Department of Religious Studies (GRAD)

The first part of a two-semester introduction to the grammar of biblical Hebrew.

The second part of a two-semester introduction to the grammar of biblical Hebrew.

A consolidation of the fundamentals of classical Hebrew grammar via readings of biblical texts of various genres (including both prose and poetry).

Further readings of classical Hebrew texts, focusing on biblical poetry as well as early postbiblical material (e.g., nonbiblical texts from Qumran, Mishnah/Tosefta).

Reading texts in rabbinic Hebrew or in biblical and/or talmudic Aramaic, with appropriate grammatical instruction.

Readings in literary, epistolary, and juridical texts.

Readings in the alphabetic texts of Ras Shamra and a study of the elements of Ugaritic grammar.

Coptic, the last stage of Egyptian, a living language in the Roman and Byzantine period. Thorough grounding in the grammar of the Sahidic dialect as a basis for reading biblical monastic and Gnostic texts.

An introduction to the grammar of Classical Syriac for the purpose of reading Syriac Christian texts from late antiquity. Knowledge of another Semitic language (e.g., Hebrew, Arabic) would be an asset but is not required.

This course explores the challenges, ethical questions, and opportunities inherent in teaching biblical literature within public educational settings--both secondary and higher-ed. It also equips students to make informed decisions on how to communicate critical academic ideas about the Bible in ways sensitive to students of different positionalities.

This course examines the challenges posed to ethics and theology by the Holocaust. We will address philosophical and moral issues such as the problem of evil, divine omniscience, omnipotence, suffering, theodicy, representation, testimony, and an ethics of memory. Honors version available.

This course explores the complex relation between religion and science in the modern world. Public disputes over teaching evolution in American schools serve as a central case study of this.

A theoretical inquiry into ethnicity, race, and religion as constituents of personal and communal identity. Emphasis on global migrations, colonial and postcolonial relations, diasporic communities, and issues of religious pluralism.

An examination of contemporary gender theory, with particular focus on its application to the study of religion.

A critical exploration of the concept of religious experience as defined by such authors as William James and Sigmund Freud. Honors version available.

This course examines philosophical interpretations of the attempted sacrifice by Abraham of his beloved son, offering a comparative approach. The incident in Genesis is remarkably succinct for its controversial subject matter. We will compare this event with representations in Greek drama, the New Testament, and the Qur'an. Honors version available.

This course explores the phenomenon of spirit possession and introduces students to various theoretical and methodological approaches to its academic study. In addition to critically engaging with accounts of spirit possession from around the world, students will explore various related themes of gender, power, and religious and cultural change.

Religion studied anthropologically as a cultural, social, and psychological phenomenon in the works of classical and contemporary social thought. Honors version available.

Sociological analysis of group beliefs and practices, both traditionally religious and secular, through which fundamental life experiences are given coherence and meaning. This course is a special version of SOCI 129 for juniors and seniors that explores the meanings and experiences of religion, as well as religion's role in communities, institutions, and societies through hands-on intensive research experience. Students may not receive credit for both SOCI 129 and SOCI/RELI 429.

This course explores the meaning of evil. By investigating the moral dimensions of evil, its social uses, its figuration in cross-cultural religious texts, theology, folklore, and political imaginaries, this course develops a critical framework for understanding the diverse manifestations and varied cultural renderings of evil in the modern world. Previously offered as RELI 526.

A seminar on concepts of nature within religions and a variety of world-wide spiritual traditions. Emphasis on sacred space, place, and ritual as a vital intersection of religion and nature. Honors version available.

This course examines religion in America from precontact to the Civil War. We will chart the development of religious life, thought, and practice in North America, concentrating on areas later incorporated into the United States, but maintaining broad interest in other Americas. Honors version available.

An examination of primary sources in the history of American religion since the Civil War.

Juniors or seniors only. Examination of evangelicalism and its role in American society, politics, and culture. Exploration of its various subdivisions and its relation to such movements as fundamentalism, pentecostalism, revivalism, and premillennialism. Honors version available.

The seminar examines the developments in gender roles and in sexuality in contemporary Judaism.

A study of intercultural interaction and interreligious encounter focusing on Asian religions in America, 1784 to the present.

An exploration of the varied and complex relationships which have developed between Christianity and Judaism, from the first century to the 21st century.

This course examines diverse indigenous engagements with Christianity from earliest contacts to the present. Topics range from missionary contestations in colonial Mexico to the fight for religious freedom in 20th-century United States, from historical revitalization movements like the Ghost Dance to contemporary indigenous theologies in North and South America.

This course deals with various topics related to sexuality and marriage in Jewish tradition and history: sex outside of marriage, wedding ceremonies, regulations of marital sex, menstruation, homosexuality, and more.

This course examines the politics of representing religious difference. What happens when journalists, pollsters, filmmakers, or pundits attempt to describe, explain or decode religious communities they do not belong to? How do these efforts constitute cultural centers and margins? We examine the political and ethical problems inherent to representing religion. Topics might include documentary film, photojournalism, reality television, opinion polling, news media, and more.

Examines a movement of religious reform that shattered Latin Christendom and contributed many of the conditions of early modern Europe. Emphases: religious, political, social.

In medieval Jewish Kabbalah, Christian mysticism, and Islamic Sufism, devotees attempt to express direct experiences of an infinite God. This course examines theories of mystical language, particularly the negation of language, the turn to the visual and the body, and the tension between communal and individual expressions of the divine.

This course introduces students to a variety of ancient and modern approaches to Buddhist meditation, to their philosophical underpinnings, and to the various claims and purposes associated with mindfulness practices in the past and today. Students will be expected to practice the different types of meditation discussed.

Stresses the diversity of modern Islamic experience by examining the works of various Muslim authors. Genres may include travelogues, memoirs, novels, sermons, and treatises, among others.

An exploration of explosive combinations of religion and politics in the Iranian revolution, the Palestinian movement, Hindu nationalism in India, and Christian fundamentalism in America.

This seminar draws on feminist and philosophical theory, including the works of Plato, Butler, and Foucualt, as well as postcolonial theory, to explore the categories of sex and gender in South Asian religions. We also analyze the moral cultivation of the self in relation to gender identity in South Asia.

This course approaches constructions of gender and sexuality in Muslim societies in diverse historical and geographical contexts. It focuses on changing interpretations of gender roles and sexual norms. Themes include gender in Islamic law, sexual ethics, masculinity, homosexuality, marriage, and dress.

This course explores Muslim women scholars, activists, and movements that have, over the course of the past 150 years, participated in the debate about the compatibility and relationship of Islam and feminism. It offers an introduction to feminist debates about religion and patriarchy focusing on Islam as 'other' and juxtaposes it critical analysis of contextual expressions of Muslim and Islamic feminist activists, thinkers, and movements that challenge and change gender norms and practices.

This course explores the role that mountains and pilgrimage have played in Japanese cosmology and how they relate to methodology of studying place and space.

This course discusses the development of Shinto in Japanese history and covers themes such as myths, syncretism, sacred sites, iconography, nativism, religion and the state, and historiography.

Permission of the instructor. This course examines the cultural construction of animals in Japanese myth, folklore, and religion.

This course will examine how the modern historical-critical enterprise of biblical scholarship arose, out of what historical circumstances, for what purposes, and to what effect. What are its major aspects? How does it relate to other forms of academic and theological inquiry? How has this enterprise fared in recent times?

An examination of Babylonian, Canaanite, Egyptian, Hittite, and Sumerian texts from the prebiblical era, focusing on representative myths, epics, sagas, songs, proverbs, prophecies, and hymns. Honors version available.

A comprehensive introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the different Jewish groups connected with them. Honors version available.

This course will examine a major corpus of the Hebrew Bible with attention to the full range of historical-critical issues. Attention will be paid as well to early forms of biblical interpretation and their use in the religious life of subsequent communities.

This is a course on ancient synagogues in Palestine and the Diaspora from the Second Temple period to the seventh century CE.

Although the origins of Christianity clearly lie in Judaism--the religious framework inherited by Jesus and his disciples--scholars disagree over how and when the two traditions diverged. This course explores critical issues in the conceptualization of this parting, including the theoretical difficulty of distinguishing religion from ethnicity in a premodern context, competing ways of analyzing intermediate groups ("Jewish Christianities"), and the methodological and ethical problems of 19th-20th century scholarship in this area (e.g., Protestant bias, antisemitism).

This course traces the "lives" of individual New Testament texts to illuminate the shifting interests of Christians through different periods. Topics include the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of John, the letters of Paul and his imitators, and the book of Revelation. Honors version available.

Permission of the instructor. An exploration of influential 19th-century critiques of religion, including texts by such thinkers as Feuerbach, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Stanton, Douglass, and Freud.

Critical exploration of exemplary contemporary ethnographies of religion focusing on the ways that ethnographic methods and writing styles shape knowledge of religious and cultural life in various traditions and parts of the world. Topics considered include field work, culture, ethics, and the challenges of interpreting and representing religious experience.

Seminar topic varies.

This course explores the myriad and complex issues related to the function of metaphor and symbol in religious language.

An examination of ritual, allegory, and symbol as modes of religious expression in cultic and literary contexts.

This seminar explores the historical development of "religion" as a concept and object of academic scholarship through the critical study of key texts and foundational debates about religion in Western thought.

This course examines historical developments in the study of women and gender in Judaism. We will discuss efforts to challenge and revitalize Jewish tradition through the lens of gender theory and other critical interpretive approaches. Topics to be addressed include biblical interpretation, Jewish law, feminist Jewish theology and liturgy, the renewal of ritual, the rabbinic ordination of women, gender identity, race, sexuality, queer, trans, and non-binary approaches, and representations of these themes in various media.

Exploration of the history, beliefs, and practices of Mormons. Will include visits to Latter-Day Saints services, guest speakers, and discussion of race and gender in the contemporary church.

The course will examine the evangelical tradition from a global perspective, exploring the tradition from its early rise in Europe to its impact on the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Honors version available.

The course examines the interaction between the values and messages of the counterculture and religious groups, ideas, and practices during the Vietnam War era. It also investigates the impact of countercultural norms and styles on the current American religious scene. Honors version available.

This course on the "Atlantic World" studies Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the medieval Iberian kingdoms, then the religious "other" in the colonial expansion to Latin America, by deploying theories concerning race, gender, sexuality, and postcoloniality.

This course explores the Jewish interpretation of the Bible, focusing on important commentaries from influential medieval Ashkenazi and Sephardic thinkers.

This course explores many aspects of the Halakhah, the Jewish traditional legal system, focusing on issues such as rituals, holidays, religious obligations and prohibitions, and laws regulating sexual activity.

This seminar explores the topic of intimate relations between people who consider themselves, or are considered by others, to be part of different religious groups. We will explore cases in which such relations achieve the social sanction of marriage and cases in which the relations are of a more temporary nature.

Explores the indigenous Chinese sciences and the cosmological ideas that informed them. Topics include astronomy, divination, medicine, fengshui, and political and literary theory. Chinese sources in translation are emphasized.

An historical examination of African American Islam in the United States. Explores the intellectual, cultural, social, and political roots of black Islam in addition to its diverse doctrinal, ritual, and institutional manifestations.

Permission of the instructor. A survey of Islamic mysticism, its sources in the Qur'an and the Prophet Muhammad, and its literary, cultural, and social deployment in Arab, Persian, Indic, and Turkish regions.

A survey of the formation of Islamic traditions in the subcontinent from the eighth century to the present, with emphasis on religion and politics, the role of Sufism, types of popular religion, and questions of Islamic identity.

Iran from the rise of the Safavid empire to the Islamic Republic. Topics include Shi'ism, politics, intellectual and sectarian movements, encounters with colonialism, art and architecture, music, literature.

A nontheological approach to the Qur'an as a literary text, emphasizing its history, form, style, and interpretation.

This course will cover the history of Turkey from the Byzantine period until contemporary times. Key aspects of Turkish culture (architecture, music, poetry to arts) will be covered.

This seminar explores the roles of women in the religions of Japan (including Buddhism, Shinto, folk religions, pilgrimage, new religions movements, and new spirituality culture) from goddesses, shamans, nuns, and pilgrims to demons, temptresses, and lesser human beings. The course traces these themes across Japanese socioeconomic and religious history.

This course explores sexual norms and practices in Muslim contexts in the premodern and modern periods. It considers theories from sexuality, gender, and queer studies, and focuses on the contextual production of sexual norms, going beyond the sex and gender binary, and reflecting on a diverse range of sexual practices in Muslim communities and societies, analyzing concepts such as power, pleasure, control, as they are mapped onto and lived in diverse Muslim bodies.

Permission of the instructor. Subject matter will vary with instructor but will always be focused on a particular problem or issue.

Historical causes of violence between Hindus and Muslims in modern India. Short stories, poetry, and novels in translation are used to explore how conflicts over religious sites, religious conversion, image worship, and language contributed to a sense of conflicting religious identity.

The course traces the past and continued canonical processes that define what the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament has been and is today, with a focus on the history of biblical interpretation.

This course explores the translation of the Hebrew Bible in the West, with a view toward identifying religious and ideological trends.

Honors version available.

Ideas concerning the Messiah and the end of the world held by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Emphasis on the beginning of the Christian era.

The seminar surveys the development of Christianity in the Roman empire and examines a variety of attitudes adopted by early Christians toward Greco-Roman philosophy, religion, education, and literature.

Reading of the Apostolic Fathers. Students must have completed two courses in New Testament/Early Christianity and two years of Greek.

By late antiquity, the cult of martyrs and other saints had become "so popular among all levels of Christians, rich and poor, cleric and layperson, rustic and urban dweller, monastic and spouse," that it represented a "rudimentary framework for Christianity" (Limberis 2011). This course traces the origins and development of the cult, conceptualizing it as a network of discourses, practices, and representations. It also explores the cult's impact on neighboring, non-Christian cultures.

Examinations of practices and discourses pertaining to death and the afterlife in the ancient civilizations of Near East, Greece, and Rome. Honors version available.

This course introduces students to the rich and multi-faceted debates within and about feminism and religion. Through the cultivation of careful and critical reading practice of primary texts by religious feminists and their secular critics, the course enables students to recognize the patterns and arguments of historical and contemporary debates within and across religious traditions and communities, while continuously tracing the ethical commitments and underlying values of feminist scholars and activists.

This advanced seminar is for undergraduate and graduate students who have at least a basic knowledge about Catholicism. The range of topics to be discussed is open and will depend on students' interests and suggestions.

Permission of the instructor for nonmajors. Medieval Christians consistently focused on the suffering body as a means of reflecting on Christ's sacrifice. This course considers how medical theories of cognition, gender, and pain influenced the potential role of the body in medieval mystical experience.

Permission of the instructor. Study of selected religious, literary, and historical texts in Arabic, Persian, or Urdu.

Permission of the instructor. Exercises (including field work) in learning to read the primary modes of public action in religious traditions, e.g., sermons, testimonies, rituals, and prayers.

Permission of the director of undergraduate studies. Required of all students reading for honors in religious studies.

Permission of the director of undergraduate studies. Required of all students reading for honors in religious studies.

Advanced undergraduate or graduate standing and permission of the instructor. Subject matter should be arranged with a specific instructor.

Majors only. Concentrating on a different theme each year, this departmental seminar introduces the different areas and approaches in religious studies.

Graduate standing in religious studies or permission of the instructor. A basic problems and methods course required of all graduate students in religious studies.

A study of the religious traditions in ancient Israelite literature from the 12th through the second centuries BCE.

Exploration of current critical approaches to the study of the Hebrew Bible, including those oriented toward a study of its interpretive history.

Focusing on the Mediterranean religions before Alexander, the course consists of readings of original documents in translation, illustrating theology and cult, as well as on the major history of religions interpretations.

Permission of the instructor. A critical study of the history and literature of early Christianity from Paul to Irenaeus, with texts to be read in the original languages.

Permission of the instructor. An examination of the main varieties of pre-rabbinic Judaism: Hellenistic Judaism, apocalyptic Judaism, and the Judaism of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This course explore the identities, histories, social organization, and practices of the world's ''Eastern'' and ''Orthodox'' Christians.

Permission of the instructor. Opportunity for reading of ancient documents representing the more important religious trends of the Greco-Roman world.

Exploration of intellectual lineages shaping the contemporary study of religion and culture.

Permission of the instructor. Studies in early modern, Enlightenment and Romantic political, philosophical, and literary texts.

Graduate standing in religious studies or permission of the instructor. Exploration of various forms of contemporary critical thought (including gender theory, critical race theory, and postcolonial studies) in order to assess the value of these critical tools for the study of religion.

This course engages the practices, politics, ethics, and epistemology of ethnography as a technique of data production, analysis, and representation. While we will privilege issues and themes related to the study of religion, the course offers a broad, multidisciplinary approach to the construction and execution of ethnographic research.

Graduate standing in religious studies or permission of the instructor. This course examines the relationships between religion and modernity, both as conceptual categories and through ethnographic studies of religion and/in modern life.

Permission of the instructor. Selected readings on image production, exhibition, and interpretation, with consideration of different ritual and cultic settings.

Permission of the instructor. Textual analysis of several theoretical and literary works dealing with selected problems in religion and literature.

Explores methods, theories, and genealogies that shape the study of religion in the Americas. The course introduces students to key historiographical contexts and theoretical debates that will help them situate the field within the discipline of Religious Studies.

Graduate standing in religious studies or permission of the instructor. A historical and thematic survey of the religions of African Americans from the precolonial era to the present.

Graduate standing in religious studies or permission of the instructor. A study of the religious tradition in American literature from the Puritan period to the present.

The course aims at examining the current developments in American Judaism: cultural, spiritual, liturgical, as well as social and institutional.

A study of religion in the Americas from pre-contact indigenous communities to 19th century wars of independence. The course examines cases of migration, encounter, rebellion, and institutionalization across the continent and introduces theoretical debates about colonialism, hybridity, revival, and revolution.

A study of religion in the Americas through the lens of post-colonialism understood as a concept, a method, and an historical period. This course introduces students to theoretical debates about power, culture, history, and representation to better understand the present and future of the field.

Course examines the Christian-Jewish encounter in America from the 17th century to the present. Analyzes both theological and social interactions.

Graduate standing in religious studies or permission of the instructor. An introduction to the problems and methods in the study of medieval and early modern religion in the West.

An introduction to the academic study of Islam and Muslims, including the history of the field, theory and method in Islamic studies, pedagogy, and important subfields. Gateway course.

Exploration of reformist intellectual movements in modern Muslim societies, paying close attention to the case of post-revolutionary Iran and examining the compatibility of Islam and human rights, women's rights, democracy, and fresh hermeneutical approaches to scriptures.

Permission of the instructor. This seminar is the core course for the graduate certificate in Middle East studies. It is an introduction to critical issues in the study of the Middle East, focusing on classic works of the humanities and social sciences.

Topics vary; consult the department.

Required preparation, proficiency in Hebrew. Primary readings in portions of the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Pentateuch, Deuteronomistic History, prophetic texts, Psalms) or in non-biblical texts (pre-exilic inscriptions, Dead Sea Scrolls) with attention to issues of interpretation.

Explores the field of ancient Israelite religion as it has been conceived in contemporary scholarship. We will review the relevant textual and archaeological data, acquaint ourselves with current debates, and examine the different approaches that scholars have adopted to the problem of ancient Israelite religion.

An introduction to the historical development of ancient Hebrew within a comparative Semitic framework, with attention to the full range of relevant textual evidence (e.g., biblical Hebrew, pre-exilic inscriptions, Dead Sea Scrolls).

Studies in Greek texts drawn from early Christianity, Judaism, and other religions of the Greco-Roman World.

Required preparation, proficiency in Greek. Permission of the instructor. A study of selected works of the Apostolic Fathers, including Barnabas, Ignatius, and Polycarp.

Required preparation, proficiency in Greek. Permission of the instructor. Reconstruction; application of text-critical principles.

Permission of the instructor. Readings from apocalyptic texts in the original languages.

Permission of the instructor for undergraduates. Seminar examines the evidence for the ancient Jewish communities of Egypt, Rome, Asia Minor, and Mesopotamia.

Permission of the instructor. An introduction to the study of the Babylonian Talmud in the original Hebrew and Aramaic, with the traditional commentaries. The emphasis is on understanding Talmudic logic.

Examination of the methodological problems of using rabbinic materials as sources for the history of Judaism in the period after 70 CE.

Permission of the instructor. Survey of the development of rhetorical theory and practice through the Hellenistic and Roman Period. Explores the connection between rhetorical tradition and early Christian literature.

Close reading and interpretation of ancient Gnostic texts found near Nag Hammadi in Egypt.

Required preparation, proficiency in Greek and/or Latin. Survey of the Hellenistic schools of philosophy and their impact on early Christian theories of the universe, ethics, cultural history, and salvation.

Permission of the instructor. Topics vary; consult the department.

Permission of the instructor. An examination of major themes in contemporary postcolonial thought, and the application of this work to the study of religion.

This course addresses theories of the body in the study of history. It expands standard notions of "the body" by considering developments in scientific and medical approaches, then turning to the fields of gender and sexuality studies, disability studies, critical race theory, and postcolonial theory, and ending with consideration of the body's expression through material culture. Extensive historical case studies will be taken from scholarship on Western, Eastern, and indigenous religions.

This interdisciplinary graduate seminar focuses on religion, space, and place in the United States.

This course examines selected themes in legal and social theory relating to the position of religion in contemporary American society.

Topics vary. May be repeated for credit.

Historical analysis of the relationship between religious developments and social issues in America. Topics may include economics, politics, and social reform.

Examination of religion in America through instances of intercultural contact. Topics vary.

A seminar on Roman Catholicism in the United States that also considers developments elsewhere in the Western hemisphere. Focus is on ritual practice and visual culture.

Permission of the instructor. Selected texts which illumine significant aspects of medieval religious culture are read in the original languages.

Permission of the instructor. Selected texts which illumine significant aspects of the Catholic and Protestant Reformations are read in the original languages.

Permission of the instructor. Exploration of one enduring issue in the history of the Western Christian tradition. The instructor selects several case studies that illustrate both the topic and the developments within traditions.

Required preparation, proficiency in Arabic and/or Persian. Advanced study of major Islamic thinkers and topics, based on original language texts and modern scholarly interpretations.

Introduction to major approaches and methodological questions in the study of Asian religions. This course serves as a gateway course.

Graduate standing in religious studies or permission of the instructor. Topics vary.

Graduate seminar on critical issues in Islamic studies. Topics vary.

Permission of the instructor.

This course seeks to prepare students for professional academic careers in Religious Studies and cognate disciplines by focusing on the skills and practices associated with success in research, publishing, and the job market.

This course prepares doctoral students for careers in Religious Studies and cognate disciplines by focusing on the skills and practices associated with success in research, publishing and the job market. Focuses on skills development and strategies including conceptualizing and cultivating a professional persona, planning and presenting research, publishing, alt-ac career options, the academic job search, and professional ethics. Includes practical work as well as discussion.

An overview of the literary and cultural movements in 20th and 21st century Poland as they relate to major historical changes of the century (World War I and World War II, Communism, Post-communism, accession to the European Union). All readings and discussions in English; readings available in Polish for qualified students.

This course examines the challenges posed to ethics and theology by the Holocaust. We will address philosophical and moral issues such as the problem of evil, divine omniscience, omnipotence, suffering, theodicy, representation, testimony, and an ethics of memory. Honors version available.

Focuses on the various collaborations, exchanges, and mutual enrichment between Israelis and Palestinians in the realm of culture, particularly literature and cinema. These connections include language (Israeli Jewish authors writing in Arabic and Palestinian writers who choose Hebrew as their language of expression), collaborating in filmmaking, and joint educational initiatives.

Employing Zionist and post- and anti-Zionist documents, treatises, and mostly literary and cinematic texts, this class will focus on the relations between language, Jewish-Israeli identity, and the notion of homeland. Previously offered as HEBR 436.

The seminar examines the developments in gender roles and in sexuality in contemporary Judaism.

This course is designed to examine Jewish life in Arab lands in the last century by examining culture, language, and the communal life that the Arab-Jews shared with their neighbors.

Explores the fictional representation of Jewish life in Russia and Poland by Russian, Polish, and Jewish authors from the 19th century to the present. Taught in English; some foreign language readings for qualified students.

Historical contexts and connections through artistic representation of the Holocaust and Soviet terror in Eastern Europe and the USSR. Taught in English; some foreign language readings for qualified students.

Fictional and autobiographical expressions of the Slavic and East European immigrant experience in the 20th century. Readings include Russian, Polish, Jewish, and Czech authors from early 1900s to present. Taught in English; some foreign language readings for qualified students.

This seminar examines Jewish stories, humor, ritual, custom, belief, architecture, dress, and food as forms of creative expression that have complex relationships to Jewish experience, representation, identity, memory, and tradition. What makes these forms of folklore Jewish, how do source communities interpret them, and how do ethnographers document them? Previously offered as FOLK 380/FOLK 505/JWST 380/JWST 505.

The history of modern Eastern, East Central, and southeastern Europe has been shaped by the ethnic and religious diversity of the regions. This course examines experiences in the Russian, Habsburg, and Ottoman Empires and their successor states from the 19th century to the present day.

This course delves into the scintillating literary, visual, musical, and cinematic culture created by Jewish universalists seeking to build their new secular identity under the aegis of the Soviet Communist experiment in the aftermath of the 1917 Bolshevik coup. Surveys the works of Isaac Babel, Eduard Bagritsky, Marc Chagall, Sergey Eisenstein, Ilya Ehrenburg, Masha Gessen, Vasily Grossman, Osip Mandelshtam, and others. Taught in English; some readings in Russian for qualified students; films with English subtitles. Honors version available.

What makes an object "Jewish"? This seminar examines how we think about, animate, repurpose, and display "Jewish" objects in the public realm, cultural institutions, religious spaces, and the home. We consider how makers and users negotiate objects' various meanings within the domains of prayer, performance, entertainment, and exhibition. The class curates a final group exhibition of Jewish material culture based on original fieldwork.

Eastern Europe was one of the largest centers of Jewish civilization from premodern times to the Second World War, giving rise to important religious, cultural, and political developments in Jewish modernity. This course examines main developments of Jewish society from the late 18th century until the aftermath of the Holocaust.

This course explores ethnicity in the South and focuses on the history and culture of Jewish Southerners from their arrival in the Carolinas in the 17th century to the present day.

A comprehensive introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the different Jewish groups connected with them. Honors version available.

This is a course on ancient synagogues in Palestine and the Diaspora from the Second Temple period to the seventh century CE.

This course examines historical developments in the study of women and gender in Judaism. We will discuss efforts to challenge and revitalize Jewish tradition through the lens of gender theory and other critical interpretive approaches. Topics to be addressed include biblical interpretation, Jewish law, feminist Jewish theology and liturgy, the renewal of ritual, the rabbinic ordination of women, gender identity, race, sexuality, queer, trans, and non-binary approaches, and representations of these themes in various media.

This course explores German-Jewish writing before and after the Holocaust, focusing on the social and political position of Jews as a minority in German-speaking countries and how those are manifest in their writing and relation to the German language. Previously offered as GERM 466/JWST 466.

The course traces the past and continued canonical processes that define what the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament has been and is today, with a focus on the history of biblical interpretation.

This seminar examines selected topics in modern Hispanic Jewish culture, focusing on literature and film. Possible thematic approaches include identity, diaspora, migration, memory, statehood, life writing, and interreligious relations.

Required of majors and minors in religious studies with a concentration in Jewish studies; interested non-majors and graduate students may also enroll. Concentrating on a different theme each year, and taught by instructors affiliated with the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, the course offers intensive grounding in key areas of and approaches to Jewish studies. Combines exploration of broad topics with scholarly rigor and specificity.