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Spring 2009 Course Atlas

REL 100: Introduction to Religions: Hinduism and Judaism

Luke Whitmore, MWF 10:40-11:30, Max: 30

Content: This course introduces the study of religion through exploration of two religious traditions: Hinduism and Judaism. We will examine the practices, texts, and ideas of each tradition independently and then focus on the practice of pilgrimage and religious travel in both traditions (e.g. going to bathe in the Ganga river or to Varanasi, going to Jerusalem or going on the March of the Living). Through the thematic lens of pilgrimage, we will consider the differences and similarities found in encountering a religious tradition as a practitioner and/or as a student looking in from outside the tradition.

Texts: There will be at least two basic texts and a variety of articles, websites, and audiovisual materials.

Particulars: Take-home final, in-class exams, 2 site visits.

REL 100: Introduction to Religions: Buddhist and Christian Practices of Place

Donna Mote, TuTh 1:00-2:15, Max: 30

Content: What makes a place religious? What are religious practices? Do Buddhism and Christianity have anything in common? This course is an introduction to Buddhism and Christianity that will take up these questions in a variety of ways. We will focus on particular, and maybe even peculiar, practices of place found among Buddhists and Christians in specific contexts. Particular attention will be paid to religious cultures of Japanese True Pure Land Buddhists in northern Hiroshima prefecture and US evangelical Protestant Christians in north Georgia. Using texts, films, and other visual materials, we will examine and explore the categories of place, religious practices, Buddhism, Christianity, and collective remembering using several interpretive lenses, including ancestor veneration, and will pay particular attention to the interrelatedness of bodies, memory, and place.

Texts: Course readings will likely include selections from—

• Prebish, Charles S. and Damien Keown. 2006. Introducing Buddhism. London & New York: Routledge Publishing.
• Mitchell, Donald W. 2008. Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Adair, James R. 2008. Introducing Christianity. London & New York: Routledge Publishing.
• Connerton, Paul. 1989. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Donlon, Jocelyn Hazelwood. 2001. Swinging in Place: Porch Life in Southern Culture. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
• Kawano, Satsuki. 2005. Ritual Practice in Modern Japan: Ordering Place, People, and Action. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
• Cresswell, Tim. 2004. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

REL 100: Introduction to Religions: Spiritual Formations of the Black Atlantic World: Christianity & African Traditions

Marcus Harvey, MWF 12:50-1:40, Max: 30

*****SORRY: THIS CLASS HAS BEEN CANCELLED*****

REL 190: Freshman Seminar: Buddhist Lives

Sara McClintock, MWF 11:45-12:35, Max: 18

Content: This course is an introduction to Buddhism through the genre of the life story. Our approach will be to ask not only about the particulars of each life studied, but also about the choices that go into the telling of Buddhist lives. In investigating what counts as an important or worthy element of a given Buddhist life story, we uncover some of the changing contours of the Buddhist tradition across space and time.

Texts: The texts for the course will include biographies and autobiographies of lay and monastic Buddhist men and women, from ancient until modern times, and from a wide variety of cultural contexts. We will read life stories of famous figures, such as the Dalai Lama and the Buddha himself, alongside stories of otherwise unknown ordinary and extraordinary Buddhists in their quests for awakening.

Particulars: Apart from the content, the course will focus on the skills of close reading, textual analysis, oral presentation, research, and writing. Class participation will be an important part of the final grade, as will several writing assignments, including a final paper.

REL 190: Freshman Seminar: Suffering, Healing, Redemption

Don Seeman, TuTh 10-11:15, (same as JS 190), Max: 18 (REL 9/JS 9)

Content: This Freshman Seminar explores the nature of suffering that underlies the human condition and the different responses to suffering or evil that religious and cultural traditions have tried to offer. We will start by comparing classical Greek, Jewish and Buddhist texts that outline radically different approaches to a problem they all recognize, and then move on to consider literature from the Holocaust, ethnographic accounts of illness, suffering and healing in different cultures, and first hand accounts of contemporary man-made and natural disasters, like the genocide in Rwanda, or the AIDS pandemic. How do human beings find healing or transcendence in the face of implacable fate, and how does our response to suffering stand at the very heart of different choices in contemporary politics, morality and religion? Should suffering be described as sickness or as evil, especially when it is man-made? We will be asking these and other “big questions” while also gaining familiarity with different research disciplines as well as different religious and cultural traditions. Students are requested to bring minds and hearts.

REL 205: Biblical Literature

David Lambert, MWF 9:35-10:25, (same as JS 205), Max 30 (REL 10/JS 10)

Content: The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) as an expression of the religious life and thought of ancient Israel set against the backdrop of its cultural and historical setting in the Ancient Near East. A wide range of critical and literary approaches to the study of the Bible will be introduced. Additional attention will be paid to the way the Bible came to be read in subsequent Judaism and Christianity.

REL 209: History of Religions in America

Randall Balmer (Alonzo L. McDonald Family Chair on the Life and Teachings of Jesus and Their Impact on Culture), Wed 3:00-6:00, Max: 50

Content: A survey of religion in America, with particular attention to the ways that religion has shaped American history, politics, and culture, from the Puritans to the present.

Texts:

• Butler, Jon; Grant Wacker; and Randall Balmer. Religion in American Life: A Short History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
• Balmer, Randall. God in the White House: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2009.
• Gaustad, Edwin S. Faith of the Founders: Religion and the New Nation, 1776-1926. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2004.
• Marsh, Charles. God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.
• Morgan, Edmund S. Visible Saints: The History of a Puritan Idea. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1963.
• Orsi, Robert Anthony. The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.

Particulars: Mid-term and final examinations. Either two reflection papers (4-6 pages) or one research paper (10-12 pages).

REL 210RS: Classic Religious Texts: Literature of the Soul

Pam Hall, TuTh 11:30-12:45, Max: 18

Content: We will read together texts which speak about the soul and the soul’s journey to God within the Christian tradition and after. We will consider connections between how the soul is imagined and the forms of writing that are chosen to express this vision.

Texts:  We will read selections from Augustine’s Confessions and Thomas Merton’s autobiographical writing. We will read Julian of Norwich’s Showings, Dag Hammarskjold’s Markings, and Annie Dillard’s Holy the Firm.  We will also study poems about the life of the soul by  John Donne, George Herbert, and Emily Dickinson.

Particulars:  Tentatively, there will be a weekly journal on the readings and one essay of 7-8 pages.

REL 210RS: Classic Religious Texts: Exodus and Its Interpreters

William Gilders, TuTh 2:30-3:45, (same as JS 210RS), Max: 18 (REL 15/JS 3)

Content:The story of the exodus, the liberation of the children of Israel from enslavement in Egypt and the establishment of their unique relationship with God at Mount Sinai, is a “master story,” which provides “both a model for understanding the world and a guide for acting in it” (Michael Goldenberg). This seminar class will explore this master story and the book of the Jewish Scriptures/Old Testament that tells the story, Exodus, which has been described as “the seminal book of the Hebrew Scriptures in that it features the pivotal events of Israel’s history and the fundamental institutions of its culture and religion” (Nahum Sarna). The course will look at Exodus from many different angles and will focus on understanding how the book has been interpreted and understood in a variety of historical and cultural contexts—by ancient Israelites, by ancient and medieval rabbis, by Christian preachers, by Renaissance artists, by slaves in Georgia cotton fields, by film-makers such as Cecil B. DeMille (“The Ten Commandments”), and by Emory students gathered around tables for the Passover Seder. Given the time period during which the course is being offered, special attention will be given to the place of the exodus tradition in the Jewish celebration of Passover and the Christian observance of Easter/Pascha.

Texts:

• Carol Meyers, Exodus (The New Cambridge Bible Commentary; Cambridge University Press, 2005)
• Michael Goldenberg, Jews and Christians: Getting Our Stories Straight (Wipf and Stock, 1991)

Particulars: In that this is a seminar course, students will be expected to come to all class sessions well prepared to participate actively and productively in discussion; preparation and participation will, therefore, count for 30% of the course grade. Other graded course work will include short “response papers” (of one or two pages), two short essays (approx. 1500 words each), quizzes, and a “late-term” test. There will be no final examination.

REL 211: Western Religions

Thee Smith, TuTh 10:00-11:15, Max: 30

Content: What is “religion” and what makes a religion “Western”? How did Christianity emerge from ancient Judaism in the Middle East to become predominantly Western (and what does that mean)? How has Judaism itself been transformed in its European context to become a Western tradition at large? And what makes Islam a Western tradition among others? When we turn to Native American religions North and South, African heritage religions (e.g., African American churches), and new communities like the Bahai’ or ‘New Age,’ what makes them partly Western and partly not? Even among traditional forms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, what remains non-Western?

Beginning with classical Greek and Roman traditions this course will address such questions first historically and sociologically but primarily in terms of the religious commitments of the traditions involved. We will explore for example the shared background of our rival traditions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Abrahamic & Hellenistic cousins) and how their specifically religious commonalities bind them together (as Western) on the one hand, and create conflicts on the other. Most exciting is the opportunity to explore this course hypothesis: that religion is central to the cultural transformations that are challenging and recreating Western culture before our eyes.

Texts:

• Eugene B. Borowitz, Choices in Modern Jewish Thought (Behrman, 1995)
• John B. Cobb, Transforming Christianity and the World (Orbis,1999)
• Paula M. Cooey, et al., eds. After Patriarchy: Feminist Transformations of the World Religions (Orbis, 1991)
• Willard G. Oxtoby, ed., World Religions: Western Traditions (Oxford, 2002)
• Tariq Ramadan, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam (Oxford, 2004)
• Richard Rubenstein, Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims & Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom & Illuminated the Dark Ages (Harcourt, 2003)

Particulars: Course evaluations will be based on these four research questions, the last three of which will include feminist transformations of religion and culture:

1) What is “religion” and what makes it “Western”?

2) How is Judaism transforming Western religion and culture?

3) How is Islam transforming Western religion and culture?

4) How is Christianity transforming Western religion and culture?

REL 212: Asian Religious Traditions

Tara Doyle, TuTh 1:00-2:15, TPL, Max: 18

Content: This “theory-practice-learning” (TPL) class is an introduction to a number of prominent texts and associated religious practices found in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions of South Asia. Texts include Vedic hymns, selections from the Upanishads, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, the Devi-mahatmya, Ashvaghosa’s Buddha-carita, the Satipatthana Sutta, and Shantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara. Students also witness important rituals and/or festivals at the Hindu Temple of Atlanta and the Thai Temple, practice Hindu yoga and Buddhist meditation, and observe classical Indian dance and Tibetan thangka painting. All these will be studied within historical and contemporary contexts, revealing both the continuity and innovativeness of these two religions.  

Texts: 

• Eck, Darsan
• Feuerstein, Shambhala Guide to Yoga
• Rosenberg, Breath by Breath
• Thich Nhat Hanh, Heart of Understanding
• Two readers of articles, chapters, etc. 

Particulars: Class participation (10%), four 2-page reflection papers (20%), and four essays (70%).

REL 303S: Modern Hinduism

Tara Doyle, TuTh 10:00-11:15, Max: 18

Content: This seminar focuses on the multiple ways in which Hinduism has been envisioned, practiced, reworked, and contested during the last two hundred years, both in India and the USA. Topics will include: 1) British colonial constructions of Hinduism, 2) Hindu reform, revival, and influences on the Indian Independence movement; 3) the role of modern media (especially films, television, and the internet) in both reflecting and creating contemporary Hindu narratives and practices, 4) Hindu dimensions of nationalist, social justice, and environmentalist movements, and 5) Hinduism in the American diaspora, including Atlanta. During this class we will visit at least one Hindu temple and view a number of twentieth and twenty-first century films made by Indians living in India and the West.

Texts: TBA

Particulars: Class participation (10%), four essays (40%), and a class presentation (20%) culminating in a final paper (30%) on one of the Hindu temples or religious organizations in the Atlanta area.

REL 305: Early & Medieval Buddhism

Sara McClintock, MWF 2:00-2:50, Max: 50

Content: This course is an introduction to the history, literature, philosophy, and practices of Buddhism from its inception in India around 500 BCE through approximately 1000 CE. Our approach will be to inquire into the Buddha’s teachings on the nature of reality and the end of suffering, and on the ways in which these teachings were transmitted and transformed over the centuries.

Texts: Our texts will include Rupert Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism; Paul Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Philosophical Foundations; a variety of secondary articles; and a wide range of primary source material, including selections from the Pali canon, the Mahāyāna sūtras, and tantric Buddhism.

Particulars: There are no prerequisites for the course. The grade will be based on attendance, preparation, and a number of writing assignments, including a final research paper.

REL 307: East Asian Buddhism

Eric Reinders, MWF 10:40-11:30, (same as EAS 317), Max: 35 (REL 20/EAS 15)

Content: A survey of Buddhism in China and Japan. We will consider the foundational ideas of Mahayana Buddhism, and the formation of new, “native” or radical forms of Buddhism, especially the Tendai synthesis, Tantric Buddhism, Chan (Zen), and Pure Land. We will try to understand some poems of Chinese Buddhist nuns, as well as the writings of the Japanese Pure Land master Honen.

Texts: Required books:

• Daigan & Alicia Matsunaga, Foundation of Japanese Buddhism, volume 1.
• The Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Hui-neng, trans. A. F. Price & Wong Moulam.
• John R. McRae, Seeing Through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism.
• Bea Grant, Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns.
• Joseph A. Fitzgerald, Honen The Buddhist Saint: Essential Writings and Official Biography.

Particulars: Assessment will be based on quizzes, a mid-term exam, a research paper, class participation, and a final exam.

REL 313WR: Modern Catholicism

Jack Zupko, TuTh 8:30-9:45, Max: 30

Content: “Modern Catholicism” is a question—and some would say a contradiction. Can the Roman Catholic Church be or become modern while remaining itself? Using a variety of sources and approaches, we will pursue this question through both enduring Catholic practices and current topics of discussion such as church authority, religious life, the role of women, sexual ethics, and Catholic ‘identity’ in the modern world.

Texts:

• Catechism of the Catholic Church (Image Doubleday, 1995)
• Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness (1952; rpr. Harper San Francisco, 1997)
• Andrew Greeley, The Catholic Myth (Touchstone, 1990)
• Ron Hansen, Mariette in Ecstasy (Harper Collins, 1991)
• Ursula King (ed.), Pierre Teilhard De Chardin: Writings (Orbis Books, 1999)
• Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948; rpr. Harcourt Brace, 1998)
• Selected encyclicals and conciliar documents on electronic reserve

Particulars: You will be expected to read the assigned texts carefully and to discuss them constructively. You will also be asked to write three short interpretive exercises (of about five pages each) and a final paper (of about fifteen pages) in multiple drafts. There will be no examinations.

REL 328SWR: Women, Religion & Ethnography

Joyce Flueckiger, TuTh 11:30-12:45, (same as WS 328SWR/ANT 328SWR), Max: 18 (REL 6/WS 6/ANT 6)

Content: This is an interdisciplinary course crosslisted between religion, anthropology, and women's studies that examines women’s religious traditions cross-culturally. We will read ethnographies that deal specifically with women's rituals, performance, and leadership roles within specific religious/cultural traditions.

Texts: May Include:

• Lila Abu-Lughod, Writing Women's Lives: Bedouin Stories, 1993.
• Laurel Kendall, The Life and Hard Times of a Korean Shaman: Of Tales and the Telling of Tales, 1988.
• Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, 1976.
• Marie Griffith, God's Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission, 1997.
• Kirin Narayan, Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon: Himalayan Foothill Folktales, 1997.
• Wynne Maggi, Our Women are Free: Gender and Ethnicity in the Hindukush, 2001.
• Joyce Flueckiger, In Amma's Healing Room: Gender & Vernacular Islam in South India, 2006.
• Reading packet of articles.

Particulars: Four 3-4 page, informal response papers; final research paper (12-15 pages) and oral presentation.

REL 329: Religion & Ecology

Bobbi Patterson, TuTh 11:30-12:45, (same as ENVS 329), TPL, Max: 18 (REL 9/ENVS 9)

Content:  This class explores the relationship between nature, religion and culture. Examining Christian and Buddhist conceptions of nature, ecosystem's natural histories and ecologies, and meanings of 'place,' the course explores how ecological and religious conceptions and practices frame relationships and responsibilities among the living earth, plants, animals, and humans. It also examines contemporary issues including climate change, urbanization, and globalization in relation to humans' understandings and interactions (perceptions and practices) with nature to promote sustainability and belonging to place. Using Emory as our major field site, the course will involve regular outdoor exercises and some field trips beyond campus.

This class is a Theory Practice Learning class, meaning that participants should expect to engage in learning activities outside. Some of these activities will reflect religious ideas and practices while others will reflect ecosystem principles and fieldwork techniques from environmental studies. Opportunities for students to develop their own practices place, sustainability, and spirituality will be included.

Texts:

• Forest Meditations
• Selected Texts from the Early Christian Monastic Writings
• Sally McFague:  The Body of God
• Selections from:  Dharma Gaia
• Selections from Joanna Macy:  Coming Back to Life
• Gary Snyder:  Practice of the Wild
• Other selected articles

REL 340: Rabbinic Judaism

Michael Berger, TuTh 10:00-11:15, (same as JS 340), Max: 20 (REL 10/JS 10)

Content: In many respects, the Judaism that most people are familiar with was a product of the Rabbis of the first 5 centuries of the Common Era. We will explore the context of the Second Temple Period and Late Antiquity, seeing how the Rabbis fashioned a form of Judaism to meet the profound religious, social and existential challenges they perceived Jews faced at that time. We will also study passages from the vast literature the Rabbis left behind which is still studied today, including Mishnah, Midrash and Talmud.

Texts:

• Shaye Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah
• Lawrence Schiffman, From Text to Tradition
• Jeffrey Rubenstein, Rabbinic Stories

Particulars: class participation, mid-term and final.

REL 348: The New Testament in Its Context

Vernon Robbins, TuTh 11:30-12:45, Max: 30

Content: The approach to the New Testament and early Christian texts in this class is based on 21st century methods of the study of religion. The emphasis is on the meaning of biblical and other sacred texts in their first setting, but there is also an examination of their relation to the life of religious communities today. The course includes materials on Jewish and Hellenistic developments at the time of New Testament and early Christian texts outside the New Testament which are considered essential for understanding earliest Christianity. The assumption is that the New Testament came into being as a collection of literature that is open to the normal methods of literary, historical, social, cultural, rhetorical, and theological investigation. In particular, there is an assumption that the story about Jesus in the gospels is the product of a believing and worshipping community of religious people.

Texts:

• The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
• Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 4 th ed., 2008.
• Vernon K. Robbins, Exploring the Texture of Texts. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996.

Particulars: The syllabus and special materials will be available on LearnLink. The course will emphasize analysis and interpretation of texts through writing of shorter and longer papers, with some quizzes to develop a memory base for understanding the texts.

REL 352RS: Gender & Religion: Global Christian Women's Voices

Bobbi Patterson, TuTh 8:30-9:45, (same as WS 352RS), Max: 18 (9/9)

Content: This course will take a journey through and with the voices and witnesses of Christian women who are searching for histories, rituals, texts, theologies, and communities that reflect their spiritual paths in this tradition. From early Christian women, through the Middle Ages women mystics, to the first waves of Christian feminist theology, to the voices of contemporary women around the world, we will explore how women have reshaped traditional categories and blazed new trails for understanding their faith and giving testimony in word and activism.

Texts:  The texts for this class will be wide-ranging. They will include writings by Elizabeth Clark, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, Elizabeth Johnson, Mary Daly, Kwok Pui-Lan, Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, Katie Cannon, and Rebecca Chopp.

Particulars: The class will be participatory and experiential. Critical thinking skills will be emphasized along with imaginative exercises in theological construction. Short papers and response journaling will be required.

REL 354RS: Ethics: Religion, Ethics and Public Policy

Edward Queen, TuTh 4:00-5:15, Max: 18

Content: This course focuses on the question of how can citizens, in a pluralistic society, argue about the common good out of their own particularity?

The course begins by examining ways of thinking about public policy, the common good, and social choices.

It then turns to how leading thinkers have conceptualized “the good society.” In the course students will begin to think about how societies always are faced with balancing competing goods and demands and to try to determine how those conflicts can be addressed.

Students also will struggle with the question of whether a social good, truly to be good, depends upon it being achieved in an ethically appropriate way.

Texts:

• Steven Lukes, The Curious Enlightenment of Professor Caritat
• Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers
• Cass R. Sunstein, Republic.Com 2.0
• Other readings to be determined

Particulars: Since a major part of this class is to engage students as thoughtful and reflective citizens, active class participation is required. Students will write three (3) 3-4 page reflection papers and take a mid-term and final examination.

REL 356: Theological Reflection: Theology as Social Protest

Wendy Farley, Mon 2-3:40 & Wed 2-2:50, (same as WS 385), Max: 18 (REL 9/WS 9)

Content: Much contemporary theology is more focused on social problems than on doctrine. This class will examine how theology and ethics are related in the writings of Paul Tillich and Elizabeth Johnson. We will then explore several social issues from a theological perspective, such as environmental, consumerism, racism, sexism, and homophobia.

Texts could include: The Essential Paul Tillich; Johnson, She Who Is; Floyd-Miller, A Deeper Shade of Purple; Spencer, Gay and Gaia and Miller, Consuming Religion.

REL 357RS: Religion and Conflict: Sacred Violence, Sacred Peace

Tom Flores, Wed 2:00-5:00, Max: 18

Content: Religion wields extraordinary influence in public and private life. Although a rich reservoir of values, principles, and ideals, it is also a powerful source of conflict and violence as diverse traditions hold views that often collide within religious traditions, between religions, and between religious and secular modes of being. Therefore, to explain conflict and violence in these various domains simply in terms of religion alone is limiting and inadequate. Further, to view all conflict in negative or destructive terms is to limit its transforming potential for individuals and societies. In this sense, students will be encouraged to recognize this transforming potential in their own conflict situations.

Given these considerations, this course explores some of the interdisciplinary work on religion, violence, and peace, and aims to give students a firm grasp of the major dynamics of conflict and violence, as well as a working understanding to the question, “why is there is so much violence in the name of religion?” We will continually apply our explored principles to current events and case studies such as the Middle East, Sudan, and other areas.

REL 358R: Religion & Healing: Medical Ethics & Technology

Don Seeman, Tu 2:30-5:15, (same as JS 370R), Max: 20 (REL 10/JS 10)

Content: This new seminar explores how different religious traditions make sense of new medical technologies and their potential limitations. Case studies include cloning, surrogacy, abortion and heart transplants. Our primary focus will be on comparisons of different Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions. We will read medical ethics texts as well as ethnographic accounts of how technologies are used in different religious and cultural settings.

REL 370RS: Special Topics: Religion & Culture: Love in Ancient Times

David Lambert, TuTh 2:30-3:45, (same as JS 370RS), Max: 18 (REL 9/JS 9)

Content: An inquiry into the problems of studying ancient religions. One of the thorniest issues surrounds differences between modern and ancient understandings of the emotions, a matter of supreme importance in thinking about the nature of religious experience. We will consider instances from Near Eastern civilizations, especially ancient Israel, ancient Greece, early Christianity, and rabbinic Judaism.

REL 370S: Special Topics: Religion & Culture: Televangelism in African-American Religions

Dianne Stewart, Mon 3:00-6:00, (same as AAS 385S-000), Max: 18 (REL 12/AAS 6)

Content: This course explores how the cultural mediums of television and broadcasting have been used in African American protestant religion during the 20th century. Starting with the development and the commodification of Gospel Music and recorded sermons we will peruse the 20th Century and investigate the ways in which televangelism, televangelist, and religious broadcasting have transformed African American Protestantism.  Special attention will be paid to the ways in which televangelism has established a standard for Christian ministry and enhanced the potential of religion to influence the formation of social meaning in African American culture. Our interdisciplinary journey is broken up into three parts: 1) Historical Background, 2) The Rise of Mega Churches and Televangelism, and 3) Content Analysis.  To pursue these topics we will use the lenses of American religious history, sociology of religion, ethnography, theology, womanist religious thought, and visual culture to engage such questions as: How does the religious culture of Televangelism contribute to the ways in which African Americans understand themselves as Racial, Gendered, and Classed Subjects? How does the verbal and visual messages of Televangelists intersect with American notions of Gender, Class, and Race?  Are there new and/or normalized categories of Race, Class, and Gender that emerge from the religious culture of Televangelism?  Since Internet and television broadcasting are the predominate mediums of African American religious experience does it change the “religious” aspect of the experience?  In using Television as a religious tool, how does media based religion negotiate its relationship with advertisements, amusements, and other commodities for sale in the American marketplace?  And, if religion fails to engage with pop culture and media does it become culturally marginal in the lives of African Americans?

REL 370R: Religion & Culture: Christianity & Science

Philip Thompson, Mon 2:00-2:50 & Wed 2:00-3:40, Max: 20

*****SORRY: THIS CLASS HAS BEEN CANCELLED*****

REL 370SWR-001: Special Topics: ORDER and Science and Society: Who Cares?

David Lynn, TuTh 1:00-2:15, (same as CHEM 468SWR, PHYS 380SWRS, NBB 470SWR, PSYC 385SWR, WS 475SWR)

Content: This seminar will explore the connections among the topics of proteins, patients, and prisoners, and how they relate to your health and your world. You will engage in discussions on how your education could be making you sick, watch the movement of proteins that keep you healthy, participate in hands-on experiments to see how cells interact, hear from women living in prison, enjoy aspects of self-discovery, and even experience altered states of mind.

Divided into five modules taught by Emory researchers in different disciplines, you will learn how these scholars from diverse disciplines draw on the same process of discovery to gain a deeper understanding of the world. Students will learn methods to conduct research and scholarly inquiry. We will guide you through the steps of the process from critical analysis of primary literature through reporting your work in a peer reviewed journal format. You will also be challenged to use technology to teach your independent discoveries to a general audience. This course will be an exciting and rewarding capstone experience for you that will transform the way you view and are able to capture that unknown beyond Emory.

REL 370SWR-000: Special Topics: ORDER and Science and Society: Taken Out of Context

David Lynn, TuTh 2:30-3:45, (Same as CHEM 468SWR, PHYS 380SWRS, NBB 470SWR, PSYC 385SWR)

Content: Often, “taken out of context” has a negative connotation, but in this course we will take a step back and explore context as a necessary component in understanding our own identity and place in the world. Join us for a journey through current research and discoveries here on Emory’s campus. Together, we will relate microscopic observations to macroscopic properties of materials, study complex processes of protein-mediated diseases, investigate empathy in non-human primates, and examine diverse education and religious experiences.

Divided into five modules taught by Emory researchers in different disciplines, you will learn how these scholars from diverse disciplines draw on the same process of discovery to gain a deeper understanding of the world. Students will learn methods to conduct research and scholarly inquiry. We will guide you through the steps of the process from critical analysis of primary literature through reporting your work in a peer reviewed journal format. You will also be challenged to use technology to teach your independent discoveries to a general audience. This course will be an exciting and rewarding capstone experience for you that will transform the way you view and are able to capture that unknown beyond Emory.

REL 374SWR: Confucian Classics

faculty, TuTh 11:30-12:45, (same as EAS374SWR/CHN 373SWR), Max: 18 (REL 5/CHN 8/EAS 5)

Content: For more than two thousand years, a small set of texts associated with Confucius (551-479 BC) and his disciples formed the core of the Chinese educational curriculum. As a store of knowledge shared by all educated men and women, the Confucian Classics shaped Chinese literati culture from late antiquity to the early 20th century. The goal of this survey course is to illustrate the diversity of the literary and cultural practices that evolved around this unique body of writings. The course is roughly divided into two parts. First, we will attempt to establish a framework for understanding the textual history and changing significance of the Classics throughout Chinese history. Drawing on a broad selection of primary sources (to be read in English translation), we will then examine how the canonized ideas were refracted in literary, philosophical, religious and political discourse.

Required Texts: TBA

Particulars: Knowledge of Chinese is NOT required. Grading: class participation, written assignments, exams, paper.

REL 380R: Internship in Religion:“Emory as Place: Living an Ethic of Sustainability”

Bobbi Patterson , Tu 4:00-4:50, (Same as ENVS 497R) NOTE: 2 credit hours only; Non-Majors Welcome, Max: 12 ** Permission only - contact Prof. Patterson **

Special Spring ‘09 GREEN Offering   Ready to Explore and Teach Others about Sustainability at Emory?

•   Eager to Design Field Experiences for First Year Students Acquainting them with Basic Concepts of Sustainability Applied in Emory’s Forests, Streams, History, and Culture?
•   Committed to Living a Sustainable Ethics on Campus while Reaching Out in Service Partnerships with Atlanta Neighborhoods?
•   Want to Learn and Teach Others About the Ecosystems of this Bio-Region?

Content: This Spring’s Internship Course offers students a two-credit option to create an experiential learning program with field activities for first year students living in the New Sustainability-Themed Residence Halls (by McDonough Field).

Exploring what it means to live sustainably on campus and in our bioregion, students will examine topics including: water, power/electricity, biodiversity in the Piedmont (human, biotic, and abiotic), and recycling; histories and cultures at Emory; Emory’s ethical engagements for sustainability; how conceptions and experiences of this place teach us why sustainability matters.  Discussing these topics through the academic study of sustainability, ethics, and religion, interns will create and implement small learning modules related to place and sustainability.  These can include intellectual content, experience-based exercises, and service opportunities.

REL 387S: Religion & Literature

Pam Hall, TuTh 2:30-3:45, (same as ENG 387S), Max: 12 (REL 8/ENG 4)

Content: We will consider literature as a mode of inquiry into ethics and spirituality, including the meaning of suffering; the goal(s) of human life; and the role of God in human affairs. We will take special notice of America as symbol and contributor to these inquiries. The works include novels, drama, and perhaps some lyric poetry.

Texts: A tentative list of texts includes: Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov; Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, and Horton Foote’s A Trip to Bountiful. 

Particulars: Writing and class participation will play crucial roles. There will be weekly journal entries on the seminar reading, a class presentation, and one substantial essay on the material of the course.

REL 414: Shiite Islam

Devin Stewart, MWF 2:00-2:50, (same as MESAS 414), Max: 10 (REL 5/MESAS 5)

Content: This course is a survey of Shiite Islam with emphasis on the Twelver or Imami tradition, examining how Shiism has shaped Islamic history in general. Topics covered will include historical conflicts over leadership of the community; the lives of the Imams; Islamic conceptions of religious authority, heresy, and orthodoxy; Shiite dynasties; Shiite scholarly traditions; and relations between Islamic minority groups and the majority. Prior knowledge of Islamic history is helpful but not required.

Texts:

• Moojan Momen. An Introduction to Shi`i Islam. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.
• Devin J. Stewart. Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Twelver Shiite Responses to the Sunni Legal System. Salt Lake City: Utah University Press, 1998.
• Roy Mottahedeh. The Mantle of the Prophet. Oxford: Oneworld, 2002.
• al-Shaykh al-Mufid. Kitab al-Irshad: The Book of Guidance. Trans. I.K.A. Howard.
• Rula Jurdi Abisaab. Converting Persia: Religion and Power in the Safavid Empire. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004.
• Fouad Ajami. The Vanished Imam: Musa al Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
• Islam and Revolution, I: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini (1941-1980). Trans. Hamid Algar. Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1981.

REL 472S: Literature, Existence, Negation

Jill Robbins, TuTh 1:00-2:15, (same as CPLT 490S), Max: 15 (CPLT 10?/REL 5?)

Content: In this course we will read closely two major works by Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov and The Devils. We will follow out the themes of alienation, family conflict, parricide, and the eclipse of God. We will attend especially to Dostoevsky’s biblical intertexts and to philosophical and critical writings by Kojeve, Blanchot, Camus, and others. We will also consider closely Mikhail Bakhtin’s discussion of Dostoevsky’s dialogic artistry.

Texts: Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov; The Devils; Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems in Dostoevsky’s Poetics; Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel, selections; Maurice Blanchot, The Space of Literature, selections; Alexander Kojeve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, selections; Jean Starobinski, “The Struggle with Legion.”

Particulars: Two ten-to-twelve page papers.

REL 490WR: Senior Symposium: Religious Studies in the 21st Century

Richard Martin, TuTh 10:00-11:15, Contact Religion Dept office for Permission, 7-7596

***FOR SENIOR RELIGION MAJORS ONLY***

Content: Have the ways of studying religion changed while I was a student at Emory?

Most members of the symposium were sophomores in high school at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and subsequent US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, have dominated the media and political environment in which you have been educated. Some seniors graduating in 2009 may know of violence against themselves, friends and family related to 9/11 and its aftermath, or because of the wars in the Middle East. Religion has been a central focus of media representations of the social, cultural and political turmoil of the twentieth-first century. What are we to make of all of this?

The Senior Symposium will ask: Has the academic study of religion changed as a result of events involving religions in the past eight years? Are the curriculum, methods, and theories of religion of the latter part of the twentieth century adequate tools for understanding religion today? Do other fields and disciplines offer useful models and ideas for understanding religion today? Several constituent themes will be explored and discussed, including religion, secularization and secularism; religion in the university a secular age; Religious identity and belief; the relationship of social conflict, violence, and religion; postmodern relationship of Islam and Christianity.

Texts:

• Khaled Abou El Fadl, The Place of Tolerance in Islam (2002)
• Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2006)
• Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (2003)
• Richard W. Bulliet, The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization (2004)
• Linell Cady and Delwin Brown, eds., Religious Studies, Theology and the University: Conflicting Maps, Changing Terrain (2002)
• Daedalus, Summer 2003 issue, on “Secularism and Religion”
• Bruce Lincoln, Holy Terrors: Thinking About Religion After September 11 (2003)
• Charles Taylor et al, Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (1994)

Particulars: Students will read and write weekly journal essays on the topics in “Texts” above, during the first 8 weeks. Concomitantly, they will meet with the instructor every other week to discuss the stages of development of their research projects. After spring recess, class will not meet, but students will meet individually with instructor and in thematic groups to review progress toward producing a penultimate draft of their research paper by April 9. Final papers due April 17.

REL 495R or 495WR: Directed Reading (honors) 

Faculty, (Permission of Instructor Required)

Content:  Independent research for senior major and joint major students selected to participate in the department's Honors program.  Readings on special topics in Religion as arranged between individual students and a specific member of the Department who consents to guide the student in her/his study, arrange requirements and appointments. 

REL 497R: Directed Reading 

Faculty, (Permission of Instructor Required)

Content: Readings on special topics in Religion as arranged between individual students and a specific member of the Department who consents to guide the student in her/his study, arrange requirements and appointments.