(Offered as REL 325 and BLST 375) Why channel the spirits of the dead? What does it mean to be possessed? In this course, we’ll explore mediumship and exorcism practices in the Atlantic World from the early modern period to today. Through case studies that include Haitian Vodou in Brooklyn, Umbanda in Brazil, and Palo Monte in Cuba, we will take a broad look at the different ritual practices that fall under the academic category of spirit possession.

(Offered as HIST 319 [ME/TC/TE^C], ASLC 320 [WA] and RELI 322) Conceptions of the religious and the secular that continue to resonate today assumed global significance in the course of the nineteenth century as colonial empires and nascent nation-states negotiated how they would govern heterogeneous populations and interact with each other.

An analysis of New Testament literature as shaped by the currents and parties of first-century Judaism. Emphasis will be placed on the major letters of Paul and the four Gospels.

Spring semester. Professor Doran.

This course investigates the three-way convergence between religion, environmental thinking, and democracy through the loose and often plural tradition of romanticism in the United States in the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

We live today in an age of deepening ecological crises. Climate change, precipitous species extinction, and global water shortages, to name a few, all present unprecedented problems with which we are forced to grapple daily. Yet many argue we also face a profound spiritual crisis. Is traditional religion adequate to address the many ecological dilemmas of our day? If not, how must it change? And perhaps most pressing: Is religion at all to blame for our current ecological predicament(s)?

What does religious studies study? How do its investigations proceed? Can a religion only be truly understood from within, by those who share its beliefs and values? Or, on the contrary, is only the person who stands “outside” religion equipped to study and truly understand it? Is there a generic “something” that we can properly call “religion” at all or is the concept of religion, which emerged from European Enlightenment, inapplicable to other cultural contexts?

(Offered as RELI 152 and ASLC 152) This course is an introduction to the diverse ideals, practices, and traditions of Buddhism from its origins in South Asia to its geographical and historical diffusion throughout Asia and, more recently, into the west. We will explore the Three Jewels—the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha—and how they each provide refuge for those suffering in samsara (the endless cycle of rebirth).

(Offered as RELI 143 and ASLC 144) This course explores central ideas and practices in the religious and intellectual traditions of India up until the medieval period. We consider the range of available archeological, art historical, and textual evidence for religion in this period, though the course focuses mostly on texts. We will read the classic religious and philosophical literature of the traditions we now call Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

Spring semester. Professor M. Heim.

(Offered as ANTH 208 and REL 129) Ethnography refers to both a set of research methods and a genre of scholarly writing about living people. In this course, we will read influential ethnographies of religious communities, as well as conduct ethnographic research on and writing about local communities ourselves. We will begin with a close reading of a classic work in the field. This will help us get a sense of what ethnography is and better understand its place in the study of religion.

Although religion and popular culture are often seen as separate conceptual spheres—the former dealing with the “sacred” and the latter with the “profane”—these two spheres are deeply intertwined and shape one another. Religion often expresses itself in popular culture through the arts and various forms of media, while popular religion frequently expresses itself through religious memes and other representations. This course will explore the complex relationship between religion and popular culture.