Global Arc

Religion permeated everything in colonial Latin America. In fact, it is not really accurate to talk about religion as something separate from other aspects of human life for this time and place. This class explores the ways "religion" was lived and understood by people in colonial Latin America through three categories: 1) experience, with an emphasis on internal experience, both physical and emotional; 2) expression, both verbal and non-verbal, with an emphasis on ambivalent forms of expression that simultaneously validated and challenged accepted religious truths; and 3) authority, with an emphasis on its limits.

Belief in the existence of God and non-belief are counterparts of one another and have a shared history in the United States. At the same time, those histories are distinct and have distinct features. This course is an historical exploration of non-belief in God in a country in which religion and religious faith has comprised its very core and shaped its character. What has it meant to be an "a-theist" in a country so dominated by various forms of theism? If America is, as G. K. Chesterton has said, "a nation with the soul of a church," where have been the spaces - intellectually, culturally, socially, aesthetically - for the "unchurched?"

A study of a selected topic such as mysticism, scriptures of the world religions, or of particular religious movements, leaders, and thinkers.

In this seminar we examine how the modern constructed categories of "race" and "religion" have interacted in American history and culture. We explore how religious beliefs and practices have shaped ideas about race and how American racialization has shaped religious experience. We consider the impact of religion and race on notions of what it means to be American and how these have changed over time. Topics include race and biblical interpretation; religion and racial slavery; religion, race, and science; popular culture representations; race, religion, and politics; and religious resistance to racial hierarchy.

The sermon is one of the most unique contributions to the American literary and oral tradition. This course examines sermonic texts and recordings from the late 18th century to the present. We will explore written and recorded homilies, placing both sermons and sermonizers in historical context. In this way we want to discover not only the theological perspectives contained in the sermons but also the cultural, social, economic, and political situations in the U.S. that helped shape them. Rather than a concern for the "practice" of preaching, our course focuses on sermons as literature and historical narratives.

The relative novelty of American scriptures allows us entry into the most essential questions of scriptures' meaning, function and use: What is a scripture? How does a text become one? We will discuss selections from The Book of Mormon, Science and Health, Message to the Blackman in America, and Dianetics, along with several other new-world scriptures and, by way of comparison, the American histories of some old-world scriptures. Emphasis will be on reading and reflecting on these texts as primary sources, investigating their internal logic, discursive influences, and rhetorical effects to think about how communities have formed around them.

The course begins with the intertwined history of Muslims in America and America itself. We will then apply that foundation to topics in contemporary Muslim American life - for example, authority in mosques, fashion and coolness, and representation in movies. Students will encounter primary as well as secondary sources. For example, students will read an 1831 autobiography of an enslaved Muslim named Omar ibn Said and analyze a Chicago-based Ahmadi newspaper from the 1920s. We will use a range of media, including film and material culture, to emphasize the varieties of Muslim experience in America.

Have you ever wanted to change the world? So have lots of other people. In this course, we'll explore how American Christians have participated in social movements since the early 20th century, and we'll see how religion fits into their mobilization strategies. We'll focus on four case studies: the Catholic Worker movement; Black church women during the Civil Rights movement; the early Christian Right; and advocacy around HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ+ rights. This course centers ethnographic research methods in the study of religion, and students will learn skills such as data coding, participant observation, and qualitative interviewing.

First semester junior majors participate in a non-credit colloquium with a member or members of the faculty. In addition to short assignments throughout the term that prepare majors to research and write a junior paper (JP), students are expected to produce a five to seven-page JP proposal. The grade for the colloquium is factored into the final grade for the junior independent work.

This course assumes a basic knowledge of Coptic language, and will provide an introduction to early Christianity in Late Antique Egypt. Our starting point will be the Nag Hammadi Library; as such, this course will survey a number of literary genres (letters, gospels, magic, and apocalypse) and sectarian groups (Sethians, Hermetists, and Valentinians) contained in the collection. Depending on student interests, this course will also consider a number of possible topics relating to Late Antique Egypt, such as Manichaeism, monasticism, Neo-Platonism, demonology, ecumenical councils, and indigenous religious beliefs and practices.