Princeton University

Undergraduate Program

REL SEM
Required Colloquium for Junior Majors
Professor(s): Leigh E. Schmidt
Description:
First semester Junior Majors participate in a required workshop on research and writing that culminates in a ten-page research paper. The colloquium is a non-credit fifth course. The grade for the colloquium is factored into the final grade for the junior independent work.

JDS 202/REL 202
Great Books of the Jewish Tradition
Professor(s): Peter Schäfer
Department Area Requirement:   Ancient Mediterranean
Description: This course is intended to introduce students to the classical Jewish tradition through a close reading of portions of some of its great books. These books include the Bible, rabbinic midrash, the Talmud, Rashi's commentary on the Torah, Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, the Zohar (the central work of the Kabbalah), Moses Mendelssohn's Jerusalem , Salomon Maimon's Autobiography, Leo Baeck's The Essence of Judaism, and Gershom Scholem's The Messianic Idea in Judaism. As we read, we will consider what these works tell us about creation, revelation, and salvation in Jewish tradition and how they come to define that tradition.

ANT 208/REL 208
Religious Mediascapes: Religion, Media, and Culture
Professor(s): Carolyn M. Rouse
Department Area Requirement: Does NOT satisfy sub-field requirement; does NOT count as a departmental.
Description: This course explores how religious media in the United States shapes cultural and social identities. From televangelism to religious radio programming, the mass marketing of faith is contributing to how people understand themselves as gendered, raced, and classed subjects. But are these programs helping to sustain a fragile consensus within and between religious communities, or are they threatening religious pluralism? This course examines what is at stake politically in this religious war of symbols generated within mediascapes.

REL 210
Religions of India
Professor(s): Jonathan Gold
Department Area Requirement: Religions of Asia
Description: This course traces the historical development of the major religious traditions of India , with special emphasis on Hindu traditions, but also treating Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. We will investigate how these traditions have shaped their religious practices and worldviews in an ongoing contest for Indian hearts and minds.

REL 225
The Buddhist World of Thought and Practice
Professor(s): Jacqueline I. Stone
Department Area Requirement: Religions of Asia
Description: This course surveys the development of Buddhism from its beginnings in India through some of its later forms in East Asia , Tibet , and the West. Attention will be given to continuity and diversity within Buddhism, its modes of self-definition as a religious tradition, the interplay of its practical and trans-worldly concerns, and its transformations in specific historical and cultural settings.

REL 230/JDS 230
Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel
Professor(s): Simeon B. Chavel
Department Area Requirement: Ancient Mediterranean
Description: Critical introduction to ancient Israel of the First Temple period and the literature of the Hebrew Bible that it produced. Focus on notions of divinity, justice, and worship; kingship and family; men and women; prophecy. Draws on archaeology of the Levant ; inscriptions and mythology from around the ancient Near East.

NES 240/REL 240
Muslims and the Qur'an
Professor(s): Muhammad Q. Zaman
Department Area Requirement: Islam
Description: A broad-ranging introduction to pre-modern, modern, and contemporary Islam in light of how Muslims have approached their foundational religious text, the Qur'an. Topics include: Muhammad and the emergence of Islam; theology, law and ethics; war and peace; mysticism; women and gender; and modern debates on Islamic reform. We shall examine the varied contexts in which Muslims have interpreted their sacred text, their agreements and disagreements on what it means and, more broadly, their often competing understandings of Islam and of what it is to be a Muslim.

REL 252
The Early Christian Movement
Professor(s): Elaine H. Pagels
Department Area Requirement: Ancient Mediterranean
Description: Investigation of the history of the Christian movement, starting from the earliest gospel sources, from the New Testament gospels of Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John to gospels outside the canon, including the gospels of Thomas and Mary Magdalene. Topics include: the letters of the apostle Paul, and how they were read; questions about what resurrection means; what sexual practices Christians should--or should not--observe; the formation of "heresy" and "orthodoxy"; early sources on persecution of Christians, and the "acts of the martyrs"; the impact of persecution on church organization; and some writings of major "church fathers".

REL 258
Religion in American Society
Professor(s): R. M. Griffith
Department Area Requirement: Religion in America

Description: A survey of the contemporary shape of religion in the United States . Emphasis on religious encounter and conflict; secularization, resurgent traditionalism, and new religious establishments; experimentalism, eclecticism, and "spiritual" countercultures; the relationship between religious change and broader social and political currents (including clashes over race, sexuality, and gender); and the enduring challenges of pluralism in the U.S. Readings drawn from primary sources.

REL 261/CHV 261
Christian Ethics and Modern Society
Professor(s): Eric S. Gregory
Department Area Requirement: Critical Thought
Description: An introduction to Christian ideals of conduct, character, and community, and to modern disputes over their interpretation and application. Are Christian virtues and principles fundamentally at odds with the ethos of liberal democracy oriented toward rights, equality, and freedom? What do Christian beliefs and moral concepts imply about issues related to feminism, racism, and pluralism? What is the relationship between religious convictions, morality, and law? Special emphasis on selected political and economic problems, sexuality and marriage, bioethics, capital punishment, the environment, war, and the role of religion in public life.

JDS 302/NES 302/REL 302
Elementary Biblical Hebrew I
Professor(s): Simeon B. Chavel
Department Area Requirement: Does NOT satisfy sub-field requirement; does NOT count as a departmental.
Description: Students will achieve a basic ability to read the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in its original language. During the semester, students will learn the script and grammar, develop a working vocabulary, and master the standard dictionaries, all the while reading passages from the Bible itself.

WOM 302
Topics in the Study of Gender: Religion, Gender, and Sexuality
Professor(s): R. M. Griffith
Department Area Requirement:   Does NOT satisfy sub-field requirement.   DOES count as a departmental.
Description:   Religious beliefs about gender and sexuality play a vital role in American culture, seen recently in debates over gay marriage, pornography, STD's, abortion, transsexualism, stay-at-home motherhood, the Kinsey film, and abstinence-only sex education. This course explores the centrality of sexual matters to religious communities in the U.S. , emphasizing Christianity (both Protestant and Catholic forms) and its role in regulating the sexual practices of women, men, and teens. 

REL 312
Augustine and Aquinas
Professor(s): Eric S. Gregory
Department Area Requirement: Critical Thought
Description: A comparative study of the primary texts of Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas. Topics include: the problem of evil, human nature, the existence of God, freedom and grace, ethics and politics, and the relation of theology to philosophy. Attention also given to the contemporary legacy of these influential and contested thinkers.

AAS 321/REL 321
Black Power and Its Theology of Liberation
Professor(s): Eddie S. Glaude
Department Area Requirement: Religion in America
Description: This course examines the various pieties of the Black Power Era. We chart the explicit and implicit utopian visions of the politics of the period that, at once, criticized established black religious institutions and articulated alternative ways of imagining salvation. We also explore the attempt by black theologians to translate the prophetic black church tradition into the idiom of black power. Our aim is to keep in view the significance of the Black Power era for understanding the changing role and place of black religion in black public life.

REL 332/EAS 332
Theory and Practice of Buddhist Ritual
Professor(s): Andrew H. Quintman
Department Area Requirement: Religions of Asia
Description: This seminar explores the Buddhist ritual traditions of India and Tibet , examining both theoretical frameworks and practical applications. Topics include monastic protocol, social and state-sponsored practices, cults of the book, the use of prayer and mantra, systems of tantra, as well as pilgrimage and death practices. Readings incorporate both primary sources in English translation and secondary scholarship on the study of ritual.

NES 334/REL 334
Modern Islamic Political Thought
Professor(s): Muhammad Q. Zaman
Department Area Requirement:   Islam
Description: An examination of major facets of Islamic political thought from the late nineteenth century to the present in a broadly comparative framework and against the backdrop of medieval Islamic thought. Topics include: the "fragmentation" of religious authority and its consequences for Muslim politics; conceptions of the shari'a and of the Islamic state; and Islamist discourses on gender, violence, and relations with non-Muslims.

REL 347/JDS 347
Religion and Law
Professor(s): Leora F. Batnitzky
Department Area Requirement: Critical Thought
Description: A critical examination of the relation between concepts of "religion" and "law," as they figure in modern Christian and Jewish thought, as well as in contemporary legal theory. If religion gives law its spirit, and law gives religion its structure, then what is their practical relation in both religious and secular life? This course explores the relation between Jewish and Christian conceptions of law, both in their ancient and modern contexts, and the relation between traditional religious and modern secular views of law.

REL 349
Revelations: The New Testament Book of Revelation & Contemp. Jewish, Christian, & Pagan "Revelations"
Professor(s): Elaine H. Pagels
Department Area Requirement: Ancient Mediterranean
Description: We will investigate the New Testament Book of Revelation (often called the Apocalypse of John), asking, for example, when it was written, who wrote it, and under what circumstances. Besides reading some of John's sources (the classical prophetic books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekial) we will read along with it other contemporary Jewish "books of revelation," including the Revelation of Ezra; then we will read many of the recently discovered Christian "revelation" texts discovered in Egypt in 1945, including the Revelation of Paul, the Revelation of Peter, and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene.   We will compare these with Greek and Egyptian "revelation" texts, considering how people claimed to receive revelation, & how they discriminated true from false revelation; finally, we will   explore every week some of the ways that the Book of Revelation has been interpreted throughout the past 2000 years in art, poetry, music, and film. 

REL 363
Religion and Ethical Theory
Professor(s): Jeffrey L. Stout
Department Area Requirement: Critical Thought
Description: This seminar will examine philosophical accounts of what it means to live well, focusing mainly on works written in the last half century that are relevant to issues in religious ethics: whether morality requires a religious foundation, the ethical significance of divine commandments, and the concepts of virtue, goodness, evil, horror, holiness, sainthood, faith, and the sacred. Among the philosophers to be discussed are Richard Rorty, John Finnis, Alasdair MacIntyre, Iris Murdoch, Stanley Cavell, and Robert Merrihew Adams.

REL 370
Re-Enchanting the World: Religion and the Literature of Fantasy
Professor(s): Albert J. Raboteau
Department Area Requirement: Does NOT satisfy sub-field requirement.   DOES count as a departmental.

Description: Starting with the premise (articulated by Max Weber and many others) that the "modern" world has become disenchanted, this seminar will deal with the role of folktales, myths, children's stories, science fiction and other literary forms in attempting to re-enchant the world by force of imagination. The course will focus upon the traditional myths and religious themes which frequently are recast in contemporary fantasy literature.

REL 376
The Visual and Material Cultures of American Religions
Professor(s): Judith L. Weisenfeld
Department Area Requirement:   Religion in America
Description: This course explores how visual and material cultures shape religious experiences and practices in the United States . We consider ways of visualizing the invisible, the production of sacred space, the religious body as a site for visual expression, material culture and consumer practices, religion in the formal arts, and the politics of representing religion.

REL 385
Spiritual Exercises: Classics of Christian Spirituality
Professor(s): Albert J. Raboteau
Department Area Requirement:   Does NOT satisfy sub-field requirement; DOES count as a departmental.
Description: This seminar will focus on several of the classic texts of Eastern and Western Christian (primarily Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) spirituality and their authors. Topics will include the development of spiritual tradition and "schools" within specific historical and social contexts.

SOC 340/REL 390
God of Many Faces: Comparative Perspectives on Migration and Religion
Professor(s): Patricia Fernández-Kelly
Department Area Requirement:   Does NOT satisfy sub-field requirement; does NOT count as a departmental.
Description: Immigrants often experience discrimination in areas of destination. Religion can strengthen their sense of worth, particularly when the circumstances surrounding departure from the country of origin are traumatic, as with exiles and refugees. We take a comparative approach and use examples from the United States , Asia, Europe, and Latin America . The course broaches questions such as: how does religion transform and is transformed by the immigrant experience? When is religion used to combat stereotypes? Are there differences between the way men and women or dominant groups and racial minorities understand religion?

AAS 305/REL 391
The History of Black Gospel Music
Professor(s): Wallace D. Best
Department Area Requirement:   Religion in America
Description: This course will trace the history of black gospel music from its origins in the American South to its modern origins in 1930s Chicago and into the 1990s mainstream. Critically analyzing various compositions and the artists that performed them, we will explore the ways the music has reflected and reproached the extant cultural climate. We will be particularly concerned with the four major historical eras from which black gospel music developed: the slave era; Reconstruction; the Great Migration, and the era of Civil Rights.

For more detailed information on each course, please visit:
http://registrar1.princeton.edu/course/course.cfm