Introduction to Religious Studies
This course is an introduction to the contemporary field of religious studies, focusing on both the theoretical investigations of religious traditions, as well as on the study of selected religious texts and practices (such as creation stories, sacred biographies, sacred scriptures of a religious tradition(s) rituals, ritual taboos, religiously motivated behaviors.
Outcomes: Students will be able to analyze and interpret various ways in which religious traditions intersect with contemporary issues.
This course is an introduction to the contemporary field of religious studies, focusing on both the theoretical investigations of religious traditions, as well as on the study of selected religious texts and practices (such as creation stories, sacred biographies, sacred scriptures of a religious tradition(s) rituals, ritual taboos, religiously motivated behaviors.
Outcomes: Students will be able to analyze and interpret various ways in which religious traditions intersect with contemporary issues.
Foundational Theological Knowledge
Interreligious and Interfaith Studies
What is religion? In pursuit of this question, this course will consider the history, aims, and boundaries of the field of religious studies. Readings will provide an overview of the study of religion, including scholarly attempts to define religion as a category and the related creation of world religions as an object of analysis. We will also consider how the history of the study of religion has intersected with the study of capitalism, secularism, gender, and race. Case studies from a variety of religious traditions will encourage us to examine how academic discussions about the category of religion relate, or in some cases fail to relate, to lived experience.
Class Details
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