Freshman Seminars
The Center solicits proposals from humanities and social sciences faculty for new freshman seminars on topics significantly concerned with the study of religion. Freshman seminars provide a unique opportunity for students to work in a small setting with a professor and a few other students on a topic of special interest. Such seminars are in high demand by students and often result in new regular courses being added to the curriculum. Prior to the Center’s efforts in this area, very few freshman seminars were offered on religion. This gap is now being filled, as the Center provides incentives for faculty to teach in this area.
The Freshman Seminars for 2012-2013 are:
FRS 134 What Makes for a Meaningful Life? A Search, taught by Ellen Chances, Slavic Languages and Literatures, Spring 2013.
With the pressures and frenzied pace of contemporary American life, it might sometimes feel as if there is little time to contemplate the question of what makes for a meaningful life. How does each individual find deeper meaning for him/herself? What is the purpose of my life? What is the relationship of the meaning of my life to some kind of larger purpose? How do our lives fit into the larger world around us? Throughout the ages, writers, thinkers and religious figures; wise ordinary folks — the person next door, one’s parents and grandparents — have grappled with these questions. The course explores, from a variety of perspectives, some of the responses to the “big questions” of life. The readings and films are taken from different cultures, different time periods and different spheres of human endeavor and experience — for example, from Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov” to Kurosawa’s “Ikiru (To Live)”; from “The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi” to “Forrest Gump”; from Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations” to A.A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh”; from Taoism to Tolstoy; from Martin Buber’s “I and Thou” to Albert Camus’ “The Myth of Sisyphus” to Albert Schweitzer’s “reverence for life.” The goals of the seminar will be: (1) to investigate the thoughts that others have had; and (2) to examine the students’ own questions and responses to the issues raised.
FRS 156 Islam in the West, taught by Lawrence Rosen, Anthropology, Spring 2013
Recent years have seen a fluorescence of studies about the history and circumstances of Muslims in the West. From the Muslim slaves brought to the United States, through immigration as guest workers and residents in Europe, to the changing attitudes that followed in the wake of 9/11, the situation of Muslims in the United States and Europe provides a site for asking questions about religious integration and accommodation, the role of religious law and practices in the jurisprudence of a foreign culture, the representations of Islam in literature and film, and the relationship between the generation of initial migrants and their Western-raised progeny. Particular attention will be given to the insights from studies in religion and anthropology to the understanding of religious conversion, reform and revitalization; the formation of transnational charitable organizations as mechanisms of migrant-homeland continuity; the religious renewal of a younger generation; and the internal conflicts over proper rituals and prayer forms when people from diverse countries are brought together in a single place of worship. Building on my own experiences speaking to Muslim organizations in the United States, we will also arrange a meeting with Muslim student organizations on campus and make a trip to the nearby Islamic Center of Central Jersey in Monmouth Junction, N.J. (and possibly the Cordoba Center near Ground Zero in New York City) to talk with Muslim leaders about the current concerns of their congregants.
FRESHMAN SEMINARS OFFERED IN PAST YEARS:
2011-2012:
FRS 129 "Forgiveness," taught by Olga Peters Hasty, Slavic Languages and Literatures.
How to respond to wrongdoing is a complex issue, and one on which human coexistence depends. For millennia, forgiveness has been the domain of religious and philosophical thinkers, but recently it has also attracted the attention of sociologists, historians, political scientists, legal scholars, psychologists, and even medical professionals who are interested in reactive attitudes that foster individual and collective well-being. In this seminar we will explore how creative artists and thinkers from a broad variety of cultures struggle with translating the ideal of forgiveness into real-life settings. The narratives of forgiveness around which the seminar is structured serve as points of departure for discussing how forgiveness works (or doesn’t) in diverse contexts, including personal relations, want of due process, social injustice, retributive justice, and restorative justice in the aftermath of historical wrongs (e.g., war and colonialism). As we study narratives of other times and places that offer different perspectives on forgiveness, we will reflect on the pertinence of the questions they raise to our own world: How is “forgiveness” variously defined? What generates the need for forgiveness? Are there wrongs that cannot be forgiven? What consequences does forgiveness have for the forgiver and the forgiven? Is forgiveness contingent on repentance and atonement, or can it be unconditional? Who can rightfully extend forgiveness? What motivates someone to seek forgiveness? What constitutes apology? What sort of moral or ethical obligation is placed on those of whom forgiveness is asked? These and many other questions that a study of forgiveness opens have no single, unequivocal answer and must be revisited time and time again in the course of working out a good and just course of action that can help to rectify past wrongs and forestall new ones. (Wednesday 1:30 – 4:20 p.m.)
2010-2011:
FRS 168 "Morality in America," taught by Sarah Rivett, English.
This course examines the place of morality in American culture. We explore the power of morality to shape social conduct, the responsibility of an individual toward society, revolutions, and different ways of imagining the role of America in the world. The course considers two distinct—and at times competing—traditions of morality in America. One develops from Enlightenment concepts of reason, universalism, and individualism, and one emerges through the unique history of Protestantism in America. We begin with the moral codes that shaped two founding phases of America and the United States. Early immigrants to the New World struggled to establish a godly society based on Christian values of virtue and charity. Our readings invite us to consider how these values have persisted, even as the Enlightenment and the American Revolution contested and reconfigured society according to principles of reason, sentiment, and individualism. For example, we will examine the relationship between Christianity and political action in literature of the American Revolution by Thomas Paine and Phillis Wheatley. The culture of dissent evident in this literature forecasts centuries of American thought from antebellum reform movements to abolition and the American Civil War, from the Social Gospel movement to Civil Rights. How has morality intersected with the history of dissent represented in writings by Henry David Thoreau, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Charles Shelden?
2009-2010:
FRS 151 “Art and the Lifecycle in Africa” taught by Chika Okeke-Agulu, Art and
Archaeology and African American Studies.
The seminar explored art and rites associated with birth and childhood, initiation and rites of passage, marriage, manhood and womanhood, death and ancestorship in Africa. The course was enhanced by Life Objects: Rites of Passage in African Art, a special art exhibition organized specifically for this seminar by the Princeton University Art Museum.
2008-2009:
"The Varieties of Religious Experience Today" taught by João Biehl, Anthropology.
2007-2008:
FRS 116 “People of the (Comic) Book: Jews and Their Images in American and French Popular Culture” taught by Andre Benhaim, French.
2006-2007:
Kevin Kruse, History, “The Religious Right in Modern America”
2005-2006:
Leora Batnitzky, Religion, "Religion and Science: Biology, Minds, and Souls"
Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, Sociology, "God of Many Faces: Comparative Perspectives on Migration and Religion"
2004-2005:
Adam Elga, Philosophy, "Religious Conviction, Religious Disagreement."
2003-2004:
Michael Cadden, Theater and Dance, "Strange Angels: Some Twentieth-Century Annunciations."
Maria DiBattista, English, "Modern Heresies and the Literature of Belief."
Wendy Heller, Music, "The Music of the Jews: Worship, Culture, and Spirituality from Ancient to Modern Times."
Tom Leisten, Art and Archaeology,"Reconciling Unity and Diversity: Islamic Art and Islamic Culture."
Negin Nabavi, Near Eastern Studies, "Islamic Movements in the Modern Middle East."
Carolyn Rouse, Anthropology, African American Studies, "Engaged Surrender: Race, Gender, and Religion in the U.S."
Valerie Smith, English, African American Studies, "Religion and Resistance in Narratives of Slavery."
Tim Watson, English, "Conversions."
2002-2003:
Negin Nabavi, Near Eastern Studies, "Islamic Movements in the Modern Middle East."
2001-2002:
Isabelle Nabokov, Anthropology, "Violence and Anguish in Religious Experiences."
Susan Naquin, History, "Religious Movements in Modern China."
Francois Rigolot, Romance Languages and Literatures, "Religion, Renaissance, and Reformation."
2000-2001:
Ze’eva Cohen, Humanities, "Body and Spirit: A Comparative Approach to Sacred Dance."
Andrew Feldherr, Classics, "Literature and Sacrifice in the Greek and Roman World."
David Sussman, Philosophy, "Is It Rational to Believe in God?"
