This course is an exploration of Ancient Greek, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic mysticism through the lives and writings of mystics associated with each tradition. In addition to reading classical mystical texts in translation, students will attempt to make sense of mystical phenomena by attending to how they are portrayed through film, historical, and scholarly reflection. Counts towards all-college requirements, Religion major, minor, and the Arabic, Islamic, and Middle East Studies thematic minor.

This course serves as an introduction to James Baldwin’s literature and his robust engagement of religious themes throughout his literary corpus. Students will explore the autobiographically inspired religious and theological questions which often serve as the foundation for Baldwin’s complex understanding/critique of the socio-political realities of race, sexuality, and gender in the United States. In addition, this course will show the ways in which Baldwin “queers” Christian theological language and symbols in putting forth his own unique post-Christian religious vision.

How do people use sound and music to access alternate states of consciousness and otherworldly realms? This course explores the connection between music, sacred soundscapes, and spiritual perception across a range of musical practices and belief systems. Through a number of different case studies from around the world, we will investigate the essential role of sound and melody in conjuring mystical and extrasensory states of being across social and regional contexts. Our study will include environmentally-based sound explorations, where we explore techniques involving deep listening and sound painting. We will contextualize sacred and spiritual soundscapes within religious and cultural frameworks: exploring trance, possession, and intoxication from a musical perspective. Various sensorial exercises will heighten our awareness of sound and space – including breath, silence, and movement. By illuminating how sound moves within and across human bodies, we will explore how music enables transcendent experiences of ecstatic and otherworldly realms. 1 unit – Carrizo

This course explores the growing field of queer studies in religion. Borrowing from the five common approaches to queer religious studies offered by Melissa M. Wilcox in her work, Queer Religiosities, this class seeks to—examine the lives of queer religious practitioners and the relevance of their faith for the field of religious studies, excavate how queerness is obscured and yet still shows up in religious rituals and sacred texts, explore the ways in which queer ways of being in the world might be understood as “religious,” discover how queerness serves to disrupt normative religious and theological claims, and study the ways that the fields of religious and queer studies inform each other. In addition, this course acquaints students with a few key figures (both historically and contemporarily) in the discourse, including but not limited to the work of Marcella Althaus-Reid, Elias Farajaje Jones, Melissa Wilcox, Robert Goss, Horace Griffin, Linn Tonstad, and others.

Encounter the history of Christian martyrdom and sainthood in Rome, Italy. Examines the beginnings of martyrdom in the early church, particularly in the context of the Roman Empire, and the legacies of the apostles Peter and Paul as well as the emergence of later saints, especially in the Catholic tradition. Historical study is attentive to ways in which Christian communities construct and memorialize—through literature, art, and space—martyrs and saints. In Rome, explore imperial spaces, ancient catacombs, and the Vatican, with excursions to Assisi and Florence.

Gods, Buddhas, and Gurus in South Asia Cults of masculinity have been intrinsic to South Asian culture for millennia. Whether in ancient Vedic literature, or in the heterodox traditions of Buddhism and Jainism and the Hindu epics that followed; whether in the ascetic traditions of yoga, the popular Puranas or the lives of modern-day saints -- the leading Man has been carefully fashioned to represent power, purity and prestige. This course examines such texts and traditions from diverse periods in Indian history in order to identify and deconstruct the ideologies that divinize masculinity and masculinize divinity. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement. 1 unit -- Coleman.

Encounter the history of Christian martyrdom and sainthood in Rome, Italy. Examines the beginnings of martyrdom in the early church, particularly in the context of the Roman Empire, and the legacies of the apostles Peter and Paul as well as the emergence of later saints, especially in the Catholic tradition. Historical study is attentive to ways in which Christian communities construct and memorialize—through literature, art, and space—martyrs and saints.

Since 1492, religion has been central to the project of modern colonialism. Everywhere European conquerors went, they justified colonial rule in the name of Christianity, sponsored missionary projects of conversion, and regulated the traditions and practices of the colonized. Indeed, some scholars have argued that modern conceptions of religion (and its cognate, world religions) only emerged out of these colonial conquests. This course explores the constitutive relationship between colonialism and religion. Two broad questions will inform our inquiry: How did the colonial encounter shape modern knowledge of religion? How did colonial technologies of rule (law, education, the census, surveillance, welfare) effect transformations in the religious beliefs, traditions, and practices of both the colonizer and the colonized? Our readings will include materials from various modern empires in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. We will explore how religion was constitutive of modern empires and how religion relates to other sites of social power including race, gender, and nation. Themes for the course may include religious conversion and freedom of religion, religious institutions and reforms, textuality and interpretation, ritual and material cultures, and legal reforms and regulation.

This course explores the vexed relationship between the nation state and the lived experiences of religious minorities in Asia. We will read works on the historical and political processes that have contributed to the othering and racialization of minority religious communities in Sri Lanka, India, China, and Myanmar. Our aim will be to gain a deeper understanding of everyday forms of violence and discrimination experienced by religious minorities, of the limits and possibilities of the politics of recognition, and of how religious difference and anti-minority politics intersect with other axes of difference such as class, gender, and sexuality.

Highlights the indispensable role that imagination holds for human societies in general and religions in particular. Our investigation of both religious and secular narratives from multiple traditions will reveal the power of creative imagination present in all aspects of culture that envision human flourishing

This course explores the growing field of queer studies in religion. Borrowing from the five common approaches to queer religious studies offered by Melissa M. Wilcox in her work, Queer Religiosities, this class seeks to—examine the lives of queer religious practitioners and the relevance of their faith for the field of religious studies, excavate how queerness is obscured and yet still shows up in religious rituals and sacred texts, explore the ways in which queer ways of being in the world might be understood as “religious,” discover how queerness serves to disrupt normative religious and theological claims, and study the ways that the fields of religious and queer studies inform each other. In addition, this course acquaints students with a few key figures (both historically and contemporarily) in the discourse, including but not limited to the work of Marcella Althaus-Reid, Elias Farajaje Jones, Melissa Wilcox, Robert Goss, Horace Griffin, Linn Tonstad, and others.