Course Description:

This course introduces students to major themes in Jewish Studies and to the UT faculty who work in the field. It has three thematic units: “Exile and Diaspora,” “Jewish Identity,” and “Jewish Ethics.” On Mondays and Wednesdays faculty offer lectures related to one of the themes. Fridays are dedicated to discussion.

Grade Distribution:

• 25% Attendance and Participation
• 15% Discussion leadership and memo
• 20% Short paper (2-3 pages) unit 1: Exile and Diaspora
• 20% Short paper (2-3 pages) unit 2: Jewish Identity
• 20% Short paper (2-3 pages) unit 3: Jewish Ethics

Course Readings:

Selections from Jewish Studies: A Theoretical. Introduction (Key Words in Jewish Studies), by Andrew Busch (Rutgers University Press, 2013).

Selections from The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies (Oxford Handbooks), Edited by Martin Goodman, Jeremy Cohen, David Sorkin (2005).

Selections from The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality (Oxford Handbooks), Edited by Elliot N Dorff and Jonathan N. Crane (Reprint edition 2016)

Other readings and films as supplied by guest lecturers

This course is a survey of Jewish civilization from the origins of Ancient Israel to 1500 C.E.  All materials are in English translation. The course is taught primarily from the standpoint of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies, in the sense that the course will address both the history of Jews during this long period, and the most influential writings produced during that time.  There will be some focus on the persons and writings that have been most influential for Jewish Civilization over time, including into the modern world.  This course is the first half of a two-semester sequence, and another course taught regularly in Spring semester addresses Jewish Civilization from 1492 to the present. 

The course will be organized according to an overarching thematic image of “Crisis and Response.”  Jewish Civilization over the time period we study, from origins in the later part of the second millennium B.C.E., to the end of the 15^th century C.E., encountered key crises including a memory of enslavement in its sacred sources, the need for sovereignty, the loss of sovereignty and a state of exile, and then continued existence only within larger empires for over two millennia.  Responses to these crises were varied. 

In early legends, centuries of slavery were followed by liberation as The Exodus and the establishment of covenantal law (addressed in Unit 1). 

Later, the need for sovereignty brought the establishment of monarchy and centralized worship at a temple by the kings David and Solomon, and then a continuous period of sovereignty for over four centuries.  This sovereignty ended in 587 B.C.E. and initiated the need for continued existence in exile as well as in Persian and Hellenistic polities (addressed in Unit 2). 

The first century C.E. brought a new crisis with the end of Temple worship due to Roman conquest, and then the most enduring and productive response for Jewish Civilization was the legal and other innovations of Classical Rabbinic Judaism (addressed in Unit 3).  

In the Middle Ages, the rise of Christian and Muslim empires brought new contexts for Jewish communities, but also new degrees of persecution, and these crises were intimately connected with responses in intellectual and religious life, including the development of philosophy and the mysticism of Kabbalah (addressed in Unit 4).  

Grading:

• Three short papers, 2 pages each; each 15% of the course grade (45% total)
• Midterm exam, closed-book, in-class (20%)
• Final Exam, closed book, in-class (20%)
• Class Participation (15%)

Required Books: (available at the University Co-Op Bookstore):

• Alexander, ed., Textual Sources for the Study of Judaism
• Jewish Publication Society (JTS), TaNaKh: The Holy Scriptures
• Robert Seltzer, Jewish People, Jewish Thought

Description:

“(Russian) Icons and Propaganda” is a course about signs, symbols, and the contexts that give them meaning. The particular types of signs and symbols that we explore in this lower division course are religious iconography and political propaganda. Our exploration involves many of the sites where these images are found (e.g. cathedrals, public spaces, private homes, etc.) and many of the various media in which they occur (e.g. paintings, posters, television, film, etc.). While it would certainly be possible to study them separately, the two sets of symbols that we examine in this course share a context that allows us to consider them together: Russia.

Without a context, symbols are just pictures – maybe not even that! Within a context, however, they function in many of the same ways that language does. Signs and symbols convey meaning, and as with language, the more developed the system, the more information it is possible for them to convey. The “languages” of Russian icons and propaganda are quite developed and very much alive. Moreover, the amount of overlap between them may seem surprising… but it shouldn’t. The reason for this is that the imagery – the “language” – of Russian propaganda grew out of the already-existing symbolism of Russian religious iconography. And while the signs and symbols of Russian propaganda have since developed along their own paths, they still share much in common. To a certain extent, to understand one of these symbolic systems is to understand them both. 

The symbolism of Russian Orthodox iconography reached its impressive capacity to convey meaning in part because of a need to teach often complicated religious ideas to illiterate peasants before (and even during) the twentieth century. By pulling heavily from a symbolic “language” that the Russian masses already understood, propagandists were able to enter the scene with symbolically sophisticated messages in a “language” that everyone could already read. In this course students learn to read the signs and symbols of icons and propaganda in their Russian context. From subway ceilings to cathedral walls, living room shrines to murals on municipal buildings, kid’s cartoons to epic film, students will engage with the both the symbols and their contexts using basic semiotic (symbols) and discursive (contextual) techniques for analyzing and interpreting meaning in these two fascinating and surprisingly similar symbolic “languages.”

Selected Readings:

• Bonnell, Victoria E. Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters Under Lenin and Stalin. Berkeley [u.a.: Univ. of California Press, 2007. 
• Hall, Stuart, Jessica Evans, and Sean Nixon. Representation: Edited by Stuart Hall, Jessie Evans and Sean Nixon. London: Sage Publications, 2013.
• Ouspensky, Leonid, and Vladimir Lossky. The Meaning of Icons. Crestwood, N.Y: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1999.

Grading

• 5 short analysis papers      5% each
• 5 chapter précis                   15% each

Among all the influential texts found in the Bible, none has had such an enormous impact on world history and culture as the Book of Genesis has. This may be somewhat surprising: given the fact that Christianity is the world’s largest religion, one might expect that one of the Gospels of the New Testament would be the most influential. Yet Genesis, with its tales of the strange world that existed before the Flood and its recounting of the exploits—sometimes morally questionable—of Israel’s patriarchs, exercised such a hold on the imagination of the earliest Christians that many New Testament writings can actually be seen as extended ruminations on the implications of the Genesis narrative…as can many other great works of literature and art from antiquity to the present. This course will explore the incredibly diverse ways that human beings have sought to make meaning out of this book. We will begin by devoting more than two months to a close reading of Genesis in its entirety—just us and the text (mostly). We will then proceed to examine several significant but poorly known ancient interpretations of Genesis. We will investigate: a retelling of the strange story of “sons of God” mating with human women (from Gen 6:1-4) as found in the Book of the Watchers (part of the larger ancient Jewish work known as 1 Enoch); the “reversal” of Genesis’s creation story found in the Gnostic Christian writing Apocryphon of John; and the use of Genesis narratives in the Quran, the foundational scripture of Islam. Significant attention will also be given to ethical issues arising from the text and interpretation of Genesis.

THE BIBLE AND ITS INTERPRETERS examines the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, the New Testament, and their significance over time.  This particular course will focus on the emergence of three longstanding religious traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) through the interpretation of sacred and foundational writings.  We will begin by examining the transmission and development of scriptural themes within Ancient Israel, identifying within the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament variations or re-tellings of common scenes, prophetic visions, and religious practices.  We will then examine the New Testament as interpreting and transforming the Old Testament to provide foundations for Christianity, with emphasis on Paul’s letters as well as elements of the Gospels.  The later part of the course will highlight three later texts that emphasize three trajectories of interpretation and innovation: the church Father Augustine’s Confessions for Christianity, the rabbinic anthology The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan for Judaism, and the Koran for Islam.  In each case we will emphasize the expansion and transformation of biblical sources in setting the course for each religion.

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Description

What, according to the Bible, is required of us? What is our response to the deity? What is our place in the cosmos? With these questions in mind, this course seeks to cultivate both an understanding of the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament) and the New Testament and how biblical writers and subsequent interpreters grappled with notions of divine command and human obligation. We pursue this aim through close readings of the biblical texts themselves and the reception of biblical figures, themes, and ideas among its many interpreters. We begin by examining the historical sense of the Hebrew Bible as a product of the ancient Near East. We will then examine the practice of biblical interpretation among the competing Jewish ideologies at the turn of the Common Era, out of which emerged the early Christians and the New Testament. The later part of the course will highlight some of the major Jewish and Christian interpreters of the Bible in the pre-modern and modern periods and how, through their own view of “scripturalism”, these interpreters understood and formulated responses to questions of human nature, humanity’s relationship to the supernatural, and the meaning of life.

Texts

The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version. Edited by Michael D. Coogan, Marc Z. Brettler, and Carol Newsom. 4^th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. (indicated by NOAB in the Plan of Study, below)

Course Pack with selections from Readings from Philo, Rabbinic Literature, Qur’anic Literature, Maimonides, Augustine, Luther, Spinoza, Mendelsohn, Kierkegaard, and others.

Grading

Attendance (10%), 5 short reading reports (2% each or 10%), 2 short papers (15% each or 30%), rewrite of one paper (25%), final exam (25%).

This course focuses on some of the most influential religious texts in human history the 27 texts that were included in the New Testament. In addition, we will also read several other ancient texts that did not make it into the Christian Bible. During the semester we will explore the content of these texts, theories about how they were produced, methods used by scholars to interpret them, and conclusions that specialists reach about their significance. In the process, students will also have a chance to reflect on the general nature of human religiosity.

Texts:

The Harper Collins Study Bible, NRSV including apocryphal and deuterocanonical books, Student Edition; Harper Collins, 2006 (ISBN 978-0-06-078683-0).
Mitchell Reddish, An Introduction to the Gospels, Abingdon Press, 1997 (ISBN: 0687004489).
E. P. Sanders, Paul: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford Univ. Press, 2001 (ISBN 0192854518).

Grading:

25% Paper, approximately 700 words. 30% Exams, 2 @ approx. 15% each 25% Final exam 10% Attendance and participation 10% Misc. small tasks.

This course provides an introduction to the religion of Islam. It is designed for students with a general interest in the Islamic world, in religion, or in History. We will examine the theology, history, and main social and legal institutions of Islam. Islam, as a major system of belief in the world, is experienced by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Consequently, besides studying the basic tenets and texts of the religion, this course will focus on the variety of ways in which Muslims and non-Muslims have understood and interpreted Islam. We will review the debates surrounding the life of the prophet of Islam, Islamic pre-modern and modern history, the Islamic concept of God and society, the role of women, and finally, Islamic government and movements. The course is designed for students with a general interest in the Islamic world, religions, or history. No prior knowledge of Islam or Islamic history is necessary.

Texts

To be provided by instructor. 

Grading

To be provided by instructor.

This course is an introduction to the intellectual and social sources of evangelical Protestant traditions in the United States. It examines varieties of evangelical beliefs and practices. In the first section of the course, we address the self-professed ethical struggle of evangelicals to be in but not of the world.  We historically contextualize that struggle, tracing its more recent expressions back to the categorical rupture between sacred “selves” and profane “society” that was at the heart of the Protestant Reformation.  In our second section of readings, we study how evangelicals continually work out this ethical tension in their everyday lives.  Surveying a range of themes, including science, sexuality, politics, and environmentalism, we examine how evangelicals have defined themselves in opposition to secular society but also have engaged the secular in an effort to convert souls, manage personal behavior, and transform American society in their image of Christian community. By the end of this course, students should be able to defensibly define “who is an American evangelical.”  They should be able to construct a broad historical narrative of nineteenth and twentieth century American evangelicalism.  And they should be able to use this narrative to evaluate evangelical encounters in the twenty-first century with at least one sub-type of American culture listed on the syllabus.

Texts:

• Mark Noll, American Evangelical Christianity: An Introduction (2001).
• Additional readings posted on Blackboard.

Grading:

• Attendance/Participation 15%
• Reading Response Journal 25%
• Short Essays 25%
• Final Essay 35%

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Music can play an important part in the formation of a religious identity. How a religious community uses its voices, the words it sings, which instruments are deemed acceptable, and aspects of music such as melody, harmony, polyphony, and rhythm all combine in specific ways that are recognized as “religious,” or more specifically, as belonging to a particular religious tradition (or not!). Additionally, musical performance conventions – the physical embodiment of religious music – can reflect religious conceptions of the individual in relation to the divine as well as to his or her community. Likewise, the music rejected by a given religious community (“the Devil’s music!”) can be as defining as the music it embraces. From Catholic Gregorian chant, to Jewish camp songs, from African-American gospel music to Sacred Harp singing, from Lutheran hymns to Islamic recitation, and including many other traditions, this upper-division, undergraduate course explores the diversity of the American experience of religious identity through its musical traditions. Come ready to read and discuss but also ready to listen to and sing some of the music we will talk about. One of our tools for exploring the relationship of religious music to religious identity is “theory of the body” and an important part of understanding embodiment is experiencing it! This course includes includes both writing and "cultural diversity in the U.S." flags.

Basis for evaluation: 

• Short observer paper (3-5 pages) 10%
• Short participant observer paper (3-5 pages) 10% 
• Short paper (3-5 pages), basic theoretical analysis of in-class example: Syncretism/Anti-syncretism theory 20%
• Short paper (3-5 pages), basic theoretical analysis of in-class example: theory of the body 20%
• Final paper: abstract 250 words 5%
• Final paper: peer editing of abstract (on Canvas) 5%
• Final paper: first page, for initial feedback 5%
• Final paper (12-15 pages), due on exam day 25%

Required Texts:

• Bohlman, Philip V, Edith W. Blumhofer, and Maria M. Chow. Music in American Religious Experience. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Fraser, Mariam, and Monica Greco. The Body: A Reader. London: Routledge, 2005.
• Hoffman, Lawrence A, and Janet R. Walton. Sacred Sound and Social Change: Liturgical Music in Jewish and Christian Experience. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.
• Leopold, Anita M, and Jeppe S. Jensen. Syncretism in Religion: A Reader. New York: Routledge, 2005.

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Study of the early Christian writings that were not included in the Christian Bible. Examines issues such as the effect of narrative, religion and violence, gendered expectations for women and men, the uses of fantasy literature, and religious authority.

This upper-division research seminar takes students through Niccolò Machiavelli’s chief writings. We consider the local, regional, Mediterranean, European, and global aspects of his work. Through class discussion and short written assignments (20%), students will identify a research topic in consultation with the professor.
 
There are no prerequisites but His 343g “Italian Renaissance” (offered Spr 2016) is strongly recommended.
Readings will include:
Machiavelli: The Prince; The Discourses; The Art of War; Mandragola; Clizia; The Florentine Histories; selected letters and short writings (buy the required translations)
Black: Machiavelli (the best recent biography)
Najemy, ed.: Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli
Course packet of scholarly articles

Each student will write a historiography essay (15%); draft a prospectus (20%); and complete a major research paper (30%). Students will give two oral presentations, one at the prospectus stage (5%), and one upon completion of the research paper (10%).

European society changed so rapidly and extensively between 1050 and 1200 that medievalists often call it a "renaissance," ( a period of rebirth not to be confused with the later Italian Renaissance.) During this period, agricultural technologies changed, new forms of religious life developed, schools and universities emerged, cathedrals were built, towns became self-governing, and royal governments experimented with new forms of administration and law. Though a reading of primary documents - including love letters, memoirs, accounts of religious visions, chronicles of urban revolts, court poetry, theological treatises, and artistic creations – this course examines a series of these intellectual, religious, social, and political developments.

The goals of this course are for students 1) to identify the important events and figures in this period of rapid change; 2) to learn to read and analyze different types of medieval documents;  3) to understand how historical arguments and accounts are constructed from the analysis of primary documents; 4) to understand the interconnections between economic, social, religious, and cultural developments; and 5) to construct and write their own historical analyses.

This course will survey Islamic visual culture from its beginnings in the seventh century A.D. up to the sixteenth century. Our object is to investigate the temporal, spatial, and experiential aspects of Islamic architecture (including forms as varied as mosques, shrines, palaces, schools, and warehouses) - as well as the largely secular and often strongly figural tradition of Islamic painting, sculpture, ceramic, metal and glass objects. In particular, we will pay attention to how buildings and artistic objects were used: in which contexts, and by whom. We will explore the tension between the rich and diverse regionalism of Islamic art and its simultaneous universal identity. Has Islam, as one of the world’s great religions, given a special character to its art? Or is the term “Islamic” perhaps a misnomer to describe an artistic tradition that spans 1,400 years and three continents? We will also ask how certain external factors - for example accidents of preservation (i.e. more religious monuments survive than secular ones), or the many ways non-Muslims have perceived Islam – produced certain narratives about its artistic culture, both scholarly and popular.

How is Christianity in Egypt different from Christianity in the U.S.?  What is Zoroastrianism?  Is there a relationship between Islam and the Baha’i religion?  These are the types of questions that this course is intended to answer.  The course will provide an overview of the religious landscape of the Middle East, with units on Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Eastern Christianity, Islam, and the Baha’i religion.  Using a history of religions approach, we will examine the cosmological doctrines, founding narratives, scriptures, moral principles, and ritual practices of each of these traditions.

Textiles and material objects indigenous to the Islamic world, and what they reveal about the culture of various Islamic societies.

Although issues about sexuality are assumed to be personal, private, and intimate, they are a significant part of the public and political fabric of our society, particularly those nations that are ruled by the religious constitutions or in which religion plays an important role within the culture of the society. Sexuality is related to our status and rights as citizens. For the most part sexual jurisprudence and the issue of sexuality in Islam are covered in the Qur`an (Holy scripture), and in the sayings of prophet Muhammad (hadith), and in the rulings of religious leaders (fatwa). However, there are multiple “Islamic” views on sexuality. The schools of law vary, for instance, in the rulings about the permissibility of the use of contraceptives, abortion, fertility treatment, and acceptance of homosexuality, lesbianism, transsexuality, bisexuality, cross-dressing, and gender re-assignment. In addition, numerous cultural interventions could be responsible for interpretation of sexual behavior of a given society.

In general permissible sexual relationships as described in Islamic sources speak about the pleasure of sex as a normal human desire and explain that sex is a great way for the couples involved to show their love and caring for each other. At the same time there are prohibitions against extra marital sexual relations, and any other form of sexual relationship that is outside the legal and religious binds of marriage between a man and a woman is strictly forbidden.  

This course will introduce students to readings on sexual behavior in several Islamic countries and among Muslims by examining Islamic Sharia (religious law) in literature, scientific biological, psychological, sociological, anthropological studies as well as in the arena of art, and film industry.

This course will explore the evolution of the modern Christmas holiday, beginning with the birth stories of Jesus in the New Testament and concluding with the supposed “War on Christmas,” which some recent commentators believe has sought to remove the Christian religious roots of the holiday. Topics to be addressed include: non-Christian antecedents to and influences on Christmas; canonical and apocryphal stories about Jesus’ birth and childhood; the designation of Christmas on Dec. 25th in the fourth century; the raucous and subversive character of Christmas celebrations in the medieval and early modern periods; the sharp criticism of Christmas by the Puritans; the fixing of the current American version of Christmas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century; the contemporary debate over the constitutionality of religious Christmas displays in public places.

Grading:

• Class Participation and Attendance: 15%
• Three Short-Response Papers: 15%
• Midterm Exam: 20%
• Final Exam: 25%
• Final Research Paper: 25%

Texts:

• Bruce David Forbes, Christmas: A Candid History. University of California Press, 2007.
• Geza Vermes, The Nativity: History and Legend. Doubleday, 2006.
• Joseph F. Kelly, The Origins of Christmas. Liturgical Press, 2004.
• Brent Landau, Revelation of the Magi: The Lost Tale of the Wise Men’s Journey to Bethlehem. HarperCollins, 2010.
• Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas. Vintage, 1997.
• Karal Ann Marling, Merry Christmas! Celebrating America’s Greatest Holiday. Harvard University Press, 2009.

Prof. Henrik Bogdan

This course offers students an introduction to the academic study of Western esotericism, a relatively new field of research which covers a wide range of currents and practices such as magic, astrology and alchemy. The course will focus on modern forms of esotericism from 18^th century Freemasonry to esoteric New Religious Movements such as the modern Witchcraft movement (Wicca), Satanism and the New Age Movement. More specifically, the course will consider how esoteric practitioners responded to major changes in Western religion and spirituality due to the processes of modernity and secularization. By the end of the course, students will have an understanding of the major theoretical approaches to the study of Western esotericism and be familiar with several forms of modern esotericism.

Principal required texts:

• Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury, 2013
• Hugh B. Urban, Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.

There will also be additional articles and book chapters to be posted on Canvas.

Grading

• 50% Exams (midterm & final)
• 30% Research paper
• 20% Participation and attendance

Health-care professionals, bio-medical researchers, patients, and families in all societies are increasingly faced with ethical issues that arise because of new medical technologies and because of alternative approaches to health and illness. This course focuses on ethical questions such as allocation of medical resources, stem cell research and cloning, organ transplantation, abortion, human experimentation, prolonging life and the right to die, suicide, euthanasia, and the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses such as Alzheimer disease, AIDS, and mental disorders.

This course explores these topics from a global perspective, emphasizing how cultural values and ethical systems define moral issues and inform decision-making about medical care. We will consider ethical theories that have been used in the West to consider medical practice, and compare these with approaches in non-Western cultures such as Japan and India. The course emphasizes the use of case studies to explore issues in medical ethics and to develop the ability to apply ethical theories in ways sensitive to variations in cultural values. 

Students in this course engage in discussion and debate about difficult moral issues and it is likely that members of the class will have different, and sometimes profoundly conflicting, ideas about what is right and wrong. You should feel free to express and support your position; this is an important component of the class.

Comparing religions is nothing new. Religious people have always compared their beliefs and practices with those of their neighbors, sometimes with a sincere religious interest, sometimes only to claim the superiority of their own religion. When the academic discipline of Religious Studies was established in the late 19th century, scholars sought to compare without favoring a particular religious tradition. They were struck by the fact that the religions of the world seemed to have similar – or completely different – answers to the same existential questions. Some religious expressions (beliefs, practices, literature, art, institutions, etc.) appeared drastically different and others strikingly similar. Some scholars wondered if comparing religions would reveal a common sacred truth that underlay all the diverse forms of religious phenomena, while others warned that assuming such a religious essence was not an analytical but rather a religious assertion. Critics of comparison say that by alleging analogies in other cultures Western scholars impose their own concepts on those cultures, while comparativists insist that because all scholarly categories are comparative, comparison is indispensable. Analyzing those debates, this course will explore the risks and benefits of comparison in the study of religion. We will discuss and evaluate potential goals of a comparative study and develop ways in which it may be conducted both responsibly and productively. Numerous examples from Asian and other religions will enrich the discussions. During the course of the semester, students will also develop individual comparative projects.

Readings: Course packet

Grading:
Attendance/participation: 25%
Reading responses: 20%
Oral presentation: 10%
Research project: 45%