Religious Studies

This course offers an in-depth study of witchcraft and magic. Topics include the history of witch hunting; witchcraft in the Bible; witch meetings; cannibalism; the Black Mass; witches and devils; interpretations of European and American witchcraft and magic; modern African witchcraft and magic; activities of African witches; confessions of African witches; African witch hunting; witch doctors; the social setting of witchcraft and magic; and the future of witchcraft and magic.

This course is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on Egyptian religion from its origins in pre-history to its influence on later religions, including Christianity. This course discusses dogma, ritual, and element of religious culture such as temples, tombs, and representations in visual arts. The second part focuses on religions of the Near East. This course examines the geographic area that encompassed the Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform culture. It explores the concept of divinity in Mesopotamia and the main divinities. This course analyzes the temple, representations of the gods in the temple, and worship in the temple, as well as types of prayer, rituals, and divination.

This course presents an overview of the major Sunni and Shiite Islamist organizations that have developed and spread throughout the twentieth century. Through the cases of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Jama‘at ul-Tabligh in India, the Hizb al-Tahrir in Palestine, the Islamic Da‘wa Party in Iraq, the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and even the afghan origins of al-Qaeda, the course explores the origins, ideology, social bases, and actions of these organizations, as well as their various forms of transnationalization in the Muslim world. The circulation of actors and ideas are particularly developed in order to highlight the anchoring of Islamism in an increasingly globalized space.

This course is an in-depth survey of the traditional Chinese philosophies, mainly the “three teachings” -- Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. This survey focuses on the distinctive concepts of Humanism and Nature in these traditions, which accept “the unity of Nature and Humanity." Based on traditional Chinese ideas of "the Unity of Nature and Humanity," this survey course also explores the possibility that these traditions offer intellectual support for ethics of the environment and climate change, two major issues facing humanity today.  

This course explores the shaping of Jewish identity and the formation of border lines between Jews and non-Jews in the rabbinic period. Through critical readings of Talmudic texts from the second to sixth centuries CE, it investigates how rabbinic laws and ideas inform the contemporary understanding of what it means to be Jewish. The course begins by delving into texts which highlight the shift of defining Judaism as a religion rather than an ethnicity. It then focus on the challenge of integrating into a non-Jewish society while protecting Jewish separateness from the other. The course also studies texts which reveal the deep influence that non-Jewish cultural context had on rabbinic practice. The final unit of the course explores the essential question of how the rabbis see the role of Judaism in the world at large.