Global Arc

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.

The most penetrating critiques of religion have the power to challenge our whole way of being and are often just as unsettling to atheists as to believers. After all, religions are more than just sets of beliefs - they are complex weaves of values, practices, narratives, social structures, and more - which tend to leave their stamp long after people have deserted their explicit creeds. This course explores some of the key critiques of Christianity - and Christian-moulded culture - to emerge in post-Enlightenment Europe, and will involve opening ourselves up to the painfully sharp critical scalpels of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Kafka, and others.

An examination of the most influential theoretical, pragmatic, and moral arguments regarding the existence and nature of God (or gods). Along the way, we consider debates about whether and how we can talk or think about such a being, and about whether mystical experience, miracles, and the afterlife are intelligible notions. Finally, we consider whether religious commitment might be rationally acceptable without any proof or evidence, and whether the real-world fact of religious diversity has philosophical implications. Course readings will be taken from both historical and contemporary sources.

In this course we will examine the historical and current place of the Bible in America, from Puritans' use of the Geneva Bible to nineteenth-century Hebrew printing to twenty- first century bible apps. We will pay particular attention to the ways in which different communities have read, referred to, presented, translated, and interpreted the Bible over time. Our readings will encompass both secondary sources addressing these questions and a variety of American bibles, from eighteenth-century pulpit bibles to contemporary comic books.

In this course we examine a variety of new religious movements that tested the boundaries of acceptable religion at various moments in American history. We pay particular attention to government and media constructions of the religious mainstream and margin, to the politics of labels such as "cult" and "sect," to race, gender, and sexuality within new religions, and to the role of American law in constructing categories and shaping religious expressions. We also consider what draws people to new religions and examine the distinctive beliefs, practices, and social organizations of groups labeled by outsiders as "cults."

An introductory exploration of the history of religious change and the Catholic Church in Latin America during the dramatic years of Spanish and Portuguese colonization, from 1492 to the beginning of mainland independence in the early nineteenth century. Through primary sources, secondary readings, lectures, and discussion, students will grapple with such subjects as: the role of the church in "the conquest"; the complexities of religious change in indigenous populations; women and men's daily encounters with the church and devotional culture; and changes in religious expression and the role of the church in colonial society.

An introductory exploration of women's experience of and participation in the Catholic Church and colonial Christianity in Spanish America. Through primary sources, secondary readings, lectures, and discussion, we will look at women's roles in the processes of conquest and colonization; how conversion and religious change affected gender ideologies and gender relations within indigenous communities; women's daily encounters with the church and participation in devotional culture; and the ways women's complex relationships with the colonial church was shaped by race and social status.

This course is a thematic exploration of Mexican religion from the sixteenth century on. Students will read secondary and primary readings and will think through concepts like: "popular" and local religion; "spiritual conquest" vs. religious negotiation; visual devotional culture; and spiritual geography. They will learn about histories of: religious orders and Native Americans; religion and "American Baroque" religiosity; the impact of Bourbon Reforms on religious practice; the Church and state in the post- independence period; and popular participation in religious rebellion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Are Zen and other religions stable entities with identifiable essences? Or do they lack a core, gradually vanishing as each layer is peeled away? Do they take on different forms in relation to cultural and power configurations? Or can they themselves shape social and political structures? In order to understand these questions and ask better ones, we will examine Zen in diverse contexts, including China, Japan, Korea, Germany, and the United States, to consider the tensions between romanticized ideals and practice on the ground. We will grapple with studying complex religious traditions with complicated and sometimes troubling histories.

An introduction to the Indian Buddhist philosophical tradition from the time of the Buddha until its decline (c. 400 B.C.E - 1200 C.E.). Topics include Buddhism's view of the world, the person, and the path to nirvana; equanimity, compassion and meditation as core elements in Buddhist ethics; early Buddhist metaphysics; the doctrine of "emptiness" and its various interpretations in the Great Vehicle schools; Buddhist epistemology and philosophy of language; and modern attempts to apply Buddhist philosophy to contemporary philosophical issues.