Global Arc

This course is a historical introduction to early Christian texts within and outside of the New Testament canon. We investigate how the Christian movement began, using ancient sources - Jewish, Greek, Roman, and Christian - about Jesus of Nazareth. We read the letters of the Apostle Paul and New Testament gospels, and the recently discovered gospels of Thomas and Mary. We will discuss the formation of the New Testament canon, views of Jesus, and attitudes toward gender, race and community. The course is accessible to students new to these sources, as well as to those familiar with them. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

We investigate what is known about Jesus from earliest gospels, Roman and Jewish sources, and "gnostic gospels;" letters between a Roman governor and emperor telling why they had Jesus' followers tortured and executed; first hand accounts of conversion, trials and martyrdom's; how pagans saw Christians, and how the movement emerged from Judaism; debates over virgin birth, resurrection, sexual practices, gender roles; and how emperor Constantine's conversion-and the work of Augustine-transformed the movement. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Explore different views in early Christianity on women and gender by critically examining ancient texts, from the New Testament, to Gnostic and other non-canonical writings, martyr-acts, and evidence from the material world (inscriptions, frescoes, mosaics, papyrus documents). It introduces students to early Christian women in such roles as preachers and prophets, martyrs and monastics. How did Christian authors view the position of women in their communities and what can we extract from their writings about women and their roles in Christian communities? How do ancient debates relate to contemporary issues on gender and religion?

This course will trace the history of American Evangelicalism from its roots in the early nineteenth century to rise of the Religious Right in the 1980s and birth of "right wing politics" of the twenty-first century. We will note key figures, events, and institutional expressions of evangelicalism, as well as its large impact on American politics and popular culture.

This course will trace the origins and development of African American religion in the United States. It will begin with the important debate about "Africanisms" and an examination of "slave religion" in its various forms. We will also discuss urban religion and the rise of "The Black Gods of the Metropolis". In addition to Christian and quasi-Christian groups, we will also explore the rise of non-Christian groups such as Black Hebrews and the Nation of Islam. The course concludes with an examination of the contested role of black churches during the Civil Rights Movement.

In this course we explore the politics of representing religion at key moments in American film and religious history. We consider how movies provide unique insight into aspects of American religious life and how representations of religion reveal the shifting contours of constructions of American identity. Topics include: censorship; representations of religious, ethnic, and racial minorities; gender, sexuality, and religion; recent filmmaking strategies of religious groups.

A broad survey of religion in American society from the colonial era to the present. Emphasis on religious encounter and conflict; the relationship between religious change and broader social and political currents; religious innovations and transformations; immigrant religions; secularization, resurgence, and pluralism. Mix of primary and secondary source readings. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course will explore the phenomenon of mysticism in Spanish America and early modern Spain. Visions, trances, witchcraft, ecstatic religiosity, miracles, religious authority, and ecclesiastical discipline all play important roles in this history. Issues of gender, race, ideas about the body, nature, and the supernatural are important themes in the scholarship and primary sources we will read together.

Suffering is a fundamental feature of the human condition. But it has been a central aim of many religious and philosophical thinkers to eliminate it altogether. We will examine the grounds of suffering and investigate the three basic ways in which various thinkers have sought to eradicate it: (1) by avoiding life's problems (from Netflix to suicide); (2) by fixing life's problems (from personal saintliness to political utopianism); or (3) by ceasing to judge anything to be problematic in the first place (from Buddhist spiritual practices to Stoic ones). Finally, we will look at those who insist that suffering should not be eliminated at all.

An examination of the meaning of Christian ethics through a study of selected contemporary moral and political issues: bioethics, capital punishment, sex and marriage, pluralism, race, class, gender, the environment, the morality of warfare, torture, and the role of religion in public life. Two lectures, one preceptorial.