Religious Studies

This course introduces various theories of ethnicity based in a number of different points of departure: recent evolutionary and cognitive theories of groups formation, cooperation, and trust amongst non-kin; social psychological theories of ethnicity as a mode of categorization, boundary, and identity construction; and sociological and anthropological theories of ethnicity as expressions of fluid, situated, and negotiated categories. The course compares and relates these approaches to theories of religious affiliation as a means to construct and uphold social borders and to construct personal identity, and finally these insights are related to the study of nationalism and religious fundamentalism as channels of political mobilization. Throughout the course, the discussion of theoretical perspectives is combined with analyses of selected case studies.

In this course, students explore religion in modernity; secularization revisited; civilizational analysis; religion and the civilizing process; the rise of new religious movements; traditionalism and fundamentalism in contemporary religious movements; and varieties of religious experiences.

This course explores the term “Political Islam” by offering a historical and thematic survey of political Islamic thought and practice. The course discusses questions including: What is the phenomenon of Political Islam and why did it arise? Who are its principal thinkers and from which segment of the population does it draw the bulk of its support? How does it organize itself? What are its national, global, social, economic, and political demands? To what extent can we refer to Political Islam as a single movement – “it” – and, if we cannot, what binds diverse political Islamic groups together?

With over a billion Catholics across the globe, the Catholic Church is an influential force at both the religious and the geo-political level. This course explores the key features of contemporary Catholicism, including its ecclesiological structure and practices, and its theological, moral, and social teachings; assesses the legacy of the Second Vatican Council; and discusses contemporary controversies inside the faith and Catholicism's influence on the wider world and the international stage.

This course introduces the broad character and coverage of Buddhist ethics, engaging with the central principles that inform Buddhist ethics. The course develops a critical evaluation of Buddhist responses to some contemporary ethical problems and offers an informed understanding of various streams of the Buddhist ethical tradition. Students develop critical skills in understanding the ontological and epistemological bases of Buddhist answers to primary ethical questions and evaluate the modern applications of Buddhist ethics in some areas of contemporary ethical concern.

The theme for this comparative thought course varies each semester. The theme of "Mysticism East and West" explores the nature and significance of mystical experience from the angles of philosophy, psychology, theology and religious history. Mystical documents representing the Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Daoist, and Muslim traditions are read and discussed.

This course provides different scholarly perspectives on the diversity of how religion is mediated and has been part of public debate in many, and often unexpected ways. Through the lenses of biblical, Islamic and literary studies, theology, and the cultural study of religion students analyze the speeches and their contexts, from politics and cultural life, linked to the relevance of religion as argument, as rhetoric and as value background. Names such has Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Arundhati Roy and Albert Camus, Mohammad the Prophet and Ayatollah Khomeini, Saladin at the time of the Crusades, and Friedrich Schleiermacher at the turn of the Enlightenment into Romanticism, demonstrate the scope of backgrounds addressed in this course. Knowing about the impact of religion as a cultural force builds up a competence which is most important for the encounter within a multi-cultural globalized world.

The French notion of “secularism” (or laïcité) is one of the most original aspects of the political, social and cultural reality of France. We speak of "laïcité à la française" to designate a certain type of relationship between the public political sphere and the status of religion(s). Through history, these relationships have been marked by distance and, sometimes, by a dimension of struggle and direct confrontation. Religions tend to be reduced to the private sphere. The “ideal” is that religions must in no way influence political life or even public and cultural life. The French adventure of secularism was thus founded on the project of radically separating politics and religion. This adventure began as early as the sixteenth century and was often confrontational. Secularism has mainly concerned relations between the state and the Catholic religion. But, today, the question arises in a new context marked by the development of Islam. This course is mainly a history class but it is also intended to shed light on contemporary issues and debates. It's about understanding the current issue of secularism through its long history. The following topics are discussed: the impact of the wars of religion (sixteenth century), the place of the Catholic Church in the Ancien Régime, the formulation of the idea of secularism in the Age of Enlightenment, the installation of a "model" of modern secularism under the Modern Republic, the existence of a "culture" of anticlericalism, the school quarrel, the new situation posed by the rise of Islam since the years 1970 and the idea of a crisis of secularism today (new or “post” laïcité).