This course gives advanced students the opportunity to pursue in-depth study of major classic and contemporary texts in critical theory, cultural studies, and the philosophy of religion. Topics may include: religion and politics; crises of faith; psychology of religion.

A critical exploration of selected topics in the study of religion. As part of this course, students may have the option of participating in an international learning experience that will have an additional cost and application process. Visit the Departmental web site at History of Religions for further information.

This course combines lecture and seminar approaches to understand how ideas about women, gender, and the body were constructed and naturalized in ancient and medieval Christianity.

An exploration of South Asian literary and oral epics moving across boundaries of language and genre. Students will engage with a variety of performative and aesthetic traditions including the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, Buddhist narratives, Sufi poetry, and vernacular epics. We will situate heroic, sacrificial, and romance genres in their social and performative contexts.

This course focuses on Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and Sikh objects and rituals, and we will read primary sources and scholarship in religious studies, anthropology, and ritual theory. Topics may include the gaze in the formation of icons and images, votive offerings, feasts and fasts, smells (perfumery and corpse disposal), and the aesthetics of religious architecture.

In this course we examine the intersection of material practices and senses in South Asian Islamic rituals in how religious worlds are experienced. The course also focuses on the role of ritual and material culture in shaping South Asian Muslim identities (Sunni, Shiʿi, Sufi).

A critical exploration of selected topics in the history of Judaism. Visit the Departmental web site at History of Religions for further information.

This course provides a survey of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a brief history of the period in which the Scrolls were written, and a presentation of the various ways in which scholars have interpreted them. The course also includes in-depth study of selected texts and themes illuminating the formation of the Hebrew Bible, ancient Judaism, and the historical and theological background of the New Testament and early Christianity.

A critical exploration of selected topics in the history of Christianity. Visit the Departmental web site at History of Religions for further information.

This course explores the history and significance of Christian monasticism and asceticism, with a focus on the desert tradition. From the early Desert Fathers and Mothers to contemporary spiritual writers, we consider the enduring legacy of solitude, silence, and self-discipline in the history of Christianity.

Comparative study of martyrdom and the idea of the martyr beginning with Greco-Roman philosophical concepts of 'noble death' and continuing through Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in ancient, medieval, and contemporary contexts.

This seminar introduces advanced undergraduate students to the history, genealogies, theories, and methods that have shaped the academic study of Islam and Muslims in the discipline of religious studies.

This course focuses on the diverse attitudes and expressions of sexuality in Islam. Taking a broad approach, this course examines issues of sexuality, including homosexuality, fe/male sexuality, birth control, divorce, marriage, transgender identity and performance, and feminist sexual ethics.

A critical exploration of selected topics in the history of Islam. Visit the Departmental web site at History of Religions for further information.

This course is an in depth exploration of the literary traditions of the Islamic world. The course examines the influence of religion in the writings of Muslim authors, as well as the role of symbols, philosophy, mystical practice, ideologies, rituals and history in the creation of literary works such as poetry, novels, biographies, court chronicles, epics, and more.

This course focuses on the everyday lived experience of Muslims in different parts of the world. We will read ethnographic studies and analyze films, which highlight important issues in everyday Muslim life: gender, modernity and piety, the role of ritual in everyday practice. This course has an ethnographic field project.

How do academics research Islam? Students in this course learn about and gain hands-on experience with essential scholarly tools for discovering and disseminating new knowledge in this field. Both individually and collaboratively, students will work on original projects concerning academic literature, scholarly communication, or primary sources.

A critical exploration of selected topics in the history of South Asian religions. Visit the Departmental web site at History of Religions for further information.

South Asian religious traditions are suffused with aesthetic elements and processes -- Hindu temple worship, for example, abounds in music, song, dance, and iconography. In this course we examine the close relationship between religion and aesthetics in South Asia through study of poetics, courtly poetry, visual culture, music, and performance traditions.

This course examines ideas, roles, and regulation of sexuality and gender in South Asian religious traditions, paying attention to sexual abstinence and promiscuity as forms of piety, and we will examine performances of the gendered body that transcend and/or problematize the binary construction of masculine and feminine.

This course looks at debates surrounding central concepts in the study of South Asian religions. We will look at theories of asceticism, devotion, renunciation, caste, kingship, ritual, and state that animate the discussion of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. Students will learn to place their ideas in conversation with larger intellectual genealogies.

This course focuses on the relationship between religious ideologies, saints, and state power in ancient, medieval, and precolonial Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, and Muslim states in South Asia. We will read primary sources in translation and examine art, architecture, and material culture to examine how kings and saints/ascetics negotiated politics and power.

This course examines the paradoxical relationship of the erotic in Sanskrit poetry with its opposite—renunciation and the technologies of asceticism involving a rejection of sexuality. While the treatment of these themes reflects a deeper civilizational history emblematized by the figure of Śiva, the erotic ascetic, Sanskrit courtly poetry allows us to examine problems peculiar to courtly life and kingship. Did the aestheticization of power in Sanskrit poetry conflict with transcendental ideals? How was the legitimacy of pleasure seen as both autonomous from and concurrent with other legitimate human ends? We will read all works in translation, and no familiarity with Sanskrit is presumed.

This course studies the religious life of the Sasanian empire that ruled over Iran between 224 and 651 CE. It analyzes how different religions coexisted and interacted in the territory of the empire, including Zoroastrianism (the official religion of the empire), Manichaeism, Christianity, Judaism, and Mazdakism.

A critical exploration of selected topics in the history of Buddhism. Visit the Departmental web site at History of Religions for further information.

Student-initiated project of reading and research, supervised by a member of the Department. Primarily intended for students in Specialist or Major programs. After obtaining a supervisor, a student must apply to the Department of Historical Studies. A maximum of 1.0 credit in a reading course is permitted.

Student-initiated project of reading and research, supervised by a member of the Department. Primarily intended for students in Religion Specialist or Major programs. After obtaining a supervisor, a student must apply to the Department of Historical Studies. A maximum of 2 reading courses, amounting to 1.0 credit, is permitted.

For senior undergraduate students who have developed some knowledge of a discipline and its research methods, this course offers an opportunity to work on the research project of a professor. Students enrolled have an opportunity to become involved in original research, develop their research skills and share in the excitement and discovery of acquiring new knowledge. Project descriptions for the following fall-winter session are posted on the ROP website in mid-February and students are invited to apply at that time. See Experiential and International Opportunities for more details.

What does it mean to be human? We will explore South Asian food, music, poetry, and objects to understand human experience through the lived practice of South Asian communities in historical and contemporary contexts. This course uses South Asian texts and practices as theory--as usable tools that help us become better readers of the cultures we study and of ourselves.

A detailed study of selected aspects of Global South Asia. Content in any given year depends on the instructor. Visit the Departmental website at South Asian Humanities for further information.