Religious Studies

This course provides an an overview of the most influential philosophical traditions that originated in China and India and spread through Asia: Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, and Buddhism.

This course introduces students to the languages of the Bible. It provides students with a basic orientation to the biblical languages: Hebrew and Koine Greek. It enables students to read and translate simple Hebrew and Greek phrases and constructions. Students are able to read and translate, with assistance, selected biblical passages.

This course follows a historical and comparative perspective to help understand the global human activity of religion. It addresses questions such as: What sort of a thing is religion? What patterns are common to all religions? What interpretive tools are most appropriate to explore this subject matter? The course takes individual religions as distinctive “religious worlds". The course explores these religious worlds through their common structures and cultural expressions such as myths, rituals, sacred space, pilgrimage, holy beings and holy communities, and their variations. It explores and appreciates the role of religion as a historical and contemporary force that has shaped our societies and institutions across geographies and histories.

This course explores issues related to ideologies of gender and sexuality in the history of religious traditions, with particular attention to the role of women in religion. Special attention is given to how gender is symbolized in religious myth and ritual practices, exploring how this relates to women's experiences. Connections between sexuality, embodiment and spirituality are addressed through case studies in African, Abrahamic, and Asian religions. Drawing on examples from the beliefs and practices of different religious traditions, the course aims to engage with cross-cultural and interdisciplinary scholarship in religious studies, gender studies, women's studies and feminist theory. Theoretical reflections on gender in religious traditions are addressed throughout the course.  Continuous assessment (essays, projects, tests, etc.) counts 100%.

This course explores a nuanced understanding of The Pensées of Blaise Pascal while deepening one's knowledge of French Thought and Religion. The course also covers its Reception History, exploring various themes related to Life, Humanity, and Religion, while encouraging students to express their own existential reflections.

Religious traditions represent significant expressions of cultural values: understanding the past and present states of the world is not possible without some knowledge of these traditions. This course introduces the history, ideas and practices of the three religious traditions whose history is connected, and which together have informed the religious understanding of Europe and the West, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. With reference to matters of ethics, thought, politics and law, the course considers how the diverse ways these religions answer questions about the world and the place of human beings within it have shaped and continue to inform the way people, both individually and collectively, live their lives and seek to find meaning and purpose.

This course examines the body in relation to religion and identity. The course offers opportunities to examine historical, religious, and philosophical conceptions of the body in relation to broader frameworks of culture and society. It examines how societal norms intersect with embodiment, and may engage critical perspectives such as gender, sexuality, race, power, and/or identity formation. 

This course introduces the central problems and issues in contemporary philosophy of religion. Among the questions that students will consider are: Are there any persuasive arguments for the existence of God? Is religious belief rational if it is not supported by evidence? Is it reasonable to believe that just one religious tradition is true? The aims of the course are: Help students to engage with some of the most central and enduring problems in philosophy of religion; Enhance students' power of critical analysis, reasoning and independent thought, and ability to bring those powers to bear on important philosophical issues; Familiarise students with some of the most interesting and provocative texts in contemporary work on philosophy of religion.  

This course introduces South Asian Islamic society, culture and religious thought, especially in Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Maldives, the three South Asian countries with a Muslim majority and where Islam forms an important cultural element. The focus of this course is the period from c. 1750-1950, during which important developments took place in South Asian Islam. The course outlines the role of Islam in pre-colonial society as well as the movements for religious and political reform of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Questions of language and literature are also addressed.

This course looks at the relationship between the built environment and spiritual space with special focus on Southeast Asia. It looks at a range of spiritual practices and the forms they take including temples, mosques, shrines, and symbols. It addresses how religion shapes and connects cities in different ways as well as how globalization transforms and is transformed by spiritual space. The course examines debates surrounding these questions through cases within and beyond Southeast Asia. Topics range from ghost films to heritage sites. It provides a strong understanding of the religious and spiritual practices, global processes and political events shaping Southeast Asia. It also develops visual analysis skills necessary to read and write about spiritual space in a variety of forms. Course discussions and assignments unpack the aesthetic traditions, politics, and morals surrounding specific cases in order to complicate what it means to be global, regional or local. The content goes beyond Southeast Asia and cuts across disciplines, drawing from Art and Architectural History, Anthropology, Urban Planning, and Geography.