Semester Offering

Spring 2025 Course Listing

REL 137 Speaking with the Divine

From the biblical world to modern America, asserting the power to speak with the divine has provided people the ability to enact social change, critique the powerful, and legitimate new religious beliefs. In this course, we will explore three different, but ultimately related ways that people have claimed to converse with the divine world: divination, shamanism, and prophecy. We will place particular emphasis on understanding the social significance and political function that these practices have played in the past, and continue to play today. More generally, we will also explore questions of religious belief and experience. The course will conclude with a reexamination of traditions of divine communication within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in light of cross-cultural comparisons with other religious traditions.

Meets general academic requirements DE and HU.

REL 202 Theory & Method in the Study of Religion

In this course, students explore the methodological and theoretical frameworks that define the academic study of religion. Coverage includes analysis of multiple disciplinary perspectives including sociology, anthropology, history, phenomenology, and psychology. Additionally, students will put the theoretical into practice by using the methods studied in class to analyze the beliefs and practices of various religious traditions.

Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 202).

REL 215 New Religious Movements

How do religious groups form and develop? How do these groups differ from “traditional” religious communities? In this course, we will examine New Religious Movements (NRM) from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. We will investigate the beliefs, practices, and symbolism of several NRMs, seeking to understand both the unique histories of these groups and the patterns of development that may share. Finally, we will consider how these new movements interact with established religious traditions and how they are perceived by those outside of the group.

Meets general academic requirement HU.

REL 237 Reading the Rabbis

The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE marked a new period in the history of Judaism. In the aftermath of this event, a group of scholars known as “Rabbis” appear on the historical stage, whose vision of Jewish practice and life will come to define Judaism as it is encountered today. In this class, we will situate the literature and thought of the early rabbis in the historical, cultural, and political context of the ancient worlds in which they lived. To that end, students will explore topics ranging from scriptural authority to magical incantation by engaging with English translations of core rabbinic texts, including the Mishnah, Toseftah, Babylonian Talmud, and Midrashim.

Meets general academic requirement HU. Also counts toward Jewish Studies.

REL 314 Death & Desire in Tibetan Buddhism

This course examines the practices of death and desire in the unique traditions of Tibetan tantra, a form of Himalayan Buddhism. Tibetan tantra involves practices of wrathful deities, sexual yogas, and subtle body technologies to produce a unique understanding of mind and body and their potential for transformation in both sexual union and in death. We will look at the foundational Tibetan Book of the Dead cycle of texts, as well as explore their evolving meanings in contemporary, non-Buddhist contexts like American Hospice. How have Tibetan Buddhists associated desire, power, and knowing? How might investigations of Tibetan practices of death and desire inform our own?

Meets general academic requirement HU and DE.

REL 330 MILA: Ecology & Religion in Japan

Through religious life and environmental stewardship are often understood to be mutually exclusive realms of human activity, the reality is that these land practices often influence one another in important ways. This course to Japan offers a unique opportunity to explore the intersections of sustainability and religion in the context of an industrialized Asian country. After a semester introducing students to the fundamentals of ecology and how humans rely upon and impact ecosystems processes, as well as to the history and ritual of Buddhism and indigenous Shinto, we will visit Japan. There, we will explore Japanese religious communities, businesses, schools, and secular urban spaces to gain an understanding of Japanese practices of place, addressing several key questions. How does the recently designated UNESCO World Heritage Pilgrimage, and Kumano Kodo, handle the environmental stress of its 15 million annual visitors? To what extent does the Buddhist teaching of no-self affect the Japanese response to the 2011 tsunami? How do small-scale fisheries situate themselves in both the global economy and in the Shinto universe of gods and humans? We will visit both urban industrialized Osaka and deeply rural Wakayama, investigating the way Japanese people attempt to balance industrialized manufacturing, dense urban living, and the limited resources of a small island nation. As case studies, we will explore the impacts of the Japanese fishing industry on global ocean health and engage in service learning with a lay-based ecological religious movement led by a Shugendo priest. Our trip will also include visits the historically important cities of Hiroshima and Kyoto.

Meets general academic requirement DE, IL, and HU. Also counts toward Asian Studies, Environmental Science, and International Studies.

REL 354 Gender & Sexuality in Judaism

In this course we will examine how issues relating to gender and sexuality have influenced Jewish experience.  We will discuss a wide range of Jewish history and literature, extending from the Bible to contemporary Jewish culture, in order to gain a broad perspective on how gender and sexuality have played a role in Jewish life and thought over time.  We will consider how gender and sexuality relate to questions of power and authority and discuss the ways that bodies, both gendered and sexual, become meaningful in different Jewish contexts.

Meets general academic requirement HU, MV, and W.

 

REL 363 Islam in America

American Muslims come from a wide diversity of backgrounds and cultures. In this course we will explore the historical contexts and current realities of Muslim communities in the United States. Questions to consider will include: How have traditional Islamic and Muslim doctrines and practices converged with American ideals of pluralism and secularism? Is there a distinctive “American Islam”? How have Muslim culture and Islam enriched the broader American culture?

Meets general academic requirement HU, DE, and W.

Contact

Religion Studies

Email [email protected] Telephone 484-664-3435
Address Muhlenberg College Religion Studies Moyer 226 2400 Chew Street Allentown, PA 18104