Search Results
Your search for courses · during 2024-25 · tagged with RELG Pertinent Course · returned 28 results
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ASST 285 Mapping Japan, the Real and the Imagined 6 credits
From ancient to present times, Japan drew and redrew its borders, shape, and culture, imagining its place in this world and beyond, its From ancient times to the present, Japan drew and redrew its borders, reimagining its cultural and racial identity, and its place in this world and beyond. This course is a cartographic exploration of this complex and contested history. Cosmological mandalas, hell images, travel brochures, and military maps bring to light Japan’s religious vision, cartographic imagination, and political ambition that dictated its geopolitical expansion and the displacement of minority peoples at home, defining its real and imagined boundaries. We will explore a variety of maps, focusing on those in Carleton’s unique library collection.
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ASST 285.00 Spring 2025
- Faculty:Asuka Sango 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 236 1:15pm-3:00pm
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ENGL 202 The Bible as Literature 6 credits
We will approach the Bible not as an archaeological relic, nor as the Word of God, but “as a work of great literary force and authority [that has] shaped the minds and lives of intelligent men and women for two millennia and more.” As one place to investigate such shaping, we will sample how the Bible (especially in the “Authorized” or King James version) has drawn British and American poets and prose writers to borrow and deploy its language and respond creatively to its narratives, images, and visions.
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HIST 201 Rome Program: Building Power and Piety in Medieval Italy, C.E. 300-1150 6 credits
Through site visits, on-site projects, and readings, this course explores the ways in which individuals and communities attempted to give physical and visual form to their religious beliefs and political ambitions through their use of materials, iconography, topography, and architecture. We will also examine how the material legacies of imperial Rome, Byzantium, and early Christianity served as both resources for and constraints on the political, cultural, and religious evolution of the Italian peninsula and especially Rome and its environs from late antiquity through the twelfth century. Among the principal themes will be the development of the cult of saints, the development of the papal power and authority, Christianization, reform, pilgrimage, and monasticism.
Open only to participants in Carleton OCS Rome Program
- Spring 2025
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry IS, International Studies
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Acceptance in the Carleton OCS History in Rome Program.
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MELA 230 Worlds of Jewish Memory 6 credits
Judaism emphasizes transmitting memory from one generation to the next. How have pivotal events and experiences in Jewish history lived on in Jewish collective memory? How do they continue to speak through artistic/literary composition and museum/memorial design? How does Jewish collective memory compare with recorded Jewish history? We will study turning points in Jewish history including the Exodus from Egypt, Jewish expulsion from medieval Spain, the Holocaust, and Israeli independence, as Jews in different times and places have interpreted them with lasting influence. Research includes work with print, film, and other visual/ performative media.
CCST 230 is equivalent to MELA 230.
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MELA 230.00 Spring 2025
- Faculty:Stacy Beckwith 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLanguage & Dining Center 244 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLanguage & Dining Center 244 12:00pm-1:00pm
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RELG 100 The Qur’an as Literature 6 credits
The Qur'an is best known as the sacred text of Islam, but it is also one of the most widely read, dynamic, and influential texts in human history. It is not every text that can compel people to regard it as divine revelation. In fact, Muslims consider the Qur'an's literary composition a miracle. This course explores the literary style and structure of the Qur'an through close reading of its English translation. It also introduces students to the history of the Qur'an and its significance in Muslims' everyday lives. No background knowledge is assumed; nor is this an introduction to Islam.
Held for new first year students
- Fall 2024
- AI/WR1, Argument & Inquiry/WR1
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Student is a member of the First Year First Term class level cohort. Students are only allowed to register for one A&I course at a time. If a student wishes to change the A&I course they are enrolled in they must DROP the enrolled course and then ADD the new course. Please see our Workday guides Drop or 'Late' Drop a Course and Register or Waitlist for a Course Directly from the Course Listing for more information.
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RELG 100 Religion, Science, and the Moral Imagination 6 credits
How do we imagine the relationship between religion and science? Are they at odds, in harmony, or different ways of imagining ourselves, our world, and our futures? This course explores historical understandings of religious and scientific thought, and asks how the two came to be separated in the modern world. We use the imagination to explore the power dynamics and moral judgments embedded in assumptions about matter, nature, bodies, persons, and progress. We draw on literature, philosophy, and theology to consider questions about authority, ethics, and existential hope, focusing on climate crisis, AI and personhood, racism, and the possibility of alternative futures. Argument & Inquiry
Held for new first year students
- Fall 2024
- AI/WR1, Argument & Inquiry/WR1
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Student is a member of the First Year First Term class level cohort. Students are only allowed to register for one A&I course at a time. If a student wishes to change the A&I course they are enrolled in they must DROP the enrolled course and then ADD the new course. Please see our Workday guides Drop or 'Late' Drop a Course and Register or Waitlist for a Course Directly from the Course Listing for more information.
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RELG 100.04 Fall 2024
- Faculty:Lori Pearson 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- M, WLeighton 303 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 303 1:10pm-2:10pm
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RELG 110 Understanding Religion 6 credits
How can we best understand the role of religion in the world today, and how should we interpret the meaning of religious traditions–their texts and practices–in history and culture? This class takes an exciting tour through selected themes and puzzles related to the fascinating and diverse expressions of religion throughout the world. From politics and pop culture, to religious philosophies and spiritual practices, to rituals, scriptures, gender, religious authority, and more, students will explore how these issues emerge in a variety of religions, places, and historical moments in the U.S. and across the globe.
- Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies WR2 Writing Requirement 2
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RELG 110.00 Fall 2024
- Faculty:Sonja Anderson 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 330 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 330 2:20pm-3:20pm
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RELG 110.00 Winter 2025
- Faculty:Kambiz GhaneaBassiri 🏫 👤
- Size:30
- M, WHulings 316 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FHulings 316 2:20pm-3:20pm
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RELG 110.00 Spring 2025
- Faculty:Chumie Juni 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WHasenstab 105 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FHasenstab 105 1:10pm-2:10pm
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RELG 110.02 Spring 2025
- Faculty:Chumie Juni 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WHasenstab 105 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FHasenstab 105 2:20pm-3:20pm
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RELG 120 Judaism: Text, History, Practice 6 credits
What is Judaism? Who are Jewish people? What are Jewish texts, practices, ideas? What ripples have Jewish people, texts, practices, and ideas caused beyond their sphere? These questions will animate our study as we touch on specific points in over three millennia of history. We will immerse ourselves in Jewish texts, historic events, and cultural moments, trying to understand them on their own terms. At the same time, we will analyze them using key concepts such as ‘tradition,’ ‘culture,’ ‘power,’ and ‘diaspora.’ We will explore how ‘Jewishness’ has been constructed by different stakeholders, each claiming the authority to define it.
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RELG 120.00 Fall 2024
- Faculty:Chumie Juni 🏫 👤
- Size:30
- T, THLeighton 304 1:15pm-3:00pm
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RELG 121 Introduction to Christianity 6 credits
This course will trace the history of Christianity from its origins in the villages of Palestine, to its emergence as the official religion of the Roman Empire, and through its evolution and expansion as the world’s largest religion. The course will focus on events, persons, and ideas that have had the greatest impact on the history of Christianity, and examine how this tradition has evolved in different ways in response to different needs, cultures, and tensions–political and otherwise–around the world. This is an introductory course. No familiarity with the Bible, Christianity, or the academic study of religion is presupposed.
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RELG 121.00 Spring 2025
- Faculty:Sonja Anderson 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 330 1:50pm-3:00pm
- FLeighton 330 2:20pm-3:20pm
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RELG 122 Introduction to Islam 6 credits
This course is a general introduction to Islam as a prophetic religious tradition. It explores the different ways Muslims have interpreted and put into practice the prophetic message of Muhammad through analyses of varying theological, legal, political, mystical, and literary writings as well as through Muslims’ lived histories. These analyses aim for students to develop a framework for explaining the sources and vocabularies through which historically specific human experiences and understandings of the world have been signified as Islamic. The course will focus primarily on the early and modern periods of Islamic history.
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RELG 122.00 Winter 2025
- Faculty:Kambiz GhaneaBassiri 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 303 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 303 12:00pm-1:00pm
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RELG 130 Native American Religions 6 credits
This course explores the history and contemporary practice of Native American religious traditions, especially as they have developed amid colonization and resistance. While surveying a broad variety of ways that Native American traditions imagine land, community, and the sacred, the course focuses on the local traditions of the Ojibwe and Lakota communities. Materials include traditional beliefs and practices, the history of missions, intertribal new religious movements, and contemporary issues of treaty rights, religious freedom, and the revitalization of language and culture.
Sophomore Priority
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RELG 130.00 Fall 2024
- Faculty:Michael McNally 🏫 👤
- Size:30
- T, THLeighton 426 10:10am-11:55am
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RELG 155 Hinduism: An Introduction 6 credits
Hinduism is the world’s third-largest religion (or, as some prefer, “way of life”), with about 1.2 billion followers. It is also one of its oldest, with roots dating back at least 3500 years. “Hinduism,” however, is a loosely defined, even contested term, designating the wide variety of beliefs and practices of the majority of the people of South Asia. This survey course introduces students to this great variety, including social structures (such as the caste system), rituals and scriptures, mythologies and epics, philosophies, life practices, politics, poetry, sex, gender, Bollywood, and—lest we forget—some 330 million gods and goddesses.
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RELG 155.00 Spring 2025
- Faculty:Kristin Bloomer 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 402 1:15pm-3:00pm
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Extra Time Required. Students must attend a required field trip to the Hindu Temple of Maple Grove on a Saturday or Sunday morning (date TBD).
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RELG 213 Religion, Medicine, and Healing 6 credits
How do religion and medicine approach the healing of disease and distress? Are religion and medicine complementary or do they conflict? Is medicine a more evolved form of religion, shorn of superstition and pseudoscience? This course explores religious and cultural models of health and techniques for achieving it, from ancient Greece to Christian monasteries to modern mindfulness and self-care programs. We will consider ethical quandaries about death, bodily suffering, mental illness, miraculous cures, and individual agency, all the while seeking to avoid simplistic narratives of rationality and irrationality.
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RELG 213.00 Spring 2025
- Faculty:Sonja Anderson 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 330 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 330 12:00pm-1:00pm
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RELG 218 The Body in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam 6 credits
Mind and body are often considered separate but not equal; the mind gives commands to the body and the body complies. Exploring the ways the three religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam think about the body will deepen our understanding of the mind-body relationship. We will ask questions such as: How does the body direct the mind? How do religious practices discipline the body and the mind, and how do habits of body and mind change the forms and meanings of these practices? Gender, sexuality, sensuality, and bodily function will be major axes of analysis.
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RELG 218.00 Winter 2025
- Faculty:Chumie Juni 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 330 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 330 9:40am-10:40am
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RELG 219 Religious Law, Il/legal Religions 6 credits
The concept of law plays a central role in religion, and the concept of religion plays a central role in law. We often use the word ‘law’ to describe obligatory religious practices. But is that ‘law,’ as compared with state law? Legal systems in the U.S. and Europe make laws that protect religious people, and that protect governments from religion. But what does ‘religion’ mean in a legal context? And how do implicit notions of religious law affect how judges deal with religion? We will explore these questions using sources drawn from contemporary religions and recent legal disputes.
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RELG 219.00 Winter 2025
- Faculty:Chumie Juni 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 330 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLeighton 330 1:10pm-2:10pm
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RELG 227 Liberation Theologies 6 credits
Is God on the side of the poor? This course explores how liberation theologians have called for justice, social change, and resistance by drawing on fundamental sources in Christian tradition and by using economic and political theories to address poverty, racism, oppression, gender injustice, and more. We explore the principles of liberationist thought, including black theology, Latin American liberation theology, and feminist theology through writings of various contemporary thinkers. We also examine the social settings out of which these thinkers have emerged, their critiques of “traditional” theologies, and the new vision of community they have developed in various contexts.
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RELG 227.00 Winter 2025
- Faculty:Lori Pearson 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 330 1:15pm-3:00pm
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RELG 233 Gender and Power in the Catholic Church 6 credits
How does power flow and concentrate in the Catholic Church? What are the gendered aspects of the Church’s structure, history, and theology? Through readings, discussions, and analysis of current media, students will develop the ability to critically and empathetically interpret issues of gender, sexuality, and power in the Catholic Church, especially as these issues appear in official Vatican texts. Topics include: God, suffering, sacraments, salvation, damnation, celibacy, homosexuality, the family, saints, the ordination of women as priests, feminist theologies, canon law, the censuring of “heretical” theologians, Catholic hospital policy, and the clerical sex abuse crisis.
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RELG 233.00 Winter 2025
- Faculty:Sonja Anderson 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 330 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 330 12:00pm-1:00pm
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RELG 261 Race & Empire in American Islam 6 credits
From colonial times when Muslims were brought to America as slaves, to the aftermath of the Spanish-American War when the United States found itself ruling over a large Muslim population in the Philippines, to the more recent War on Terror, Muslims and Islam have long been entangled in the politics of race and empire in America. This course will examine these entanglements through primary and secondary sources to better understand the role that race, religion, and empire have played in the forging of American Islam today.
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RELG 261.00 Spring 2025
- Faculty:Kambiz GhaneaBassiri 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLibrary 344 3:10pm-4:55pm
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RELG 278 Love of God in Islam 6 credits
As the chosen messenger of God's final revelation, Muslims consider Muhammad to be God's beloved par excellence. He is believed to have not only received God's words but to have also experienced the divine. For Muhammad's followers, love has been a central means of attaining experiential knowledge of God. The Islamic tradition, particularly in the form of Sufism, developed a highly sophisticated literature for understanding God through love. This course will trace and analyze the historical development of this literature and the practices associated with it from the Qur'an (600s) to Rumi (1200s).
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RELG 278.00 Fall 2024
- Faculty:Kambiz GhaneaBassiri 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLibrary 344 12:30pm-1:40pm
- FLibrary 344 1:10pm-2:10pm
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RELG 282 Samurai: Ethics of Death and Loyalty 6 credits
This course explores the history of samurai since the emergence of warrior class in medieval times, to the modern developments of samurai ethics as the icon of Japanese national identity. Focusing on its connection with Japanese religion and culture, we will investigate the origins of the purported samurai ideals of loyalty, honor, self-sacrifice, and death. In addition to regular class sessions, there will be a weekly kyudo (Japanese archery) practice on Wednesday evening (7-9 pm), which will enable students to study samurai history in context through gaining first-hand experience in the ritualized practice of kyudo.
Extra Time for weekly kyudo (Japanese archery) practice on Wednesday evening (7-9 pm)
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RELG 282.00 Fall 2024
- Faculty:Asuka Sango 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- M, WLeighton 236 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 236 9:40am-10:40am
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RELG 287 Many Marys 6 credits
Christianity, by its very name, focuses on Jesus. This course shifts the focus to Mary, his mother: her various manifestations and her contributions to the myriad experiences of peoples around the world. Race, gender, class, and feminist and liberation theologies come into play as Mary presents as: the Mother of God; queen of heaven; a Black madonna; a Mestiza madonna; an exceptional woman with her own chapter in the Qur'an; various goddesses in Haitian Vodoun, Hinduism, and Buddhism; a tattoo on the backs of U.S. prisoners–and so on. In addition to considering Miriam (her Jewish name) as she appears in literature, art, apparition, and ritual practice around the world, we will also consider Mary Magdalene, her foil, who appears in popular discourse from the Gnostic gospels to The Da Vinci Code.
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RELG 287.00 Winter 2025
- Faculty:Kristin Bloomer 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THLeighton 301 3:10pm-4:55pm
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RELG 300 Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion 6 credits
What, exactly, is religion and what conditions of modernity have made it urgent to articulate such a question in the first place? Why does religion exert such force in human society and history? Is it an opiate of the masses or an illusion laden with human wish-fulfillment? Is it a social glue? A subjective experience of the sacred? Is it simply a universalized Protestant Christianity in disguise, useful in understanding, and colonizing, the non-Christian world? This seminar, for junior majors and advanced majors from related fields, explores generative theories from anthropology, sociology, psychology, literary studies, and the history of religions.
- Winter 2025
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry
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RELG 300.00 Winter 2025
- Faculty:Lori Pearson 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- T, THLeighton 301 10:10am-11:55am
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RELG 329 Modernity and Tradition 6 credits
How do we define traditions if they change over time and are marked by internal conflict? Is there anything stable about a religious tradition—an essence, or a set of practices or beliefs that abide amidst diversity and mark it off from a surrounding culture or religion? How do people live out or re-invent their traditions in the modern world? In this seminar we explore questions about pluralism, identity, authority, and truth, and we examine the creative ways beliefs and practices change in relation to culture. We consider how traditions grapple with difference, especially regarding theology, ethics, law, and gender.
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RELG 329.00 Fall 2024
- Faculty:Lori Pearson 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- M, WLeighton 303 9:50am-11:00am
- FLeighton 303 9:40am-10:40am
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RELG 344 Lived Religion in America 6 credits
The practices of popular, or local, or lived religion in American culture often blur the distinction between the sacred and profane and elude religious studies frameworks based on the narrative, theological, or institutional foundations of “official” religion. This course explores American religion primarily through the lens of the practices of lived religion with respect to ritual, the body, the life cycle, the market, leisure, and popular culture. Consideration of a wide range of topics, including ritual healing, Christmas, cremation, and Elvis, will nourish an ongoing discussion about how to make sense of lived religion.
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RELG 344.00 Spring 2025
- Faculty:Michael McNally 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- T, THLeighton 303 10:10am-11:55am
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RELG 359 Buddhist Studies India Program: Buddhist Meditation Traditions
Students will complement their understanding of Buddhist thought and culture through the study and practice of traditional meditation disciplines. This course emphasizes the history, characteristics, and approach of three distinct meditation traditions within Buddhism: Vipassana, Zazen, and Dzogchen. Meditation practice and instruction is led in the morning and evening six days a week by representatives of these traditions who possess a theoretical as well as practical understanding of their discipline. Lectures and discussions led by the program director complement and contextualize the three meditation traditions being studied.
Open only to participants in OCP GEP Buddhist Studies India Program
- Fall 2024
- IS, International Studies No Exploration
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Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Buddhist Studies in India program.
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RELG 399 Senior Research Seminar 6 credits
This seminar will acquaint students with research tools in various fields of religious studies, provide an opportunity to present and discuss research work in progress, hone writing skills, and improve oral presentation techniques.
- Winter 2025
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry
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RELG 399.00 Winter 2025
- Faculty:Kristin Bloomer 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- T, THLeighton 236 10:10am-11:55am
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RELG 400 Integrative Exercise 3 credits
Religion 400 covers two required elements of the comprehensive exercise for the Religion major. All seniors must enroll in Religion 400 for one credit in fall term of senior year, when students will write and revise their comps research proposals. All seniors must then enroll in Religion 400 for two credits in spring term of senior year, when each student will finalize the research paper, create and deliver an oral presentation on it, and attend the oral presentations of all religion majors in the senior class. (The paper is drafted during winter term in Religion 399.)
- Winter 2025, Spring 2025
- No Exploration
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Student is a Religion major and has Senior Priority.
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SOAN 228 Public Sociology of Religion 6 credits
This course focuses on special topics in the public sociology of religion. We will look at the intersection of race, religion, and politics in the U.S.; the intersection of science and religion in Indigenous-led environmental movements; and varieties of public religion around the world—including Islamic feminism and democracy in Egypt and Indonesia, Coptic Christianity and the Muslim Brotherhood, orthodox Jewish movements in Israel, American evangelicals in the U.S., and Black church mobilization in the U.S. civil rights movement. As we do so, we will examine core theoretical perspectives and empirical developments in the contemporary sociology of religion. The department strongly recommends that Sociology/Anthropology 110 or 111 be taken prior to enrolling in courses numbered 200 or above.
- Spring 2025
- IS, International Studies SI, Social Inquiry
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SOAN 228.00 Spring 2025
- Faculty:Wes Markofski 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- M, WLeighton 202 11:10am-12:20pm
- FLeighton 202 12:00pm-1:00pm