REL Courses for Fall 2026
Please click on the course title for more information.
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REL 202 01 - Concepts in Biblical Studies: Reward & Punishment
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Course: |
REL 202 - 01 |
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Title: |
Concepts in Biblical Studies: Reward & Punishment |
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Credit Hours: |
1 |
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Description: |
Why do bad things happen to good people? This course examines how the Bible confronts some of the most complex and confounding questions humans can ask regarding the relationship between actions and their inevitable outcomes. Through close readings of biblical texts and contemporaneous examples from the ancient Middle East and North Africa, students will be introduced to key theories and methods in biblical studies as tools for examining how the dynamic relationship between behaviors and their results shape the biblical understanding of justice, divine retribution, rewards, and moral order.
We will compare (1) punishment and reward in biblical narrative and law and their reverberations in both prophetic literature and more esoteric texts like the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes/Qohelet, and Job, to both (2) relevant contemporaneous examples from the ancient Middle East and North Africa, and (3) contemporary examples from popular culture (e.g., Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Wicked, KPop Demon Hunters, The Good Place, Hamilton, and Spirited Away) in order to ask how thinking about reward and punishment has changed over time and, especially, how modern thinking both adheres to and diverges from biblical and other ancient models.
This class has no prerequisites; no previous knowledge of the Bible or ancient history is presumed. |
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Prerequisite(s): |
None |
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Notes: |
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Distribution(s): |
Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy |
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Cross Listed Courses: |
JWST 202 01 - Concepts in Biblical Studies: Reward & Punishment
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Instructors: |
Eric Jarrard |
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Meeting Time(s): |
Pendleton East 339 Case Method Room - MR 9:55 AM - 11:10 AM |
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REL 229 01 - Sacred Earth
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Course: |
REL 229 - 01 |
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Title: |
Sacred Earth |
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Credit Hours: |
1 |
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Description: |
Every religious culture regards the Earth as a site of sacrality, whether understood as the creation of the gods and thus intrinsically sacred, or as an entity through and with which the sacred interacts. In our time of escalating ecological disaster and runaway global heating, humans can claim these traditions as one way of placing our human wreckage of the planet into a larger critical perspective than the scientific warnings, corporate denials, and governmental temporizing that currently inform the environmental crisis. This course will introduce students to ideas of the terrestrial sacred and how humans should relate to it from a range of religious and spiritual traditions, including Native American, Biblical, Christian, Transcendentalist, and today’s ecological thinkers. Together we will assess the value and applicability of these diverse approaches to sacred earth for today’s ever more urgent crisis of global environmental disruption. No prior knowledge of or course work in Religious Studies is required. |
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Prerequisite(s): |
None. |
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Notes: |
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Distribution(s): |
Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy |
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Cross Listed Courses: |
ES 229 01 - Sacred Earth
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Instructors: |
Stephen Marini |
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Meeting Time(s): |
Science Center L Wing 035 Classroom - MR 11:20 AM - 12:35 PM |
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REL 236 01 - Divine Madness: Dreams, Visions, Hallucinations
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Course: |
REL 236 - 01 |
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Title: |
Divine Madness: Dreams, Visions, Hallucinations |
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Credit Hours: |
1 |
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Description: |
This course explores anthropological, religious, and psychiatric perspectives on mental health and mental illness, with careful attention to varied constructions of "madness", treatment, and healing across human cultures. We begin with comparative questions: are there universal standards of positive mental and emotional functioning? Are there overall commonalities in approaches to psychic and emotional disturbances? What is the role of spirituality? After considering the history of ‘madness’ in the West, we consider early anthropological and religious models of "madness" elsewhere. We next turn to ritualized therapeutic interventions in small-scale indigenous societies and consider a range of case studies from around the world. We conclude with a unit on culture and mental health in the United States and the ‘globalization” of American models of the psyche |
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Prerequisite(s): |
None. |
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Notes: |
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Distribution(s): |
Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Social and Behavioral Analysis |
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Cross Listed Courses: |
ANTH 236 01 - Divine Madness: Dreams, Visions, Hallucinations
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Instructors: |
Holly Lynn Walters |
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Meeting Time(s): |
Pendleton East 339 Case Method Room - TF 9:55 AM - 11:10 AM |
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REL 243 01 - Women in the Biblical World
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Course: |
REL 243 - 01 |
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Title: |
Women in the Biblical World |
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Credit Hours: |
1 |
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Description: |
The roles and images of women in the Bible, and in early Jewish and Christian literature, examined in the context of the ancient societies in which these documents emerged. Special attention to the relationships among archaeological, legal, and literary sources in reconstructing the status of women in these societies. |
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Prerequisite(s): |
None. |
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Notes: |
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Distribution(s): |
Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy |
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Instructors: |
Barbara H. Geller |
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Meeting Time(s): |
Founders 102 Classroom - TF 2:10 PM - 3:25 PM |
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REL 272 01 - Technologies of Text: The Book in the World
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Course: |
REL 272 - 01 |
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Title: |
Technologies of Text: The Book in the World |
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Credit Hours: |
1 |
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Description: |
An interdisciplinary and cross-cultural exploration of the book, with a focus on technologies of writing and the reproduction of writing. The course takes a thematic approach, as a way to explore, through specific examples, the diverse ways in which societies and communities, in different periods and environments, have developed and transmitted cultures of writing, recording, reproducing, disseminating and reading texts. Among the themes that we shall explore in the course are cultures of writing, the materiality and aesthetics of the book, texts and paratexts, beginnings and endings of books, ornamentation, illumination, illustration or the lack of illustration, strategies developed to facilitate reading, the reproduction, dissemination and reception of books, the classification, storage and retrieval of books, the collecting and curation of books, and the circulation, suppression and censorship of books. Drawn from various cultural, religious and linguistic contexts, our examples may include texts written in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Arabic, Persian, Ethiopian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and modern European languages. |
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Prerequisite(s): |
None. |
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Notes: |
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Distribution(s): |
Historical Studies
Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video |
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Instructors: |
Louise Marlow
Ruth R. Rogers |
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Meeting Time(s): |
Margaret Clapp Library 404 Special Collections Classroom - W 9:30 AM - 12:10 PM |
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REL 319 01 - Seminar: Religion, Law, and Politics in America
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Course: |
REL 319 - 01 |
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Title: |
Seminar: Religion, Law, and Politics in America |
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Credit Hours: |
1 |
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Description: |
A study of the relationships among religion, fundamental law, and political culture in the American experience. Topics include established religion in the British colonies, religious ideologies in the American Revolution, religion and rebellion in the Civil War crisis, American civil religion, and the New Religious Right. Special attention to the separation of church and state and selected Supreme Court cases on the religion clauses of the First Amendment. In addition, the class will monitor and discuss religious and moral issues in the 2026 elections. |
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Prerequisite(s): |
REL 200 or REL 218, or at least one 200-level unit in American Studies or in American history, sociology, or politics; or permission of the instructor. |
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Notes: |
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Distribution(s): |
Historical Studies or Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy |
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Cross Listed Courses: |
AMST 319 01 - Seminar: Religion, Law, and Politics in America
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Instructors: |
Stephen Marini |
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Meeting Time(s): |
Founders 319 Classroom - W 1:30 PM - 4:10 PM |
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REL 333 01 - Seminar: Bible & Politics
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Course: |
REL 333 - 01 |
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Title: |
Seminar: Bible & Politics |
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Credit Hours: |
1 |
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Description: |
This course explores the explicit and implicit relationships between the Bible and politics in two distinct but interconnected contexts: Africa and the US. We will study how biblical texts and their complicated history of interpretation have shaped global discourse, political ideologies, international laws, moral debates, and justice. Topics of inquiry will include the Bible as a tool for cultural hegemony, the institution and abolition of slavery, and contemporary debates about gender, sexuality, human rights, and abortion access.
Students will develop skills for engaging primary sources including biblical texts, sermons, political speeches, constitutional articles and legal decisions to understand how biblical ideas continue to influence governance, identity, and resistance globally.
All persons and perspectives are welcome in this class. Previous knowledge or personal experience with the Bible, or the politics and history of Africa and the US is neither presumed nor necessary. |
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Prerequisite(s): |
At least one AFR or REL course. |
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Notes: |
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Distribution(s): |
Religion, Ethics, and Moral Philosophy
Social and Behavioral Analysis |
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Cross Listed Courses: |
AFR 333 01 - Seminar: Bible & Politics
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Instructors: |
Eric Jarrard
Chipo Dendere |
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Meeting Time(s): |
Founders 227 Seminar Room - M 2:20 PM - 5:00 PM |
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