) and to prepare and lead at least one class. Graduate/ Department: Religion Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 363. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register Grade Mode: Standard Letter for RELI 567 if student has credit for RELI 363. Course Type: Lecture RELI 568 - RISE OF THE NONES: HUMANISMS AND HUMANITIES Credit Hours: 3 Short Title: RISE OF THE NONES Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Department: Religion Course Level: Graduate Grade Mode: Standard Letter Description: Buddhist ideas, art, and meditation. Exploration of the Course Type: Seminar Buddhism in India, China, and Japan and their impact in the USA today. Credit Hours: 3 Readings include Buddhists classics and contemporary responses from Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. mediators and scientists. Additional readings, more writing. Graduate/ Course Level: Graduate Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 322. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register Description: This course will look at the rise of the “nones,” that is, for RELI 572 if student has credit for RELI 322. individuals who affiliate with no religious tradition, through both a RELI 573 - KNOWING BODY/GLOWING MIND: BUDDHIST ARTS OF history of secular thought in the West and a close reading of key texts CONTEMPLATION AND ANALYSIS and figures. Atheism, humanism, secularism and the “spiritual but not Short Title: KNOWING BODY/GLOWING MIND religious” will all be treated as key categories. RELI 568 will require Department: Religion additional readings, 3 additional papers plus a longer research paper, Grade Mode: Standard Letter leading discussions and teaching. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: Course Type: Seminar RELI 368. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 568 if student has Credit Hours: 3 credit for RELI 368. Repeatable for Credit. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Description: Buddhism is a performing art engaging both mind and body. Our course investigates Buddhist and other literature, epistemology and rituals with an eye to how they speak to contemplative practice. Contemplative practice itself, in class and out, supplements our exploration of the interplay between traditional Asian and contemporary Western perspectives. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 333. Recommended prerequisite(s): One course in Buddhism. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 573 if student has credit for RELI 333. Repeatable for Credit.

2021-2022 General Announcements PDF Generated 09/23/21 28 Gnosticism, Esotericism and Mysticism

RELI 578 - MIND AND ART, FILM AND LITERATURE IN BUDDHISM RELI 584 - RELIGION, PSYCHOLOGY, AND CULTURE Short Title: BUDDHIST ART AND LITERATURE Short Title: RELIGION, PSYCHOLOGY & CULTURE Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Lecture Course Type: Lecture Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Course Level: Graduate Description: What is mind? What is self? What can a human being Description: . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 430. Mutually become? Drawing on a wealth of Buddhist-related art, film, and literature, Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 584 if student has credit for RELI 430. this course introduces you to Tibetan and other Buddhist approaches RELI 587 - WESTERN ESOTERICISM: METHOD AND THEORY to these crucial questions. RELI 578 requires additional readings and Short Title: WESTERN ESOTERICISM research papers. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 378. Department: Religion Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 578 if student has credit for Grade Mode: Standard Letter RELI 378. Course Type: Lecture RELI 580 - RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE IN THE CRUCIBLE OF Credit Hours: 3 GLOBALIZATION Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Short Title: RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE Course Level: Graduate Department: Religion Description: This course explores the relation between esoteric texts Grade Mode: Standard Letter and the idea of "Western Esotericism." We will look at primary writings Course Type: Seminar from Agrippa to Madame Blavatsky and consider the historical and Credit Hours: 3 methodological approaches emerging as Esotericism is constructed as Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. an academic area. Extra readings and writing a longer essay is required Course Level: Graduate in RELI 587. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 387. Mutually Description: Explores context and consequences of the concept of Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 587 if student has credit for RELI 387. religious tolerance in the crucible of globalization politics. Background RELI 588 - THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS SCHOOL in settlement of Reformation-era religious wars; American attitudes; Short Title: HISTORY OF RELIGIONS impetus for tolerance policies and their implementation, 1945 to present Department: Religion (including governmentality and surveillance); results for historically Grade Mode: Standard Letter Christian populations, esp. in US and Europe. Graduate/Undergraduate Course Type: Seminar Equivalency: RELI 359. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 580 if Credit Hours: 3 student has credit for RELI 359. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. RELI 581 - GNOSTICISM SEMINAR Course Level: Graduate Short Title: GNOSTICISM SEMINAR Description: An historical survey of the History of Religions School that Department: Religion emerged in the 1960s and 70s at the University of Chicago and came to Grade Mode: Standard Letter play such an important role in the comparative study of religion. Graduate Course Type: Seminar Students will have twice the reading and will require a longer paper. Credit Hours: 3 Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 488. Mutually Exclusive: Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Cannot register for RELI 588 if student has credit for RELI 488. Course Level: Graduate RELI 589 - MUTANTS AND MYSTICS: RACE, SEXUALITY, AND THE Description: In depth examination of one (or more) Gnostic texts FUTURE OF THE HUMANITIES within its literary, social, historical, and religious landscapes. RELI 581 Short Title: MUTANTS AND MYSTICS requires preparation and delivery of public presentations. Graduate/ Department: Religion Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 481. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register Grade Mode: Standard Letter for RELI 581 if student has credit for RELI 481. Course Type: Seminar RELI 582 - KABBALAH SEMINAR Credit Hours: 3 Short Title: KABBALAH SEMINAR Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Department: Religion Course Level: Graduate Grade Mode: Standard Letter Description: This is a course about the deep historical and conceptual Course Type: Seminar connections between the histories of science fiction, the paranormal, Credit Hours: 3 and social transformation around race, gender, sexuality, and the human. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. We will see that such events tend to erupt in the “gaps” or “fractures” Course Level: Graduate of society and within both personal and historical traumatic contexts in Description: This seminar will delve into literature known as "kabbalah." order to both deconstruct the reigning social formations, epistemologies, through close readings of first-hand accounts of thinkers and mystics and ontologies—usually of an objectivizing, colonizing, and scientistic known as "kabbalists," will explore themes like secrecy and mystery, nature--but also supply the numinous foundations for the imagining of the nature of the divine, and religious ecstasy. RELI 562 requirements: new humanities, or what queer theorist Ramzi Fawaz calls our emerging Additionally write a lengthy research paper and lead a session. Graduate/ “mutanity.” Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 393. Mutually Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 472. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 589 if student has credit for RELI 393. for RELI 582 if student has credit for RELI 472.

2021-2022 General Announcements PDF Generated 09/23/21 Gnosticism, Esotericism and Mysticism 29

RELI 590 - AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND RELIGION RELI 595 - PENTECOSTALISM Short Title: AF/AM LITERATURE & RELIGION Short Title: PENTECOSTALISM Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Course Level: Graduate Description: In this seminar students will read and analyze African Description: Graduate stud and analysis of introduction to American literature in order to explore the various ways in which African Pentecostalism in a global context focusing historical developments, Americans have understood and articulated the nature and meaning expansion in Europe, North America, Africa, Latin America and Asia. of African American religious experience and practice. Graduate/ Graduate students will read 4 additional texts one from East, Central, Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 490. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register West, and Southern Africa. Graduate students will write weekly for RELI 590 if student has credit for RELI 490. reflections on the reading to the braded satisfactory or unsatisfactory. RELI 591 - BASIC COPTIC 1 They will do two presentations during the semester. Each student will Short Title: BASIC COPTIC 1 write a research paper that will be at least 25 double spaced pages. Department: Religion Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 396. Mutually Exclusive: Grade Mode: Standard Letter Cannot register for RELI 595 if student has credit for RELI 396. Course Type: Lecture RELI 596 - THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK OF RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE Credit Hours: 3 Short Title: LEGAL FRMWK RELI TOLERANCE Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Department: Religion Course Level: Graduate Grade Mode: Standard Letter Description: A first semester introduction to Coptic grammar and Course Type: Lecture vocabulary. Select a Coptic text, read in its original language, and prepare Credit Hours: 3 a commentary or an exegesis on that text (5,000 words). Graduate/ Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 307. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register Course Level: Graduate for RELI 591 if student has credit for RELI 307. Description: The American Constitution embodies a complex experiment RELI 592 - BASIC COPTIC 2 in religious tolerance, including the promise of "free exercise of religion" Short Title: BASIC COPTIC 2 and the prohibition of "respecting an establishment of religion". Department: Religion In this class we will primarily seek a critical understanding of our Grade Mode: Standard Letter tolerance-rich legal invocations of religious freedom and address Course Type: Lecture fundamental issues such as how can we distinguish "religious" actions Credit Hours: 3 and commitments from other morally important beliefs and activities. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. RELI 596: Write additional paper and more readings. Mutually Exclusive: Course Level: Graduate Cannot register for RELI 596 if student has credit for RELI 320. Prerequisite(s): RELI 307 RELI 597 - CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE Description: Second semester introduction to Coptic grammar and Short Title: CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE vocabulary, with selected readings from the Coptic New Testament, nag Department: Religion Hammadi, and monastic literature. Pre-requisite: Introduction to Coptic Grade Mode: Standard Letter Language I RELI 592: Select a Coptic text, read in its original language, Course Type: Activity Course and prepare a commentary or a exegesis on that text (5,000 words). Credit Hour: 1 Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 308. Mutually Exclusive: Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Cannot register for RELI 592 if student has credit for RELI 308. Course Level: Graduate RELI 593 - BASIC COPTIC 3 Description: Literary and artistic creativity, religious experience, and Short Title: BASIC COPTIC 3 textual interpretation often draw on focused states of consciousness made possible by contemplative practices. The practice will provide Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter historical information about such practices and offer opportunities Course Type: Lecture to participate in techniques ranging from meditation and observing Credit Hours: 1-3 breath to freeform writing and T'ai Chi. Graduate students would Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. be expected to write a longer paper and/or to include a segment on Course Level: Graduate contemplative practice in connection with whatever course they are Description: Varied readings in original language to include the New taking. In either case this will involve readings and issues beyond what Testament, Nag Hammadi, and monastic literature. Pre-requisite: Coptic the undergraduates are responsible for, and which will be developed with 1 and 2. RELI 593: Students will select a Coptic text, and in addition to each graduate student on an individual basis. Graduate/Undergraduate reading it in its original language, prepare a commentary or an exegesis Equivalency: RELI 399. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 597 if on that text (5,000 words). Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: student has credit for RELI 399. Repeatable for Credit. RELI 309. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 593 if student has credit for RELI 309. Repeatable for Credit.

2021-2022 General Announcements PDF Generated 09/23/21 30 Gnosticism, Esotericism and Mysticism

RELI 600 - GEM RESEARCH FORUM RELI 607 - ARCHIVES OF THE IMPOSSIBLE Short Title: GEM RESEARCH FORUM Short Title: ARCHIVES OF THE IMPOSSIBLE Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Research Course Type: Research Credit Hour: 1 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Course Level: Graduate Description: The GEM Research Forum meets regularly throughout the Description: After reading Prof. Kripal's Authors of the Impossible as academic year to share and engage the ongoing research of the GEM a basic theoretical structure for the semester, this advanced archival faculty and students. The annual capstone experience of the Forum research seminar will involve students engaging original historical features an invited speaker. Evaluation is based on student participation, documents contained in Rice University's archive on Paranormal Currents research and presentations. Repeatable for Credit. in American Culture toward the writing of a graduate or undergraduate RELI 604 - FROM DECOLONIZATION TO GLOBALIZATION thesis. Graduate students will be responsible for a much more extensive Short Title: FROM DECOLONI TO GLOBALIZATION engagement with Whitley Strieber's corpus. They will be required to read Department: Religion examples of Stieber's nonfiction (particularly COMMUNION and THE Grade Mode: Standard Letter ) and fiction, including WOLFEN, THE GRAYS, Course Type: Lecture and THE HYBRIDS. Each of these books bears directly or indirectly Credit Hours: 3 on the content of the Anne and Whitley Strieber Collection. Graduate/ Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 407. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register Course Level: Graduate for RELI 607 if student has credit for RELI 407. Description: Taught in English. Novels, and films, from North and RELI 610 - CONCEPTS IN THE STUDY OF RELIGON West Africa, and the immigrant population in France, from 1960 Short Title: CONCEPTS IN RELIGION to 2010. Emphasis on the tensions between narratives of political Department: Religion emancipation, modernity, secularism, and religious fundamentalism and Grade Mode: Standard Letter mysticism. Extra reading for graduate students in theories of colonialism, Course Type: Seminar postcolonialism, globalization. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: Credit Hours: 3 RELI 476. Recommended Prerequisite(s): Any 200 level course or above Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. in English or French, or HUMA 101 or HUMA 102, or a FWIS course. Course Level: Graduate Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 604 if student has credit for Description: This course serves as an advanced introduction to useful FREN 324/POLI 324/RELI 476. concepts and key methodological problems in the discipline of religious RELI 606 - READING WRIGHT: THEISM AND ATHEISM IN THE WRITINGS studies. The primary aim of the course is to provide a theoretical toolkit OF RICHARD WRIGHT for graduate students at the Masters level and advanced undergraduates, Short Title: READING RICHARD WRIGHT especially those contemplating or engaged in an honors or MA thesis Department: Religion in the department of Religion. Graduate work includes extended writing Grade Mode: Standard Letter assignments and exam. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 410. Course Type: Seminar Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 610 if student has credit for Credit Hours: 3 RELI 405. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. RELI 611 - READNGS IN MEDIEVAL LATIN Course Level: Graduate Short Title: READINGS IN MEDIEVAL LATIN Description: Richard Wright's fiction and nonfiction are important Department: Religion resources for understanding the nature of radicalized life in the United Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory States. This course explores his writings for what they tell us about Course Type: Seminar the role of religion in the development of identity and life meaning, and Credit Hours: 3 we will juxtapose the role of religion with Wright's commentary on the Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. nature and significance of atheism for countering injustice. RELI 606 Course Level: Graduate requires additional reflection papers, longer research paper and class Description: Guided readings in Latin from a range of medieval genres, presentations. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 369. Mutually including medicine, theology, visionary literature. Repeatable for Credit. Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 606 if student has credit for RELI 369.

2021-2022 General Announcements PDF Generated 09/23/21 Gnosticism, Esotericism and Mysticism 31

RELI 612 - THE PSALMS RELI 619 - MYSTERY RELIGIONS Short Title: THE PSALMS Short Title: MYSTERY RELIGIONS Department: Religion Department: Religion Grade Mode: Standard Letter Grade Mode: Standard Letter Course Type: Seminar Course Type: Seminar Credit Hours: 3 Credit Hours: 3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Course Level: Graduate Description: A seminar on biblical poetry. The Psalms have constituted Description: Covers literature, practices, and archaeology of esoteric cults a book of study, devotion, and prayer for Jews and Christians for two within the context of religion in Roman Empire (Demeter, the Great Gods, millennia. This course explores the psalms’ poetic force, liturgical setting Cybele, Persephone, Dionysus, Isis, Mithras, Hermes, Qumran, Christianity, in ancient Israel, theology, and enduring significance today. Counts for the Gnostic groups). Case studies vary depending on students' research Minor in Jewish Studies. RELI 612: Additional readings and longer paper. goals, including comparison with Renaissance and modern esoteric Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 388. Mutually Exclusive: initiatory groups. 7500-word research paper; UG equivalent 5000-word Cannot register for RELI 612 if student has credit for RELI 388. research paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 419. Mutually RELI 614 - THE RICE/ SEMINAR ON EARLY JUDAISM AND Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 619 if student has credit for RELI 419/ CHRISTIAN ORIGINS RELI 491. Short Title: THE RICE/LEIPZIG SEMINAR RELI 620 - ART OF INTERPRETING THE BIBLE Department: Religion Short Title: ART OF INTERPRETING THE BIBLE Grade Mode: Standard Letter Department: Religion Course Type: Seminar Grade Mode: Standard Letter Credit Hours: 3 Course Type: Seminar Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Credit Hours: 3 Course Level: Graduate Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Description: Graduate seminar on Early Judaism and Christian Origins Course Level: Graduate taught jointly by Dr. Matthias Henze (Rice) and Dr. Jens Herzer (University Description: Explores issues of history, historiography, and hermeneutics of Leipzig, ). Participation is by invitation only. Instructor within the context of Biblical Studies. While traditional forms of Biblical Permission Required. criticism are covered, the bulk of the course focuses on intertextuality, RELI 615 - SECRET RELIGION reception history, sociological methods, feminist views, and cognitive Short Title: SECRET RELIGION approaches. Graduate students (7500 word paper, seminar leadership, Department: Religion and oral presentation); Undergraduate students (5000 word paper and Grade Mode: Standard Letter oral presentation). Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 420. Course Type: Seminar RELI 644 - VISIONS AND VISONARY PRACTICES: MEDIEVAL TO MODERN Credit Hours: 3 Short Title: VISIONS & VISIONARY PRACTICES Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Department: Religion Course Level: Graduate Grade Mode: Standard Letter Description: Examines religious currents that operate in the margins Course Type: Seminar of traditional religion: the gnostic, esoteric and mystical. Covers how Credit Hours: 3 these categories were theorized. Explores how they continue to identify Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. contemporary religious currents that are considered transgressive and Course Level: Graduate are rejected by conventional religious authorities. Class is grounded Description: This course examines accounts of visions, comparing in antiquity and historical method. RELI 615: Write 7,500-10,000 word medieval and modern visionary techniques and processes and relating research paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 415. Mutually visionary writings to cultural and personal contexts. Includes some Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 615 if student has credit for RELI 415. Christian theology along with other theoretical frameworks, but emphasis RELI 616 - NEW TESTAMENT / CHRISTIAN ORIGINS on praxis. Graduate work includes 10 additional readings (200 pp), double the pages to be written, 30 more minutes presentation time. Graduate/ Short Title: NEW TESTAMENT/CHRISTIAN ORIG Department: Religion Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 444. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register Grade Mode: Standard Letter for RELI 644 if student has credit for RELI 444. Course Type: Seminar RELI 677 - SPECIAL TOPICS Credit Hours: 3 Short Title: SPECIAL TOPICS Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Department: Religion Course Level: Graduate Grade Mode: Standard Letter Description: How did Christianity emerge as a new religious movement Course Type: Internship/Practicum, Laboratory, Lecture, Seminar, in the Roman Empire? Covers the history and literature of the first Independent Study, Lecture/Laboratory generations of Christians , focusing on Post-Temple developments, Credit Hours: 1-4 issues of authority and leadership, rise of regional forms of Christianity, Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate or Visiting Graduate level and formation of distinct Christian identities. Graduate requirements: students. addtional writings and presentations. Graduate/Undergraduate Course Level: Graduate Equivalency: RELI 416. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 616 if Description: Topics and credit hours vary each semester. Contact student has credit for RELI 416. department for current semester's topic(s). Repeatable for Credit.

2021-2022 General Announcements PDF Generated 09/23/21 32 Gnosticism, Esotericism and Mysticism

1 RELI 700 - RESEARCH FOR COMPREHENSIVE EXAMS Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) 2020 Codes Short Title: RESEARCH FOR COMP EXAMS and Descriptions from the National Center for Education Department: Religion Statistics: https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cipcode/ Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory Course Type: Research Credit Hours: 1-12 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Description: Repeatable for Credit. RELI 710 - CHRISTIAN ORIGINS READING AND RESEARCH GROUP Short Title: ORIGINS READ/RESEARCH GRP Department: Religion Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory Course Type: Research Credit Hours: 1-3 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Description: Advanced research and reading group for graduate students studying Christian Origins. Topics vary. Instructor Permission Required. Repeatable for Credit. RELI 800 - RESEARCH FOR DISSERTATION Short Title: RESEARCH FOR DISSERTATION Department: Religion Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory Course Type: Research Credit Hours: 9 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Description: (no change to be made to course catalog description) Repeatable for Credit. RELI 801 - RESEARCH FOR M.A. THESIS Short Title: RESEARCH FOR MA THESIS Department: Religion Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory Course Type: Research Credit Hours: 3-9 Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students. Course Level: Graduate Description: Students work independently researching and writing their thesis. Repeatable for Credit. Description and Code Legend Note: Internally, the university uses the following descriptions, codes, and abbreviations for this academic program. The following is a quick reference: Course Catalog/Schedule • Course offerings/subject code: RELI Department Description and Code • Religion: RELI Graduate Certificate Description and Code • Certificate in Gnosticism, Esotericism and Mysticism: GEM CIP Code and Description 1 • GEM Certificate: CIP Code/Title: 38.0299 - Religion/Religious Studies, Other

2021-2022 General Announcements PDF Generated 09/23/21

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