Information found in this online edition of the 2008-09 catalog is unofficial and for informational purposes only. By authority of the dean of the College, some factual corrections to the printed version may appear here. The official document of record is the printed edition of the 2008-09 Catalog. For more information, please contact the Office of the Registrar.
Religious Studies
Chair: Paul Powers
As part of the wider Lewis & Clark program in the humanities, the academic study of religion provides an opportunity for critical reflection on a key aspect of human culture, tradition, and experience. The extraordinary role religion has played throughout history as well as in contemporary societies provides the backdrop against which this critical inquiry takes place.
The Department of Religious Studies emphasizes the careful use of critical method along with clear and extensive writing as key tools of scholarly endeavor. As in any humanities program, students are encouraged to develop analytical skills that are of value in many graduate schools and professional fields. For students interested in Judeo-Christian origins, Lewis & Clark offers language courses in Greek, which serve as an integral part of their study and are especially important as preparation for upper-level work.
The Major Program
The field of religious studies is extremely diverse and thus the religious studies major is designed to give students a broad background in the field. The curriculum is organized in a series of levels:
100 level: Introduction to the academic study of religion.
200 level: Survey courses in four areas.
Area 1: Judeo-Christian origins.
Area 2: History of religions in the West.
Area 3: Islamic traditions.
Area 4: Religions of East Asia and India.
300 level: Special topics including women and religion, modern religious movements, religion and the environment, race and religion.
400 level: Upper-division seminars in biblical studies, Western religious history, Asian religions, and Islamic traditions.
Major Requirements
A minimum of 40 semester credits (10 courses), distributed as follows:
- Four departmental core courses at the 200 level, with at least one from any three of the following four areas: a) Judeo-Christian origins. b) History of religions in the West. c) Islamic traditions. d) Religions of East Asia and India.
- Four departmental courses at the 300 or 400 level (in addition to Religious Studies 401). At least one must be a departmental 450-level seminar. A seminar paper from one of these courses taken in the student's senior year (or, with permission, a seminar paper completed in the last semester of the junior year) will be presented to the department at the annual Senior Capstone Retreat.
- Religious Studies 401.
- One elective course from any departmental offering or the following nondepartmental alternatives: a) Art 101, 111, and 254. b) Greek 101, 102, and 201. c) History 313 and 324. d) Philosophy 201. e) Political Science 359. f) Sociology/Anthropology 251 and 310.
Minor Requirements
A minimum of 20 semester credits (five courses), distributed as follows:
- Three departmental core courses (200 level), excluding Religious Studies 299.
- Two courses at the 300 or 400 level, excluding Religious Studies 499.
- Religious Studies 401 is highly recommended.
Resources For Nonmajors
All of the department's offerings are open to nonmajors. Preference is given to majors for enrollment in the 401 methods course and 400-level seminars.
Courses at the 100 and 200 levels are designed as introductory or survey courses, and none presumes a background in the field or any personal experience on the part of participants. These courses are designed to introduce not only the subject areas but also the methods of academic inquiry in the field of religion. The 200-level courses are organized in four areas (see above) reflecting the diversity of the world's religious traditions.
The majority of students taking religious studies courses are nonmajors pursuing elective interests. Many, however, are students whose major academic interest is in another field such as art, music, history, philosophy, or sociology, yet who find that some religious studies courses supplement and expand their understanding of their own fields.
Faculty
Alan Cole, professor. Asian religions, Buddhism, theory.
Robert Kugler, Paul S. Wright Professor of Christian Studies. Judeo-Christian origins, Dead Sea Scrolls, early Jewish literature.
Susanna Morrill, assistant professor. Religion in America.
Paul Powers, associate professor. Islamic studies.
Visiting Faculty
Sylvia Frankel, visiting instructor. Jewish studies.
RELS 101 Themes In Religious Studies
Staff
Content: Introduction to various themes, theories, and methods in the academic study of religion. Selected topics illustrating how religious discourses are formed, develop, and interact with other spheres of human thought and action. Historical, literary, and sociological approaches to a variety of religious phenomena, such as scripture, religious biography, material culture, film, ritual performance.
Prerequisite: None.
Taught: Alternate years, 4 semester credits.
RELS 222 Old Testament
Kugler
Content: Literature of the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) and the historical, cultural, and political situation from which it came. Modern historical-critical methods used for a deeper appreciation of the Bible's history and its impact on Western heritage. Issues arising from the biblical tradition including feminism, religion and politics, and use of the Bible in religious communities.
Prerequisite: None.
Taught: Annually, 4 semester credits.
RELS 223 New Testament
Kugler
Content: Literature of the New Testament and the cultural, social, and political situation of early Christianity. Modern historical-critical methods used to focus on the interaction of early Christianity with its Jewish heritage and the Greco-Roman world into which it moved. Social and religious issues attending the emergence of Christianity including feminism, social class stratification, cultural dislocation, urbanization.
Prerequisite: None.
Taught: Annually, 4 semester credits.
RELS 241 Religion And Culture Of Hindu India
Cole
Content: Introduction to Hinduism in its Indian cultural context, with focus on theories of sacrifice, fertility, and discipline. Studies in classic Hindu sacred texts, with careful readings of myths of order and productivity. Analysis of reconstructed postcolonial Hinduism. Emphasis on studying religion from a critical and comparative perspective.
Prerequisite: None.
Taught: At least every other year, 4 semester credits.
RELS 242 Religions And Cultures Of East Asia
Cole
Content: Chinese and Japanese worldviews. Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Shintoism: their origins, development, interactions. Mutual influence of folk and elite traditions, expansion of Buddhism and its adaptation to different sociopolitical environments, effects of modernization on traditional religious institutions.
Prerequisite: None.
Taught: Alternate years, 4 semester credits.
RELS 243 Buddhism: Theory, Culture, And Practice
Cole
Content: Development of Buddhism in India and Tibet with emphasis on issues of purity, power, and asceticism as they are portrayed in classic Buddhist texts. Special attention given to Buddhist institutions and their rationales. Buddhist philosophy. Critiques of 20th-century misconceptions of Buddhism.
Prerequisite: None.
Taught: Annually, 4 semester credits.
RELS 251 History And Thought Of Western Religion: Medieval
Westervelt (History)
Content: Formation and development of Western Christianity from late antiquity through the late medieval period (circa 250 to 1450 C.E.). The relation of popular piety to institutional and high cultural expressions of Christianity. Issues such as Christianity and the late Roman empire, the papacy, monasticism, religious art and architecture, and heresy and hierarchy discussed using theological texts, social histories, popular religious literature.
Prerequisite: None.
Taught: Alternate years, 4 semester credits.
RELS 253 Witches, Prophets, And Preachers: Religion In American History To The Civil War
Morrill
Content: Introduction to major themes and movements in American religious history from colonial origins to the Civil War. Consideration of Native American religious traditions, colonial settlement, slavery and slave religion, revivalism, religion and the revolution, growth of Christian denominationalism, origins of Mormonism, using a comparative approach in the effort to understand diverse movements. Central themes: revival and religious renewal, appropriation of Old Testament language by various groups (Puritans, African Americans, Mormons), democratization of religion.
Prerequisite: None.
Taught: Annually, 4 semester credits.
RELS 254 Religion In Modern America, 1865 To Present
Morrill
Content: Impact of religion in modern America from the end of the Civil War to the present day, emphasizing the interaction between America's many religions and emerging American modernity. The fate of "traditional" religion in modern America; "alternate" American religious traditions; urbanization, industrialism, and religion; science, technology, and secularism; evangelicalism, modernism, and fundamentalism; religious bigotry; pluralism; new religions and neofundamentalism.
Prerequisite: None.
Taught: Annually, 4 semester credits.
RELS 261 Introduction To Judaism
Frankel
Content: Classical texts and selected major thinkers of the Jewish tradition. Historical overview of the biblical and rabbinic periods with a look at classic Jewish texts: the Bible, Midrash, the Mishnah, the Gemara, the legal codes, the mystical tradition, and the Responsa literature. Major Jewish thinkers such as Maimonides, Abraham Joshua Heschell, David Hartman.
Prerequisite: None.
Taught: Alternate years, 4 semester credits.
RELS 273 Islamic Origins
Powers
Content: Exploration of major religious and sociohistorical developments in the Islamic world from circa 600 to 1300 C.E. Focus on the Qur'an, Muhammad, early Islamic expansions and dynasties, and interactions with non-Muslims. Examination of the formation of orthodox beliefs and practices (e.g., theology, ritual, law), contestation over religious ideals and political power, and the emergence of Shi'ite and Sufi Islam.
Prerequisite: None
Taught: Annually, 4 semester credits.
RELS 274 Islam In The Modern World
Powers
Content: Examination of the religious, social, and political dynamics of the Islamic world, circa 1300 C.E. to present, especially the 19th-21st centuries. Earlier developments (e.g., the Qur'an, Muhammad, Muslim dynasties) considered in relation to the modern context. Major themes: European colonialism, postcolonial change, reform and "fundamentalist" movements, Sufism, Muslim views of "modernity," and changing understandings of politics, gender, and relations with non-Muslims.
Prerequisite: None
Taught: Annually, 4 semester credits.
RELS 299 Independent Study
Cole, Kugler, Morrill, Powers
Content: Individual study directed by selected faculty. Determined in consultation with faculty, study focuses on bibliographic development and analysis of the literature on a topic otherwise not covered in depth in the curriculum. Major paper required.
Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
Taught: Annually, 4 semester credits.
RELS 330 Jesus: History, Myth, And Mystery
Kugler
Content: Survey of the history of Christian appropriations of Jesus through the centuries, ending with the contemporary search for the historical Jesus and its pop culture congeners. A case study in the appropriation of a classical religious figure. Gospel records; evidence of other ancient sources, including noncanonical gospels; early Christian writings; Western Christian appropriations of Jesus; and Jesus in modern film and literature.
Prerequisite: None.
Taught: Alternate years, 4 semester credits.
RELS 340 Women In American Religious History
Morrill
Content: Women's experience of religion in America from the colonial era to the present. The relationship between gender and religious beliefs and practices. Religion as means of oppression and liberation of women. Relations of lay women and male clergy. Women religious leaders. Diverse movements and cultures including Native American, colonial society, immigrant communities, and radical religionists from Anne Hutchinson to Mary Daly.
Prerequisite: Religious Studies 253 or 254 recommended.
Taught: Alternate years, 4 semester credits.
RELS 354 Early Mahayana Buddhism
Cole
Content: An examination of the groundbreaking texts of early Mahayana Buddhism--their literary forms, thematic preferences, and polemical agendas. Investigation of new attitudes toward traditional sites of power as found in the Buddha's relics and the monastic sites.
Prerequisite: Religious Studies 243 or consent of instructor.
Taught: Annually, 4 semester credits.
RELS 355 Sufism: Islamic Mysticism
Powers
Content: An exploration of the historical roots and branches of Sufi Islam, including the search for the "inner meaning" of the Qur'an, complex metaphysical formulations, ascetic assertions, meditation practices, devotional ruminations on love, and Sufi poetry and music. Discussion of the important role of Sufism in the spread of Islam. Muslim critiques of Sufism and Sufi responses.
Prerequisite: Religious Studies 273 or consent of instructor.
Taught: Alternate years, 4 semester credits.
RELS 373 The Reformation In Social Perspective
Westervelt (History)
Content: A historical perspective on the various religious movements, collectively known as the Protestant Reformation, that marked Europe's transition from the medieval to the early modern period (circa 1400 to 1600). Review of medieval religious patterns. The status of Catholic institutions and ideas in crises of the late medieval period, the theologies of Luther and Calvin, radical movements, the political background of the Reformation, and Catholic responses to Protestantism. Readings and discussions concentrate on recent social historiography of the Reformation. Popular appeal of Protestant religiosity, social implications of Calvinism, roles of women in the Reformation, family patterns and the Reformation, class structure and competing religious cultures, Catholicism and rural society.
Prerequisite: Religious Studies 251 or consent of instructor.
Taught: Alternate years, 4 semester credits.
RELS 376 Religious Fundamentalism
Powers
Content: Exploration of the perceptions and realities of religious resurgence in a supposedly secularizing world. Focus on the historical, theological, social, and political aspects of Christian and Islamic fundamentalism. Themes include secularization theories and their critics, changing understandings of religion and modernity, connections among religion, politics, violence, sexuality/gender, and identity.
Prerequisite: Religious Studies 254 or 274, or consent of instructor.
Taught: Alternate years, 4 semester credits.
RELS 401 Methods In The Study Of Religion
Cole, Kugler, Morrill, Powers
Content: Psychological, literary, sociological, and historical approaches to the study of religion. Readings by major theorists in the field. Practice in research methods, analysis, and interpretation. Should normally be taken in junior year.
Prerequisite: Junior standing in religious studies.
Taught: Annually, 4 semester credits.
Departmental Seminars
To give students opportunities to explore the three major areas of the departmental curriculum in depth, seminars are offered each year in Biblical Studies, Theology and History, and World Religions. Specific content of the seminars changes from year to year. The following are among those offered during recent academic years.
RELS 450 Seminar In Biblical Studies: Social And Religious World Of Early Judaism And Christianity
Kugler
Content: Recent research into the relationship between the social setting of early Judaism and Christianity and the texts both religions produced. Special attention to the sociohistorical aspects of selected regional expressions of Judaism and Christianity (e.g., Asia Minor, Palestine, Egypt). Readings from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish pseudepigrapha, the New Testament, and other early Christian literature. Emphasis on original student research.
Prerequisite: Religious Studies 222, 223, or 230, or consent of instructor.
Taught: Alternate years, 4 semester credits.
RELS 451 Seminar In American Religion: Theology, American Style
Morrill
Content: An exploration of major trends in American theology from the Puritans to the feminist and liberation theologies of the 20th century. Intensive reading of works by major American theologians including Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, Reinhold Niebuhr, James Cone, Mary Daly.
Prerequisite: Religious Studies 253 or 254, or consent of instructor.
Taught: Alternate years, 4 semester credits.
RELS 452 Seminar In Asian Religions
Cole
Content: Advanced interdisciplinary seminar on the matrix of religion, politics, and literature with a focus on Asian theories of pleasure, power, and sanctity. Comparative analysis of notions of self-identity, the body, and perfection through investigation of myth and ritual.
Prerequisite: Religious Studies 242 or consent of instructor.
Taught: Annually, 4 semester credits. With instructor consent, may be taken twice for credit.
RELS 453 Seminar In Islamic Studies: Islamic Law In Comparative Perspective
Powers
Content: An exploration of the religio-legal traditions of Islam, the efforts to develop a comprehensive set of behavior guides derived from the Qur'an, the exemplary behavior of the Prophet, and other sources. Topics include legal history from the first Islamic centuries through the medieval period and recent efforts at modernization and reform; the formation of the major schools of law; legal theory and methods for deriving rules from sacred texts; the rules of ritual, civil, and criminal law; political theory; adjudication and court procedure; Islamic law and the colonial encounter; legal expressions of gender roles; historical case studies; attitudes toward law among Muslim mystics, "fundamentalists," and progressives. Wider exploration of the interaction of law and religion and the idea of rights, duties, and ethics in Islamic and other religio-legal cultures.
Prerequisite: Religious Studies 273 or consent of instructor.
Taught: Alternate years, 4 semester credits.
RELS 455 Themes In History Of Religions
Cole, Kugler, Morrill, Powers
Content: Study of a selected theme in religious studies and the history of religions (e.g., interiority; construction of the self; notions of the sacred; scripture; development of tradition) from diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives.
Prerequisite: Completion of a religious studies course at the 200 level or higher.
Taught: Alternate years, 4 semester credits.
RELS 499 Independent Study
Cole, Kugler, Morrill, Powers
Content: Individual study directed by selected faculty. Determined in consultation with faculty, study focuses on primary research, methodological concerns, and bibliography on a topic of mutual interest to the student and faculty director. Major paper required.
Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
Taught: Annually, 4 semester credits.