Courses

This starts the sequence of Biblical Hebrew. We only start a new sequence every two years, so undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Judaism, and Christianity are encouraged to start in Fall 2024!

Provides general introduction to the peoples, cultures, and languages of the Middle East, both past and present. No previous knowledge of the Middle East required.

Modern and contemporary ideas about violence and their emergence as intellectual responses to historical events. Topics may include histories of physical violence, such as slavery, colonialism, or the Holocaust, as well as structural forms of violence.

Topics include Jews' and Muslims' linked encounters with empire, westernization, and nationalism; Jewish culture and identity in Islamic contexts migration and diasporic identities; the impact of Zionism, European Jewish settlement in Palestine, and the State of Israel on Jewish-Muslim relations in the Middle East and beyond; Islamophobia and antisemitism.

Explores Sephardic art. Music, food, film, literature, citizenship and nationhood, identity, and the origins of ladino, among other topics. Taught in English.

Explores Judaism’s sacred texts, holidays, and beliefs. Addresses Judaism’s impact on society, culture, and politics. Through the lens of the Jewish experience, grapples with fundamental questions about the role of individuals and members of larger communities in an increasingly multicultural, religious, and interconnected world.

Death analyzed from a cross-cultural perspective. Topics include funerary practices, concepts of the soul and afterlife, cultural variations in grief, cemeteries as folk art, and medical and ethical issues in comparative context. American death practices compared to those of other cultures.

Introduction to the discipline of history for new or prospective majors. Emphasizes the basic skills of reading, analysis, and communication (both verbal and written) that are central to the historian’s craft. Each seminar discusses a different subject or problem.

Provides a historical understanding for major global issues today. Focuses on interdisciplinary social science theories and methods to develop core analytical and writing skills and engage complex questions of causation and effects of global events and forces.

History of religions, concentrating on religious traditions that have developed west of the Indus. Primary attention to the Semitic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) and to their ancient world background with emphasis on basic conceptual and symbolic structures.

A literary, historical, and theological introduction to the Quran. Looks at the historical circumstances of the text's compilation; its collection and redaction; its narrative structure; its rhetorical strategies; its major themes; it connections to and departures from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament; commentary and exegesis; translation; and its impact on political and religious thought.

Explores the intersection of religion and politics in various world regions, including the U.S., Europe, Middle East, Latin America, and China. Focuses on the role religious diversity plays in affecting government policy, including how state power structures privilege certain faith traditions and how political actors can be captured by religious interest groups. Includes discussion of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism.

We will read and compare mythic traditions from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria, Anatolia, and Israel/Judah, as well as examining how some of these myths developed over time and how myths were used in religious, royal, and mundane contexts.

Studies yoga and its history, practice, literature, and politics. From the ancient past to modern yoga, studies essential texts and ideas, as well as the effects of class, religion, gender, nationalism, development, Marxism, colonialism, and physical culture on yoga.

History of religions, concentrating on religions that have developed in South Asia and East Asia. Primary attention to Hinduism and Buddhism; other important Asian religions are discussed in relation to them, with emphasis on basic conceptual and symbolic structures.

The Bible and its interpreters invented the gender categories and hierarchies that readers take for granted. Employs academic approaches that illuminate the construction of those categories and explores the debates within Judaism and Christianity as well as within academia today about gender, sex, sexuality, and religion.

Provides a historical understanding for major global issues today. Focuses on interdisciplinary social science theories and methods to develop core analytical and writing skills and engage complex questions of causation and effects of global events and forces.

Studies yoga and its history, practice, literature, and politics. From the ancient past to modern yoga, studies essential texts and ideas, as well as the effects of class, religion, gender, nationalism, development, Marxism, colonialism, and physical culture on yoga.