Traces of mystical Islam, or Sufism, fill the poetry shelves of chain bookstores. Quotes attributed to the Sufi poets Rumi and Hafiz grace tea bags, calendars, and any number of tchotchkes available at big box stores around the country. The US government has identified Sufism as the "tolerant" face of Islam and funneled millions into its promotion. But how much does any of this really say about the complex set of people, practices, and ideas called Sufism? Students in this course encounter Sufism from its earliest instantiation to today.

Should American religious history be told as story of increasing diversity and freedom? This course surveys the changing meanings of religious freedom in the United States from the early nation to the present day. Students consider key primary sources--founding documents, court cases, political cartoons, accusations, and apologetics--and weigh these alongside the arguments of scholars in religious studies.

This course acquaints students with major Jewish thinkers in the modern and contemporary periods. The course begins by asking what makes a thinker Jewish? What makes a Jewish thinker modern? After a brief overview of major themes in Jewish ethics, students begin their exploration with a study of Baruch Spinoza’s rationalist challenge to Judaism that results in the quintessential modern question, who is a Jew? Students then turn to Jewish responses to the Enlightenment, emancipation, nationalism, and new forms of antisemitism.

The seminar focuses on the thought of Walter Benjamin, including a selection of texts commonly referred to as Benjamin’s "messianic" or "theological" writings. Benjamin’s life, work, and influence represent a remarkable nexus of aesthetic theory, cultural critique, Western Marxism, and Jewish mysticism. The course is especially aimed at laying bare the messianic structure of his thought as most clearly demonstrated in his early essays "Critique of Violence" and "The Task of the Translator," both published during his lifetime in 1921 and 1923.

From zombies to hurricanes to the rapture, apocalyptic narratives of how the world ends and what comes after have stimulated literary and religious imaginations for over 2000 years. Often, apocalyptic stories tell us more about the conditions, social fears and anxieties in which they are produced than about any anticipated future. This course explores religious, literary, pop cultural, technological, environmental and catastrophic ideas about the apocalypse and millennium. Why are apocalyptic narratives so enduring in American culture?

What makes a religious movement new? Why do we use this designation for some movements and not others? This course will examine a series of new religious movements that have emerged within the last 150 years: The Native American Church, Scientology, the Nation of Islam, the Raelians, Neo-Pagan Witchcraft, Scientology, Rajneesh, the Branch Davidians, Falun Gong, Jonestown, UFO movements, and Heaven’s Gate. In the process, we will examine the relationship between NRMs and consumer society and new technologies.

This course surveys Muslim life and religious movements connected to Islam in North America, tracing the history of Islam on the continent from the Atlantic slave trade to the post-9/11 era. It investigates the many ways in which Islam, as both a religion and an idea, has appeared on the American horizon and in the American imagination. Through course exams, assignments, and papers, students are able to appreciate and reflect concretely in their writing on the cultural and socio-economic differences that have shaped American Muslim views on religion and identity.

This course provides an introduction to Christianity, or rather, `Christianities.’ To understand the diversity within Christianity, the course compares and contrasts various historical and contemporary traditions in Christianity: Gnosticism, the Eastern Orthodox Church, medieval Western Latin Christianity, Protestantism in the sixteenth century, African-American Christianities, Pentecostalism, liberation theology, and Christian fundamentalism in the United States.

This course introduces students to some important themes, histories, and ideas in the study of Judaism. It poses the question, "What does it mean to be Jewish?" And it provides multiple, contested answers. It begins with modern American Judaism. In the first weeks, we will study the forms of Jewish religiosity, culture, and art that arose in 20th century America. Then, we will take a giant leap back to study the Hebrew Bible, the Rabbinic traditions, and medieval Jewish philosophy and mysticism.

The figure of Jesus has sparked theological debates, artistic expressions, government decrees, religious persecutions, pietistic revivals, and social and moral attitudes, affecting the lives of countless generations. This course addresses an over-arching question throughout the semester: How does an educated person in today’s society evaluate such conflicting responses? The course draws on current historical and narrative approaches to understand the ’images’ of Jesus in their respective literary, social, and historical contexts. It addresses some of the following questions.