Religious Studies

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.

The course introduces students to the work of some of the key writers dealing with faith and fiction in Scotland from the Romantic period to the late 20th century. Students are encouraged to explore the connections between a varied range of Scottish poets, authors, and dramatists in their evolving national, historical, social, and theological contexts. This interdisciplinary course enables students to trace and examine the rich and constantly evolving nature of religious thought in Scotland through selected literary texts published from the Romantic period to the late-20th century. In order to achieve this, the work of a variety of writers from different religious (and non-religious) perspectives is considered in historical, theological and social contexts. By analyzing key critical terms and concepts which inform Scottish literary texts, including plays, poetry, novels, and short stories, students relate texts to the religious environments which shaped them. In this way, they gain a fuller and more enriched understanding of the relationship between Scottish literature and religion.

As an introduction to the academic study of religion, this course examines topics, theories, and methods that are essential to gain an understanding of religion as an important aspect of human culture and history. The course introduces approaches to defining and investigating religion (e.g. Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Clifford Geertz, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Ninian Smart) and theoretic approaches are used to study parts of specific religious traditions, for example Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Topics that are discussed include perspectives on gender and social difference, religious rituals, holy texts and the challenge of
modernities and technologization, religion in the context of conflict, humanitarian and ecological crisis. Since the academic study of religion comprises various disciplinary approaches (e.g. historical, cultural anthropological, sociological, philosophical, literary approaches), the course is also an exercise in interdisciplinarity, both theoretical – studying the respective academic literature – and practical – actually investigating religious phenomena, using of methods from various academic disciplines.

This course introduces pre-Qin Taoist philosophy, and mainly explains the important concepts and issues of pre-Qin Taoist philosophy through study, discussion, and teacher explanation. This course consists of two units with equal emphasis: Laozi and Zhuangzi. In terms of form, the course focuses on methods of argumentation and strategies for meaning-making in philosophical writings. In terms of content, it discusses the social value of Taoist philosophy and views on interpersonal interaction, of which language and communication are important themes.