Religious Studies

Using direct engagement with Late Antiquity and medieval artworks housed in Berlin’s Staatliche Museen, this seminar introduces students to a solid method of interrogating images and objects. It focuses on the particularities of the Christian image, namely its capacity of figuring the invisible and its relationship with the Hebrew Scriptures. The way the Hebrew Scriptures were transformed into the “Old Testament” in images serves as the seminar’s guiding thread. By examining specific distinct objects, students trace the emergence of Christian imagery, explore the contradictions it struggled with, and consider the dynamics of artistic creation in the Middle Ages. The first sessions offer a brief introduction to the central themes. In the following sessions, students visit the Bode Museum and other state museums. During these sessions, each student presents an assigned object, followed by an open group discussion. The class also addresses questions regarding the ways of exhibiting medieval objects in museums.

This course introduces and engages in contemporary scholarly reflection on critical animal studies, posthumanism, and ecotheology. Students engage with theological perspectives on the definitions of “humanity,” “animality,” and “creatureliness.” They explore a number of theo-ethical topics in this area from animal conservation to food. Recent questions in ecological ethics swirl around “the question of the human” and “the question of the animal.” Theological and ethical concepts that define human beings as unique, with souls created imago dei, in the image of God with dominion over the planet are critiqued as being morally complicit with species decline, animal suffering, and habitat loss. On a planet undergoing the sixth great wave of animal extinction, this critique is no small matter. This course discusses how we understand the human in relation to other nonhuman creatures that occupy the planet. Students consider animal ethics, the blurry lines between wild and domestic, human and nonhuman, living and extinct, veganism and vegetarianism, human and posthuman and ask how these conversations cause us to rethink theological understandings of “creatureliness” and “creation” and “kinship.” The course asks how definitions of what it means to be “human” are already entangled in our theo-ethical and ecological concerns.

This course studies the basic ideas of the 27 books of the New Testament in their historical contexts. First, it explores he epistles of Paul, the oldest books in the New Testament, then study the four Gospels. Finally, it focuses on the second-Pauline epistles and the Revelation of John. 

This course provides an introductory survey of religion and politics in Islam, from its inception to the modern period. It introduces students to basic concepts and topics in Islamic Studies and societies, such as Islamic law, theology, governance, and politics.

This course covers selected topics in Qur’anic Studies: history of the text or specific themes in the Qur’an (gender issued, relations with others, ethical or legal issues). The course offers an examination of the principal different Muslim and Western approaches and opinions relevant to the chosen topic, illustrated with reference to an appropriate selection of primary sources in translation and in Arabic.

Although this course focuses on Islamic and Muslim feminisms (in the plural) it also cover women’s experiences with radical Islam, masculinities, LGBTQ+ Islam, and similar phenomena. The course consists of five modules. The first module studies Muslim migration to Denmark and explores Islam in Copenhagen through a field study in which students do photo-journalism. The second module focuses on female and LGBTQ+ imams in Europe. In the third module, students read and listen to artistic productions by Muslim minority women and men in the form of novels, poetry, and music. As part of this module students do a semi-structured interview with either a Muslim or a non-Muslim on private and public perceptions of Islam. The fourth module investigates current Muslim civil rights organizations, and the final module focus on Muslim female piousness.

The Zionist ideology and movement in its own terms, and in the context of modern Judaism. The course places Zionism in its historical and religious contexts, and examines its varieties. The Zionist movement is followed from its origins to the establishment of Israel. Related aspects of Israeli politics are then examined, with special reference to ideological and religious debates.

The course introduces the psychology of religion, focusing on insights from contemporary cognitive and evolutionary psychology into human religious belief and behavior. It explores questions such as: Can science explain religious belief? What do cognitive and evolutionary theories reveal about belief in God? Is religion universal or a product of human evolution? How does religious belief develop in childhood? What social functions does religion serve? The course combines research from psychology and religious studies to examine topics including the psychology of atheism, terrorism, and the effects of religion on prejudice and tolerance.

This course studies significant Christian theological works by Americans, paying careful attention both to their contributions to Christian theology and to their context within the United States. One theme that emerges repeatedly, although certainly not the only important theme, is the question of what makes one a “true Christian." The course covers topics such as: Revivals and the First Great Awakening; the Holiness Movement and the Second Great Awakening; the Bible, the Civil War, and white Christian debates about slavery; the Social Gospel; the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy and Pentecostalism; the World Wars and American power; American power, American oppression and liberation theology, and American culture and Christianity. 

Systematic theology seeks to think and speak both faithfully and carefully about God -- and everything in relation to God. Whereas biblical studies often focuses on the original meaning of individual biblical texts, systematic theology unpacks key Christian ideas and investigates how they relate to each other. It asks questions like such as, How can God be truly sovereign and humans truly free? Does God choose or elect some people -- and if so, for what purpose, and how does God remain fair and just? How can God be both the one God and the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? How can the execution of an innocent person (Jesus) lead to the salvation of others? How can there be so much suffering in this world if God is truly good?

This course introduces Christian systematic theology by exploring key questions like these in conversation with excerpts from important texts in the Christian tradition. Along the way, the class considers the nature of the academic discipline of "systematic theology." How should it proceed, methodologically? How does it relate to other disciplines? What kind of knowledge can it produce? How does it relate to the Christian life? The ultimate goal is that all participants in the class, whether Christian or non-Christian, sharpen their thinking about Christianity and Christian theology through careful engagement with texts and discussions with one another.