Fall 2023

  • RELG 100: Christianity and Colonialism

    From its beginnings, Christianity has been concerned with the making of new persons and worlds: the creation of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. It has also maintained a tight relationship to power, empire, and the making of modernity. In this course we will investigate this relationship within the context of colonial projects in the Americas, Africa, India, and the Pacific. We will trace the making of modern selves from Columbus to the abolition (and remainders) of slavery, and from the arrival of Cook in the Sandwich Islands to the journals of missionaries and the contemporary fight for Hawaiian sovereignty.

     6 credits; Argument and Inquiry Seminar, International Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2023 · Kristin Bloomer

  • RELG 100: Re-Imagining God

    How have religious thinkers interrogated the concept “God” in response to the intellectual challenges and political crises of the modern world? In this class, we consider how mass suffering, racial injustice, political oppression, ecological concerns, and religious pluralism have prompted theologians to redefine the very meaning of the word “God” and the nature of God’s power, agency, and relationship to human communities. We also examine the definitions of power, truth, and human fulfillment embedded in these theologies, as well as their interpretations of suffering, faith, meaning, and resilience. Readings draw primarily from Christianity, and also from Judaism.

     6 credits; Argument and Inquiry Seminar, Intercultural Domestic Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2023 · Lori Pearson

  • RELG 110: Understanding Religion

    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.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, Intercultural Domestic Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024 · Lori Pearson, Michael McNally, Sonja Anderson

  • RELG 122: Introduction to Islam

    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.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, International Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2023 · Kambiz GhaneaBassiri

  • RELG 212: Black Religious Thought

    Although Black thinkers are well-known for discussing religion, the relationship between Blackness and religious thought is ambiguous. Much like religion can be understood in numerous ways, so does “Black” carry several meanings. In this course, we will investigate this ambiguity by unpacking how Black thinkers have expanded upon, reimagined, and rejected various forms of religious practices, beliefs, and institutions. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which these engagements are shaped by thinkers’ identification with, definition of, and politics surrounding Blackness and the African diaspora. The syllabus may include Baldwin, Hurston, Malcolm X, and Cone.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, Intercultural Domestic Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2023 · Paul Cato

  • RELG 239: Religion & American Landscape

    The American landscape is rich in sacred places. The religious imaginations, practices, and beliefs of its diverse inhabitants have shaped that landscape and been shaped by it. This course explores ways of imagining relationships between land, community, and the sacred, the mapping of religious traditions onto American land and cityscapes, and theories of sacred space and spatial practices. Topics include religious place-making practices of Indigenous, Latinx, and African Americans, as well as those of Euro-American communities from Puritans, Mormons, immigrant farmers.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, Intercultural Domestic Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2023 · Michael McNally

  • RELG 266: Modern Islamic Thought

    Through close reading of primary sources, this course examines how some of the most influential Muslim thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the Middle East and South Asia conceptualized God and the ideal God-human relationship to address such pressing questions as: How should religion relate to modern technological and scientific advancements? Can Islam serve as an ideology to counter European colonialism? Can Islam become the basis for the formation of social and political life under a nation-state, or does it demand a transnational political collectivity of its own? What would a modern Islamic economy look like?

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, International Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2023 · Kambiz GhaneaBassiri

  • RELG 289: Global Religions in Minnesota

    Somali Muslims in Rice County? Hindus in Maple Grove? Hmong shamans in St. Paul hospitals? Sun Dances in Pipestone? In light of globalization, the religious landscape of Minnesota, like America more broadly, has become more visibly diverse. Lake Wobegon stereotypes aside, Minnesota has always been characterized by some diversity but the realities of immigration, dispossession, dislocation, economics, and technology have made religious diversity more pressing in its implications for every arena of civic and cultural life. This course bridges theoretical knowledge with engaged field research focused on how Midwestern contexts shape global religious communities and how these communities challenge and transform Minnesota. 6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, Intercultural Domestic Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2023 · Michael McNally

  • RELG 322: Apocalypse How?

    When will the world end, and how? What’s wrong with the world that makes its destruction necessary or inevitable? Are visions of “The End” a form of resistance literature, aimed at oppressive systems? Or do they come from paranoid minds disconnected from reality? This seminar explores apocalyptic thought, which in its basic form is about unmasking the deceptions of the given world by revealing the secret workings of the universe. We begin with ancient Jewish and Christian apocalypses and move into modern religious and “secular” visions of cosmic collapse, including doomsday cults, slave revolts, UFO religions, and Evangelical fantasies about armageddon in the Middle East. We will also create a giant handwritten manuscript of the book of Revelation using calligraphy pens, paint, and gold leaf.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, Intercultural Domestic Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2023 · Sonja Anderson

  • 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.

     Prerequisites: Acceptance into the Carleton-Antioch Program required 7-8 credits; International Studies, Does not fulfill a curricular exploration requirement; offered Fall 2023 · Arthur McKeown

  • RELG 400: Integrative Exercise

    3 credits; S/NC; offered Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2024 · Kristin Bloomer

Winter 2024

  • RELG 110: Understanding Religion

    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.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, Intercultural Domestic Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024 · Lori Pearson, Michael McNally, Sonja Anderson

  • RELG 120: Introduction to Judaism

    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.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, International Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2024 · Laura Levitt

  • RELG 140: Religion and American Culture

    This course explores the colorful, contested history of religion in American culture. While surveying the main contours of religion in the United States from the colonial era to the present, the course concentrates on a series of historical moments that reveal tensions between a quest for a (Protestant) American consensus and an abiding religious and cultural pluralism. 6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, Intercultural Domestic Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2024 · Michael McNally

  • RELG 162: Jesus, the Bible, and Christian Beginnings

    Who was Jesus? What’s in the Bible? How did Christianity begin? This course is an introduction to the ancient Jewish texts that became the Christian New Testament, as well as other texts that did not make it into the Bible. We will take a historical approach, situating this literature within the Roman Empire of the first century, and we will also learn about how modern readers have interpreted it. Along the way, we will pay special attention to two topics of enduring political debate: (1) Whether the Bible supports oppression or liberation and (2) What the Bible says about gender and sexuality.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, International Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2024 · Sonja Anderson

  • RELG 233: Gender and Power in the Catholic Church

    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.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, Intercultural Domestic Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2024 · Sonja Anderson

  • RELG 235: Religion and Identity in the Medieval Middle East

    This course explores the emergence and formation of Islam as a faith in the medieval Middle East (sixth-eleventh centuries) and its impact on social relations and identities in the complex and evolving cultural and religious communities that populated this multifaceted region. Through close reading and discussion of primary sources (in translation) (Arabic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Armenian, Persian, Greek, and Latin) and scholarship, we will situate the development of Islam in the context of religious and social change in this period and to understand Islam’s role in the transformation of life in the region.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, International Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2024 · Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, William North

  • RELG 236: Black Love: Religious, Political, and Cultural Discussions

    In 2021, the passing of Black feminist bell hooks led the scholarly journal Women’s Studies Quarterly (WSQ) to publish a special issue on Black love: hooks’ expertise. As is often the case in discussions of Blackness and love, the issue included many allusions to the divine and suggested some ties between race, love, and religion. Drawing inspiration from WSQ, this class will investigate the role religion, spirituality, and belief play in conversations about Blackness, love, and their intersection. The syllabus will include an array of academic essays, personal reflections, and creative works, including those by Lorde, Hartman, and Wonder.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, Intercultural Domestic Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Winter 2024 · Paul Cato

  • RELG 300: Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion

    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. 6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry; offered Winter 2024 · Lori Pearson

  • RELG 399: Senior Research Seminar

    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. Prerequisites: Religion 300 and acceptance of proposal for senior integrative exercise and instructor permission. 6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry; offered Winter 2024 · Kristin Bloomer

Spring 2024

  • RELG 110: Understanding Religion

    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.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, Intercultural Domestic Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024 · Lori Pearson, Michael McNally, Sonja Anderson

  • RELG 152: Religions in Japanese Culture

    An introduction to the major religious traditions of Japan, from earliest times to the present. Combining thematic and historical approaches, this course will scrutinize both defining characteristics of, and interactions among, various religious traditions, including worship of the kami (local deities), Buddhism, shamanistic practices, Christianity, and new religious movements. We also will discuss issues crucial in the study of religion, such as the relation between religion and violence, gender, modernity, nationalism and war. 6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, International Studies, Quantitative Reasoning Encounter, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2024 · Asuka Sango

  • RELG 153: Introduction to Buddhism

    This course offers a survey of Buddhism from its inception in India some 2500 years ago to the present. We first address fundamental Buddhist ideas and practices, then their elaboration in the Mahayana and tantric movements, which emerged in the first millennium CE in India. We also consider the diffusion of Buddhism throughout Asia and to the West. Attention will be given to both continuity and diversity within Buddhism–to its commonalities and transformations in specific historical and cultural settings. We also will address philosophical, social, political, and ethical problems that are debated among Buddhists and scholars of Buddhism today. 6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, International Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2024 · Asuka Sango

  • RELG 222: Trauma, Loss, Memory: Holocaust and Genocide

    Building on the legacy of Holocaust memory and commemoration, this course considers how different losses touch and, in the process, illuminate each other in their similarities and in their differences. It asks questions about what it means to do justice to these legacies. Students will read works by James Young on monuments and memorials, Marianne Hirsch on postmemory, Michael Rothberg on multidirectional memory, and Svetlana Boym on diasporic intimacy and the possibility of connection after traumatic loss. Students will be encouraged to consider a range of texts and legacies of trauma and loss placing them in conversation with course readings.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, International Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2024 · Laura Levitt

  • RELG 231: From Luther to Kierkegaard

    Martin Luther and the Reformation have often been understood as crucial factors in the rise of “modernity.” Yet, the Reformation was also a medieval event, and Luther was certainly a product of the late Middle Ages. This class focuses on the theology of the Protestant Reformation, and traces its legacy in the modern world. We read Luther, Calvin, and Anabaptists, exploring debates over politics, church authority, scripture, faith, and salvation. We then trace the appropriation of these ideas by modern thinkers, who draw upon the perceived individualism of the Reformers in their interpretations of religious experience, despair, freedom, and secularization.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, International Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2024 · Lori Pearson

  • RELG 234: Angels, Demons, and Evil

    Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad things happen, period? Could angels and demons have something to do with it? This course asks how cosmology—an account of how the universe is put together and the different entities that inhabit it—can be an answer to the problem of evil and injustice. We will start with a historical investigation of the demonology and angelology of ancient pagan, Jewish, and Christian texts and then move into modern practices such as exorcism and magical realist literature. Along the way, we will keep asking how these systems justify the existence of evil and provide programs for dealing with it.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, International Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2024 · Sonja Anderson

  • RELG 237: Yoga: Religion, History, Practice

    Historically, yoga’s roots can be traced as far back as 1500 BCE. As for “religion,” in the modern period, yoga has largely been unyoked from it. But the Sanskrit root yuj means to “add,” “join,” or “unite”—and in Indian philosophy and practice it has long been: a method of devotion; a way to “yoke” the body/mind; a means to unite with Ultimate Reality; a form of concentration and meditation. Over time, it has been medicalized into a form of public health. This course will concentrate on texts, images, and cultures old and new. Come prepared to wear loose clothing!

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, International Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2024 · Kristin Bloomer

  • RELG 267: Black Testimony: Art, Literature, Philosophy

    Throughout Black history, testimony–a discourse in which an individual uses personal stories to convey ideas of broader meaning–has played an essential role in Black religion, politics, and daily life. In this course, we will identify the significance, history, and particularities of Black people’s testimonies, and outline their presence and potential today. Remaining mindful of testimony’s religious dimensions will include particular attention to the role of religion and spirituality in the assigned materials. The syllabus may include testimonial art by Romare Bearden and Kenrick Lamar, writings by Angela Davis and Frederick Douglass, and films by Barry Jenkins.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, Intercultural Domestic Studies, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2024 · Paul Cato

  • RELG 379: Material Religion

    While many people associate religions with spirituality and transcendence, religious beliefs and practices have always been mediated through objects, sensory experiences, bodies, and spaces. Broadly speaking these constitute the material dimensions of religion. This course will first introduce students to the major theoretical and methodological issues involved in the study of material religion. Students will then be asked to put what they have learned to practice by developing a research project around a religious thing or some other material aspect of religion.

     6 credits; Humanistic Inquiry, Writing Requirement; offered Spring 2024 · Kambiz GhaneaBassiri

  • RELG 400: Integrative Exercise

    3 credits; S/NC; offered Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2024 · Kristin Bloomer

  • RELG 400: Integrative Exercise

    3 credits; S/NC; offered Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2024 · Kristin Bloomer

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