An examination of religious themes in literature, focusing on religion generally, not a particular religion. The Enlightenment challenge to religion and literature's dealings with that challenge; identity in modern and postmodern fiction and world, community and modernity; and orthodox and unorthodox religious understandings in modern fiction.

What do religions say about women? What do women say about religions? This class will examine women’s lives in a variety of religious traditions around the world.

A survey of popular Christian readings highlighting contemporary Christian theological debates and their relationships to historical Christian doctrine.

Offered fall semester every even-numbered year.

The social, cultural, and economic influences on canon formation and on canon reformation in various cultures. The valences of canon in such environments and its impact on society.

An exploration of various topics linking the languages of science and religion in the ancient world. For example, the relationships among Babylonian astrology and omenology, and Biblical and Greek thought, in the 8th-6th centuries BCE (the "Axial Age"), focusing on cosmology. Socially contextualized, this is a source of monotheism and philosophy.

Historical, thematic, detailed study of the life of Mohammad, the prophet of Islam, from earliest sources. An examination of biographical (sirah) material, the Transmitted Traditions (hadith), and debates about the Traditions. The introduction to Arabic script and phonology will permit students to read a few of Mohammad's short sayings.

Historical, thematic study of the Islamic sacred text, the Koran, including textual history, its compilation, and the stages that led to its printed form. There will also be an introduction to basic technical terms of the Koranic sciences, Koranic hermeneutics, and Arabic script and phonology.

An examination of Islam and Islamic culture in Morocco. The course covers basic Islamic beliefs and practices and the most significant aspects of Islamic culture in Morocco, such as music, art, and architecture.

This is a maymester summer abroad program and will thus entail, with the course work, extensive travel throughout Morocco and homestays with Moroccan families. The educational experience of this course will be of an on-going "immersion" type.

Examines facilitation of and active participation in intercultural dialogue during supervised discussions with students whose culture is non-American. Emphasis on using the principles of active listening and dialogue for cultivating hermeneutical understanding (of both self and others), while discussing topics of intercultural and interreligious interest.

Buddhism from its origin in the life and teachings of the Buddha through the period of philosophical ferment in India, and its thought and institutions in the East and the West up to the present.

Offered every odd-numbered year.