Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: VISITING RESEARCH

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Research

Credit Hours: 0

Description: Research conducted by visiting student scholars. Department Permission Required. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF RELIGION

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Comparative and interdisciplinary analysis of key elements (including scripture, religious experience, ideas of the divine, religious art and practices) of two Western and two non-Western religions, of the scholarly study of religion, and of the role of religion in the contemporary world.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO JEWISH MYSTICISM

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Surveys the historical development and central themes of Jewish mysticism. From the bible to ancient mysticism to medieval Kabbalah to modern expressions, we will critically reflection the ideas such as divine presence in the world, the cultivation of insight and magical powers, contemplative and restorative practices, and charismatic authority. Cross-list: MDEM 103.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO JUDAISM

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Survey of post-biblical Judaism as reflected in the literature of the classical rabbinic tradition, mysticism, medieval biblical commentary, legal codes and philosophy, and modern movements such as Hasidism, denominational Judaism, Zionism, and feminist Judaism. Jewish material culture such as synagogue architecture, illuminated manuscripts and ritual artifacts will be included. Students will not receive credit for both RELI 108 and RELI 209. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 108 if student has credit for RELI 209.

Long Title: RELIGION AND LAW

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Law and religion: origins, differentiation, relation to legitimacy and stability of basic institutions. Law school, professional life, quest for a fitting career in the search for meaning and authentic selfhood. Required: willingness to share the personal roots of your interest in law and your take on the Big Picture.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN RELIGIONS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Introduction to the structures of African religions through readings. Topics include community, cosmology, ritual, ethical values, magic, witchcraft, spirit possession, contribution to nationalism, social change, religion and art, and transplantation of African Religions in the Americas. Cross-list: AAAS 110.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO EARLY CHRISTIANITY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course focuses on understanding the pluralistic nature of early Christianity from its grassroots beginnings in a commune in Jerusalem to its growth in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, North Africa, and Rome. Different Christian movements are studied comparatively as well as historically. Take-home exams. D1 effective Fall 2023.

Long Title: THE SECRET GOSPELS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This introductory course explores the secret lives of Jesus as portrayed in an array of early Christian gospels and related literature. Why did the early Christians develop secret traditions and practices? What did they claim Jesus taught in secret to his family and friends, including James his brother and Mary Magdalene? What does this literature tell us about early Christian diversity and religious competition? Weekly 500-word essays in response to readings and discussion. Mutually exclusive with RELI 304. Credit for RELI 114 cannot be earned if the student has previously taken RELI 304 and vice versa.

Long Title: CONTEMPORARY ETHICS AND THE BIBLE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course examines what the Bible has to say about some of the major issues of our time. Topics to be discussed include creation/the environment and creation care, gender, homosexuality, abortion, religious tolerance, capital punishment, social justice, refugees, and forced migration.

Long Title: THE BIBLE AND ITS INTERPRETERS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An introduction to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Compares modern-critical reading with early Jewish and Christian, often fanciful interpretations.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO WORLD CHRISTIANITY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course is designed to introduce students to world Christianity from historical and thematic perspectives. Readings and lectures for the course will draw from interdisciplinary research and scholarship to situate world Christianity as a dynamic spiritual, intellectual, cultural, and communal tradition. This course will introduce students to Christianity in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific using historical analysis to probe the history of the Christian movement, its global distribution, its sacred texts and practices, social engagement, and roles it has a place in a changing world. Interdisciplinary texts will be used to probe selected topics including but not limited to proselytization, leadership, the dynamic competitive relations between mainline churches, emerging Christian communities, and the social and political dimensions of world Christianity.

Long Title: RELIGION AND THE ART OF HAPPINESS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Students at Rice University consistently self-report as "happiest" by rankings like the Princeton Review. Course analyzes what we mean when we talk about "happiness" in the study of religion, assessing the role of community, habits, meaning, and positive thinking in religious and psychological texts, as well as lived experience.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO BIBLICAL HEBREW I

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An introduction to Biblical Hebrew with emphasis on grammar and vocabulary. Cross-list: HEBR 125, Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 507. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 125 if student has credit for RELI 507.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO BIBLICAL HEBREW II

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Continuation of RELI 125. We will finish the grammar in the second half of this semester and then read selections from the Hebrew Bible. Cross-list: HEBR 126, Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 511. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 126 if student has credit for RELI 511.

Long Title: INTERMEDIATE BIBLICAL HEBREW III

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): RELI 125 AND RELI 126

Description: Readings in the Hebrew Bible as well as in some unvocalized texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Review of grammar and vocabulary. Instructor Permission Required.Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 512. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 127 if student has credit for RELI 512.

Long Title: ANTI-SEMITISM AND ISLAMOPHOBIA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In a world saturated with competing narratives about anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, it can be hard to sort facts from fiction. Often, it's difficult to even understand what we're talking about. Where do these forms of discrimination come from? Are they about race? Religion? Ethnicity? Perhaps something else entirely? In this course, we'll address these questions using a variety of disciplines and by looking at a range of sources, from literature and films to works of philosophy and political theory. We'll turn our attention back to medieval Spain and move all the way through contemporary debates about the Holocaust, the State of Israel, and the War on Terror. By the end, students will have a rich knowledge of the various forms these ideas have taken, how and why they are intrinsically related to one another, and how they have evolved in the present. If you’re interested in understanding more about our current world and how it came to be, this class will build a strong foundation for engaging in historically informed critical dialogue on today's pressing social issues. Cross-list: JWST 130.

Long Title: THE COLORS OF LIFE AND THE END OF LIFE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course explores lived experience through emotion and color, both in life and at the end of life. The class promotes the accessibility of humanistic themes among STEM-oriented learners in ways that are especially relevant and compelling for students planning to enter into the medical or healthcare professions, or who, one day, will serve as caregivers. Cross-list: MDHM 142.

Long Title: RELIGION AND HIP HOP CULTURE IN AMERICA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Hip Hop culture has changed how life is discussed and conducted. However, one of the under-explored dimensions of Hip Hop culture involves its religious sensibilities. Using lectures, discussions, films, and video presentations, this course explores Hip Hop culture's religious dimensions through its musical language-rap music. Cross-list: AAAS 157, Equivalency: AAAS 157, RELI 311. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 157 if student has credit for RELI 311.

Long Title: LIBERATION THEOLOGIES

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course seeks to acquaint students with examples of liberation theology, as they relate to the following issues: racism, sexism, classism, and environmental destruction. Attention is given to the context, construction, form, and aims of Latin American liberation theology, Black theology, Feminist theology, and Theology in the Intersections. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 158 if student has credit for RELI 548.

Long Title: STAR WARS AND RELIGION

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The Star Wars films contain one of the richest fictional universes of our time. In this course, we use the theories and methods of Religious Studies (e.g., comparison, psychology, the paranormal, religion and technology) to analyze the Star Wars universe as a modern mythology. Student can expect to gain a working knowledge of tools utilized in the humanities as well as a novel understanding of Star Wars films and fandom.

Long Title: JUDAISM OF JESUS AND HILLEL

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course examines the history and literature of Judaism during the Second Temple period, which produced such religious leaders as Jesus and Hillel. Topics include: Jewish sectarianism, scribes and the growth of Scripture, temple worship and the first synagogues, diaspora religion, Jesus and the birth of Christianity, and the origin of Rabbinic Judaism. Counts for the Minor in Jewish Studies. Cross-list: HIST 201.

Long Title: THE BIBLE IN ART

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An introduction to the textual and visual study of the Bible by closely comparing some select biblical passages with a wide range of artistic depictions in different medias and geographies, ranging from the late medieval to the modern period. Considers the intersecting discourses of social, economic, cultural, aesthetic, political, and religious contexts within which these interpretations took place, as well as the interdisciplinary methods scholars have used to approach them. Class will feature a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Cross-list: HART 210. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 210 if student has credit for RELI 330.

Long Title: MYSTIC CINEMA: KABBALAH IN FILM

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course explores uses by the film industry of ideas drawn from Jewish mysticism. We will examine themes such as monsters, spirits, numerology and the paranormal, as portrayed in classic film and through to contemporary Hollywood. Emphasis will be placed on the medieval textual and folkloric traditions behind such portrayals. Cross-list: FILM 215. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 215 if student has credit for FILM 114/FSEM 141.

Long Title: RELIGION AND BLACK LIVES MATTER

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course explores the intersections of religion, politics, and social justice during the period of history marked by the emergence and activities of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Cross-list: AAAS 217.

Long Title: THE SUPERNATURAL AND RELIGION

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will treat the history of the supernatural from the biblical materials on the miraculous "sign," through the birth of the "supernatural" in medieval Christianity and the canonization of saints, to the mediating categories of the "preternatural" and the modern "paranormal." Comparative categories and materials in other cultural and religious complexes will also be treated. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 219 if student has credit for RELI 519.

Long Title: THE LIFE OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will examine the life of the Prophet Muhammad, focusing on its significance for Muslims and for non-Muslims. Readings in The Qur'an, Ibn Hisham, and Haykal. Cross-list: ASIA 221.

Long Title: QUR'AN AND COMMENTARY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Survey of the major themes of the Qur'an and selected types of commentary on it from the early Islamic period until the present day.

Long Title: RACE AND RELIGION

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: There is no shortage of critical engagement with the idea of race and its role in shaping modern history and politics. Rarely, however, do we think about religion as an important part of that story. Economics, public policy, history, literature, and science have all developed various perspectives on this question, but religion is often left aside in these conversations. This course looks closely at the intersection of race and religion and the ways these two ideas have been deeply entangled in the modern and even ancient worlds. We will ask whether it makes sense to talk about race in antiquity and the Middle Ages, prior to its scientific invention; we will explore the links between race and Christianity; and we will interrogate how various groups, including Jews, Muslims, and Black people understood themselves within the discourses of race and religion. By examining these two ideas in relation to one another, this course offers a richer understanding of the history and evolution of racial ideas and their continued resonance in the present. Cross-list: JWST 224.

Long Title: AMERICAN METAPHYSICAL RELIGION

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Beginning with a historical survey of the American metaphysical tradition, this course turns to a close study of the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, as a unique window into some of the different ways the tradition has appropriated Asian religions, psychological models of the unconscious, and contemporary scientific paradigms. Cross-list: ASIA 231. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 231 if student has credit for RELI 505.

Long Title: RELIGIONS FROM INDIA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course surveys religions that originated in India and have spread globally, especially Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. Examining important practices, texts, and artworks, we investigate topics such as devotion, liberation, ritual, sacred space, identity, diversity, and historical change from ancient South Asia to contemporary America and the world. Cross-list: ASIA 232, Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 500. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 232 if student has credit for RELI 500.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO TIBETAN LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CULTURE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Introducing the Tibetan alphabet and basics of grammar through reading section of a classic Tibetan text. In addition, readings in English in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist materials, also on the art, history, geography and /or modern era in those areas. Final includes a paper drawn from readings and class discussion. Cross-list: TIBT 233. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 233 if student has credit for RELI 502.

Long Title: INTERMEDIATE TIBETAN LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CULTURE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Continued training in Tibetan language-extending vocabulary and facility with grammar. Final includes a paper drawn from readings and class discussion. Cross-list: TIBT 234, Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 564. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 234 if student has credit for RELI 564. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: SPECIAL TOPICS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Independent Study, Internship/Practicum, Laboratory, Lecture, Lecture/Laboratory, Seminar

Credit Hours: 1 TO 4

Description: Topics and credit hours may vary each semester. Contact department for current semester’s topic(s). Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: THE BOOK OF GENESIS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: A critical reading in English of the Book of Genesis with close attention to the narrative artistry and theological dimensions of the text. Compares pre-modern modes of interpretation and modern historical criticism.

Long Title: RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course we will undertake a collective exploration of the categories of religion and science as they are constructed in relation to each other, then explore how these categories are applied in and shape the world they work to describe. We will study the social phenomenon of the debate between religion and science as a cultural event in the western intellectual tradition that can illuminate how we understand these terms in contemporary popular culture. Our intention will be to understand how knowledge creation itself is structured by cultural forces. This course is designed to be a self-contained intellectual investigation accessible to interested students in any discipline.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO THE BLACK CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Much of what has historically taken place within Black communities has been shaped by Black Christian churches. These churches are resources for those interested in understanding religious expression and activism within the Black community. This course provides an introduction into the history, thought, and worship of the major Black denominations. Cross-list: AAAS 270.

Long Title: MEDIEVAL POPULAR CHRISTIANITY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: For much of the Middle Ages, literacy was a luxury that ordinary people could not afford. How could peasants participate in Christian traditions? Course surveys devotional practices engaged by the laity, including penance, pilgrimage, plays, charms and spells, as well as traditions of lay interaction with dead saints and ghosts. Cross-list: MDEM 271.

Long Title: RELIGIOUS WORLDVIEWS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course is an examination of how religious worldviews contain arguments, assumptions and stories about the natural world that shape how people consider themselves in relation to the environment and decide what responsibilities they have to the environment. We will explore examples from diverse cultures and environments to wonder how the natural world shapes religions and how religions impact the environment. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 280 if student has credit for RELI 390.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIANITY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Multidisciplinary exploration of Christian religious experience, belief, and social reality with examples from Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe during the last two thousand years. Themes include search for lasting marks of identity amid change and diversity as well as the issue of Christianity's relation to processes of modernization and secularization. No prior background in religious studies required.

Long Title: RELIGION IN FICTION AND FILM

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The sacred in interreligious, international, and interdisciplinary encounter, approached via social sciences, theology, theories of literature and mythology. Authors and directors can include Waugh, Mishima, Mann, Proust, Hesse, Percy, Gardner, Updike, Gibson, Sterling, Coupland, Ray, Resnais, Fellini, Bergman, Anderson, Bunnel, and Nutley. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 514. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 294 if student has credit for RELI 514.

Long Title: RELIGIONS IN AMERICA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Examines the religions and religious practices of America from colonial encounter with native peoples to the contemporary period with a special focus on the morphing natures and historical complexities of American Christianities, religious pluralism and secularism. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 504. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 300 if student has credit for RELI 504.

Long Title: NIETZSCHE AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Nietzsche's thought and background: his impact on religious thinkers and cultural critics; his influence on understanding of God, faith, values, society; his connection with Schopenhauer, Wagner, Tillich, Mann, Barth, Buber, Freud, Jung, D.H. Lawrence, Heidegger, antibourgeois cultural criticism, environmentalism, feminism, and postmodernism. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 515. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 301 if student has credit for RELI 515.

Long Title: THE GOSPELS AND SECRET GOSPELS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Explores the New Testament and extra-canonical gospels (including the Gospels of Thomas Philip, Mary, Judas, etc.) in order understand how and why the early Christians wrote about Jesus' public and secret teachings. Weekly responses to the readings/discussions and 2500-word research paper on topic chosen by student.

Long Title: WE GON' BE ALRIGHT? THEMES IN THE ETHICS OF HIP HOP

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: By exploring rap lyrics, images, and secondary texts, this course exams how hip hop culture names and presents pressing issues—e.g., death and dying. Through hip hop’s response to these issues, students will decipher and discuss the ethical frameworks and commitments undergirding this art form.

Long Title: BASIC COPTIC 1

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: A first semester introduction to Coptic grammar and vocabulary. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 591. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 307 if student has credit for RELI 591. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: BASIC COPTIC 2

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): RELI 307

Description: Second semester introduction to Coptic grammar and vocabulary, with selected readings from the Coptic New Testament, Nag Hammadi, and monastic literature. Prerequisite: Introduction to Coptic Language I. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 592. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 308 if student has credit for RELI 592.

Long Title: BASIC COPTIC 3

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 1 TO 3

Description: Varied readings in original language to include the New Testament, Nag Hammadi, and monastic literature. Prerequisite: Coptic 1 and 2. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 593. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 309 if student has credit for RELI 593. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: RELIGION AND HIP HOP CULTURE IN AMERICA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Hip Hop culture has changed how life is discussed and conducted. However, one of the under-explored dimensions of Hip Hop culture involves its religious sensibilities. Using lectures, discussions, films, and video presentations, this course explores Hip Hop culture's religious dimensions through its musical language-rap music. Equivalency: AAAS 157, RELI 157. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 311 if student has credit for AAAS 157/RELI 157.

Long Title: THE RELIGIOUS THOUGHT OF MARTIN L. KING, JR. AND MALCOLM X

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Although many figures played a prominent role during the Civil Rights Movement, Martin L. King, Jr. and Malcolm X made unique contributions. Their work sparked important conversation concerning the methods, goals, and consequences of struggle toward liberation. This course examines their religiosity, theological sensibilities, and the major themes which surface in their writings and public work. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 546. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 312 if student has credit for RELI 546.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO SYRIAC

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An introduction to Syriac grammar and vocabulary. Graduate students are expected to write an exegetical paper on a Syriac text of their choice. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 513. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 313 if student has credit for RELI 513.

Long Title: SPIRITUALITY AND ART

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Explores the critical intersection of the rise of modern art and spirituality (i.e., Spiritualism, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Jungian thought, Buddhism, humanistic psychology, modern Gnosticism, etc.). Field trips to local museums and the creation of a visual journal in response to the themes of the course and visits to museums. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 314 if student has credit for RELI 551.

Long Title: GENDER AND ISLAM

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Explores the lives of Muslim women in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America; analyze constructions of gender in the Islamic world over time, the challenges faced from such diverse quarters as colonial administrators, Western feminists, and states, as well as movements and individuals within the Muslim world. Cross-list: ASIA 315, SWGS 315.

Long Title: GOD AND COUNTRY: CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM IN CONTEMPORARY USA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Set against the backdrop of developments such as the “Cold War” and various struggles for justice and equality, this course explores ways in which certain Christians have worked to reimagine the United States along theological lines and in light of an intimate and a required connection between Christian belief and national identity. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 317 if student has credit for RELI 541.

Long Title: THE BIBLE: A BRIEF INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An investigation of how the perception of the Bible changed from antiquity to the 21st century. The course is structured chronologically. A close reading of the works of major thinkers from each period, together with specific examples of biblical exegesis. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 518. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 318 if student has credit for RELI 518.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHISM

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Buddhist ideas, art, and meditation. Exploration of the Buddhism in India, China, and Japan and their impact in the USA today. Readings include Buddhists classics and contemporary responses from mediators and scientists. Cross-list: ASIA 322, Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 572. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 322 if student has credit for RELI 572.

Long Title: RELIGION AND GLOBAL POVERTY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Advanced study of religion and poverty in global context. Course materials will address religious, ethical anthropological theories of development, analyze specific themes economic and social development, examine the role of Faith Based Organizations and do specific case studies. Students will be graded on short reflections papers and a final term paper. Distribution 1 credit effective Fall 2022. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 528. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 328 if student has credit for RELI 528.

Long Title: THE BIBLE AS LIVED EXPERIENCE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Even in today’s seemingly secular landscape, the Bible is a strong artistic, social, and political influence. We will explore ways in which the Bible is brought to life in contemporary culture by analyzing biblical references in music, film, art, and contemporary religious practice. We will show how American culture shapes understandings of the Bible and vice versa. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 329 if student has credit for RELI 529.

Long Title: ADVANCED TIBETAN LANGUAGE & CULTURE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): RELI 132 OR TIBT 132

Description: This class builds on RELI 232 and 234, now including more challenging material in Tibetan, and continuing the trajectory of gaining familiarity with Buddhist philosophical systems as these touch on epistemology, ontology, and contemplative practice. Cross-list: TIBT 332, Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 532. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 332 if student has credit for RELI 532. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: KNOWING BODY/GLOWING MIND: BUDDHIST ARTS OF CONTEMPLATION AND ANALYSIS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Buddhism is a performing art engaging both mind and body. Our course investigates Buddhist and other literature, epistemology and rituals with an eye to how they speak to contemplative practice. Contemplative practice itself, in class and out, supplements our exploration of the interplay between traditional Asian and contemporary Western perspectives. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 573. Recommended prerequisite(s): One course in Buddhism. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 333 if student has credit for RELI 573. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An overview of the basic approaches in the psychological understanding of religious belief and practice. Topics to be addressed in religious systems East and West include: sex, religious experience, ritual, myth, saintliness, guilt, God and meditation.

Long Title: MEDICINE AND THE MUSEUM: CLINICAL AESTHETICS AND THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, HOUSTON

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Through weekly visits to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, this class develops key skills and engages relevant themes relating to medicine and caregiving, including observation and description, embodiment and motion, eros and suffering, vulnerable populations, grief and loss, human mortality and spiritual transcendence. Cross-list: MDHM 335.

Long Title: RELIGION & THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Designed to introduce the student to classic and contemporary texts in the social scientific study of religion. Topics include: mysticism, the social construction of gender, the guru-disciple relationship, secularization, healing traditions East and West, cross-cultural debates. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 336 if student has credit for RELI 260/RELI 609.

Long Title: SHAMANS, SAINTS, & SAGES

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Familiarize the student with diverse texts (secular and religious, East and West) found in mystical literature. Emphasis will be placed on psychological and comparative methods. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 337 if student has credit for RELI 262.

Long Title: THE CHURCH OF AFRICA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: A reading course designed to examine Christianity in Africa. Course materials and readings will address the development of the church from the Patristic era to the present, paying attention to theological developments, missionization, colonialism, nationalism, prophetic movements, race relations, the role of women, and social issues. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 540. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 338 if student has credit for RELI 540.

Long Title: APOCALYPSE THEN AND NOW

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This is a course on early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature. It will be offered jointly by Rice University and the University of Leipzig, Germany (Professor Jens Herzer). During the first half of the Spring semester, we will be reading early Jewish apocalypses. Then, during Spring Break (March 16–23, 2025), a group of students from Leipzig, Germany, will come to Rice for a joint block seminar on the apocalypse in the New Testament. Rice students (graduate AND undergraduate students) who take this class must be at Rice during the entire Spring Break for the joint Rice/Leipzig seminar. Graduate students will have 8 additional books assigned to them with the expectation of reporting back to the class; two 6- to 8-page research papers; and a final research paper with a length of 15-17 pages. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 510. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 339 if student has credit for RELI 510.

Long Title: AMERICAN JUDAISM: RELIGION AND THOUGHT

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will examine the distinct character of Jewish religion and thought as it has taken shape in America since the colonial era, paying close attention to the influence of American Protestantism, the Constitution, and free-market capitalism on the development of American Jewish denominationalism. Other topics to be examined include interfaith relations and families, evolving gender roles and racial diversity, and new secular forms of American Jewish religious expression. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 542. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 341 if student has credit for RELI 258/RELI 542. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 542. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 341 if student has credit for RELI 285/RELI 542.

Long Title: SEMINAR ON LOVE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This seminar explores the themes of love, sex, and spirit from the classical era through the postmodern age. We will examine literary, philosophical, and artistic expressions in painting, sculpture, cinema, novels, poetry, psychoanalysis, religion, and culture. Cross-list: HART 347.

Long Title: SEMINAR ON THE END OF LIFE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 4

Description: This course examines themes associated with death and dying from the historical through the contemporary periods. The class will adopt highly multidisciplinary approach that combines the critical perspectives of biomedicine, religious studies, art history, philosophy, anthropology, bioethics, and cultural studies as we consider life at the end of life.

Long Title: CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM IN AFRICA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will focus upon the history and conflict of Christianity and Islam in Africa, with emphasis placed upon indigenous African developments, cultural and artistic themes, and conversion narratives as well as exploring the co-existence and conflict of the two major faiths of the continent. Cross-list: AAAS 348. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 348 if student has credit for RELI 536.

Long Title: DEMONS, MENTAL ILLNESS AND MEDICINE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Treats complex connections between religious beliefs/practices and formulation of human psychology in western tradition, through a historical reckoning with demonology. Consider the way demons are represented -- from semi-corporeal beings to marks of mental illness -- by looking at texts from the ancient world to modern psychiatry. Cross-list: MDEM 350. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 350 if student has credit for RELI 605.

Long Title: MAJOR ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY ISLAM

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will focus on the major issues confronting contemporary Islam including Islamic unity, the place of the Qur'an and traditions, human rights, Islamic feminism, da'wa, education, science and Islam, globalization and medical ethics.

Long Title: WHAT'S RELIGIOUS ABOUT BLACK RELIGION?

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course examines two questions: How is religion defined within the study of lack religion? What constitutes the nature and meaning of blackness within black religion? These questions provide opportunity to explore how scholars explain what it has meant to be black and religious within the United States. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 547. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 357 if student has credit for RELI 547.

Long Title: RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE IN THE CRUCIBLE OF GLOBALIZATION

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Explores context and consequences of the concept of religious tolerance in the crucible of globalization politics. Background in settlement of Reformation-era religious wars; American attitudes; impetus for tolerance policies and their implementation, 1945 to present (including governmentality and surveillance); results for historically Christian populations, esp. in US and Europe. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 580. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 359 if student has credit for RELI 580.

Long Title: THE HUMANITIES OF CARE & END OF LIFE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Pairing the perspectives of medicine, bioethics, and the medical humanities with thematic case studies in art, literature, cinema, and visual culture, the class examines the humanities of care and the end of life. Cross-list: HURC 361.

Long Title: RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This advanced seminar analyzes interdisciplinary efforts by scholars of religion to engage scientific research in the cognitive and neuro- sciences. We assess the possibilities for collaboration, as well as conflict, between humanistic and scientific disciplines, asking how the tools of interpretation and empiricism might enrich our understanding of religious phenomena. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 563. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 362 if student has credit for RELI 563.

Long Title: JEWISH PHILOSOPHY: GREAT THINKERS AND THEMES IN JEWISH THOUGHT

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An introduction to the main figures and themes in Jewish philosophy. Topics to be discussed include reason vs faith and prophetic revelation; Israel’s chosenness vs human universalism; creation vs eternity; divine providence and necessity vs free will; evil, justice, and divine omnipotence; prayer, contemplation, and divine and human perfection. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 567. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 363 if student has credit for RELI 567.

Long Title: PAUL AND THE FIRST CHRISTIANS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Examines the origins of Christianity through the analysis of Paul's letters in the New Testament and the book of Acts. Weekly written responses to the readings/discussion and 2500-word research paper on topic selected by student.

Long Title: REPRESENTING THE DEVIL IN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY AND ART

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course focuses on representations of the Devil, demons, and ambiguous spirits in Christian sources from the early medieval to early modern period. Students examine theological as well as ritual sources (blessings and exorcisms), and popular, narrative, dramatic, and artistic representations of evil. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 557. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 367 if student has credit for RELI 557.

Long Title: RISE OF THE NONES: HUMANISMS AND HUMANITIES

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will look at the rise of the “nones,” that is, individuals who affiliate with no religious tradition, through both a history of secular thought in the West and a close reading of key texts and figures. Atheism, humanism, secularism and the “spiritual but not religious” will all be treated as key categories. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 568. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 368 if student has credit for RELI 568. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: CHRISTIANITY IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Readings on Christianity in the Global South analyzing historical developments, mission and colonial encounters, growth and expansion; diversity of expression, the development of local initiated Churches, Pentecostalism, and public role of the Church. Distribution 1 credit effective Fall 2022. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 561. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 371 if student has credit for RELI 561.

Long Title: EPIPHANIES: SEEING IN A NEW LIGHT AND RECOGNIZING THE RADIANCE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Epiphanies are events or objects that can note a striking appearance or manifestation, just as an epiphanic experience contains a significant moment of revelation. This course examines expressions of epiphanies in modernist art, literature, film, sacred experience, and in the mundane details of life itself. Cross-list: HART 328.

Long Title: MIND AND ART, FILM AND LITERATURE IN BUDDHISM

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: What is mind? What is self? What can a human being become? Drawing on a wealth of Buddhist-related art, film, and literature, this course introduces you to Tibetan and other Buddhist approaches to these crucial questions. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 578. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 378 if student has credit for RELI 578.

Long Title: LOST JUDAISMS: THE APOCRYPHAL WRITINGS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: After the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament canon was closed, Jews and Christians continued to compose texts and attributed them to the biblical figures of the past. Seminar offers a close reading of some of these apocryphal/pseudepidgraphic little known texts. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 509. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 382 if student has credit for RELI 509.

Long Title: THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: A survey of the Dead Sea Scrolls as a window into the Second Temple period. A close reading of the scrolls will lead to a discussion of the theological and historical issues of the time, a period pivotal for the formation of Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 553. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 383 if student has credit for RELI 553.

Long Title: CRUSADES

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Focus upon the crusading period as a general survey course covering approximately 1000-1300 from both a Muslim and a Christian perspective. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 384 if student has credit for RELI 608.

Long Title: GOD, TIME AND HISTORY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: How is the passage of time given meaning, and what role--if any--is assigned to divinity in shaping the direction of events? Course explores various forms of recording and interpreting events, drawing from ancient Mesopotamia, Israel, and the Greco-Roman world--the cultures in which modern ideas of history began. Cross-list: HIST 381. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 385 if student has credit for RELI 585.

Long Title: THE PSALMS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: A seminar on biblical poetry. The Psalms have constituted a book of study, devotion, and prayer for Jews and Christians for two millennia. This course explores the psalms’ poetic force, liturgical setting in ancient Israel, theology, and enduring significance today. Counts for the Minor in Jewish Studies. RELI 612: Additional readings and longer paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 612. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 388 if student has credit for RELI 612.

Long Title: JERUSALEM: RELIGION AND POLITICS PAST AND PRESENT

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3 OR 4

Description: This course examines the ways in which religious identities, beliefs, and practices in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have shaped contemporary politics and governance in Jerusalem, one of the world’s holiest and most contested cities. Instructor Permission Required.

Long Title: MUTANTS AND MYSTICS: RACE, SEXUALITY, AND THE FUTURE OF THE HUMANITIES

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This is a course about the deep historical and conceptual connections between the histories of science fiction, the paranormal, and social transformation around race, gender, sexuality, and the human. We will see that such events tend to erupt in the “gaps” or “fractures” of society and within both personal and historical traumatic contexts in order to both deconstruct the reigning social formations, epistemologies, and ontologies—usually of an objectivizing, colonizing, and scientistic nature--but also supply the numinous foundations for the imagining of new humanities, or what queer theorist Ramzi Fawaz calls our emerging “mutanity.” Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 589. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 393 if student has credit for RELI 589.

Long Title: LOSING YOUR RELIGION IN FILM & FICTION & MUSIC

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Doubt, sex, despair, obsession, ecstasy in directors, writers, musicians wanting spiritual reboot, 1890-2015: such as Allen Ginsberg, Oscar Wilde, D.H. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, H.P. Lovecraft, John Updike, and Ingmar Bergman. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 503. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 395 if student has credit for RELI 503.

Long Title: PENTECOSTALISM

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An introduction to Pentecostalism in a global context focusing historical developments, expansion in Europe, North America, Africa, Latin America and Asia. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 595. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 396 if student has credit for RELI 595.

Long Title: CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Activity Course

Credit Hours: 1

Description: Literary and artistic creativity, religious experience, and textual interpretation often draw on focused states of consciousness made possible by contemplative practices. The practice will provide historical information about such practices and offer opportunities to participate in techniques ranging from meditation and observing breath to freeform writing and T'ai Chi. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 597. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 399 if student has credit for RELI 597. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: SENIOR THESIS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Independent Study

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Consisting of the writing of a thesis of considerable length, depth, and research, this course will function as the capstone course on writing in the discipline. Required of all majors.

Long Title: INDEPENDENT STUDY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Independent Study

Credit Hours: 1 TO 6

Description: Multiple sections of this course are offered. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: INDEPENDENT STUDY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Independent Study

Credit Hours: 1 TO 6

Description: Multiple sections of this course are offered. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: SENIOR THESIS I

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Independent Study

Credit Hours: 1 TO 6

Description: For the duration of their senior year, qualified students can elect to write a senior thesis. To complete the thesis, the student elects RELI 403 "Senior Thesis I” in Fall semester and RELI 404 "Senior Thesis II" in Spring semester and works with a Religion faculty supervisor for the year. Instructor Permission Required.

Long Title: SENIOR THESIS II

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Independent Study

Credit Hours: 1 TO 6

Prerequisite(s): RELI 403

Description: For the duration of their senior year, qualified students can elect to write a senior thesis. To complete the thesis, the student elects RELI 403 "Senior Thesis I” in Fall semester and RELI 404 "Senior Thesis II" in Spring semester and works with a Religion faculty supervisor for the year. Instructor Permission Required.

Long Title: CHRISTIANITY AND LATE ANTIQUITY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This advanced seminar treats the formation of Christinaity as an instituional power in relation to the Roman Empire. Starting with the Edict of Milan in 313 CE, which put an end to persectution of Christians, and closing with the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE, which established normative Christian doctrine, we will move through this development in seven roughly chronological units. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 506. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 406 if student has credit for RELI 506.

Long Title: ARCHIVES OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Research

Credit Hours: 3

Description: After reading Prof. Kripal's Authors of the Impossible as a basic theoretical structure for the semester, this advanced archival research seminar will involve students engaging original historical documents contained in Rice University's archive on Paranormal Currents in American Culture toward the writing of a graduate or undergraduate thesis. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 607. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 407 if student has credit for RELI 607.

Long Title: ANTHROPOLOGIES OF RELIGION: KNOWLEDGE, REALITY, AND THE SOCIAL

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course introduces students to theoretical tools from the discipline of Anthropology useful for thinking about religious topics, whether students are involved with ethnographic or historical research projects. Students look at how shared knowledge informs collective apprehensions of reality in different historical, religious and social contexts. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 610. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 410 if student has credit for RELI 610.

Long Title: NEW TESTAMENT / CHRISTIAN ORIGINS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: How did Christianity emerge as a new religious movement in the Roman Empire? Covers the history and literature of the first generations of Christians, focusing on Post-Temple developments, issues of authority and leadership, rise of regional forms of Christianity, and formation of distinct Christian identities. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 616. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 416 if student has credit for RELI 616.

Long Title: GNOSTIC AMERICA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Covers the rise of Gnostic spirituality in American religion and culture, from the Colonial period to the present. Explores the alpha conduits (Boehme, Blavatsky, Jung, academia). Examines the roles of revelatory experience, artifact migration, historical criticism, secularization, hybridity, heresy, and popularization. Case studies vary depending on students' research goals. 5000-word research paper. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 417 if student has credit for RELI 517.

Long Title: ART OF INTERPRETING THE BIBLE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Explores issues of history, historiography, and hermeneutics within the context of Biblical Studies. While traditional forms of Biblical criticism are covered, the bulk of the course focuses on intertextuality, reception history, sociological methods, feminist views, and cognitive approaches. Graduate students (7500 word paper, seminar leadership, and oral presentation); Undergraduate students (5000 word paper and oral presentation). Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 620.

Long Title: FOUCAULT & THE HERMENEUTICS OF SELF

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Best known for analyzing domination and power, Michel Foucault shifts his attention to ethics and “technologies of the self” in 1976. In this advanced seminar, we study and critique Foucault’s turn to western antiquity through his lectures and volumes of foregrounding resistance to power through religion, politics and ethics. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 569. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 421 if student has credit for RELI 569.

Long Title: RELIGION AND POLITICS IN AFRICA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Course explores interdisciplinary perspectives on religion and politics in Africa focusing on indigenous religious, Christianity, and Islam. Readings will reflect theoretical perspectives, historical developments, regional angels, and contemporary issues such as sharia, gender, and reconciliation as political options. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 534. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 424 if student has credit for RELI 534. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: RELIGION AND LITERATURE IN AFRICA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Analysis of the religious imagination and gender issues in postcolonial literature in Africa focusing on Islam, Christianity, indigenous religions and African Initiated Churches. Religious and gender issues addressed include identity crises, power, clash of cultures, modernity, cosmology, community, and socio-religious conflicts in a postcolonial world. Cross-list: AAAS 426. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 426 if student has credit for RELI 538.

Long Title: HISTORY AND METHODS: NINETEETH CENTURY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Focused discussion of the history and methods of the study of religion via close readings of classical texts and narratives of the field from 1800-1900. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 527. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 427 if student has credit for RELI 527.

Long Title: HISTORY AND METHODS: TWENTIETH CENTURY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Focused discussion of the history and methods of the study of religion via close readings of classical texts and narratives of the field from 1900-present. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 559. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 428 if student has credit for RELI 559.

Long Title: RELIGION, PSYCHOLOGY & CULTURE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: A survey of the historical development of the psychology of religion and its conversation with theology, comparative studies, gender studies, sociology, and anthropology. Topics include: mysticism, eroticism, conversion, feminism, psychobiography. Examples drawn from a variety of religious traditions. Readings include: Freud, Jung, Tillich, Erikson, Kristeva, Kakar. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 584. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 430 if student has credit for RELI 584.

Long Title: THE BIBLE AND THE BRAIN

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The study of religious thought, behavior, and practices in the Bible from the perspective of cognitive science, evolutionary science, and cognitive linguistics. Explores human memory, extreme religious experiences, ritualized behaviors, shamanism and religious therapy, religious community, universality of religion, and the emergence and transmission of religious ideas and practices among early Jews and Christians. 5000 word research paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 531. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 431 if student has credit for RELI 531.

Long Title: CLASSICAL AND CONTEMPORARY ARABIC TEXTS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Study and read classical Arabic texts with the goal of learning the material as well as the syntax and grammar of Arabic. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 541. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: VISIONS AND VISONARY PRACTICES: MEDIEVAL TO MODERN

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course examines accounts of visions, comparing medieval and modern visionary techniques and processes and relating visionary writings to cultural and personal contexts. Includes some Christian theology along with other theoretical frameworks, but emphasis on praxis. Cross-list: MDEM 444, Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 644. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 444 if student has credit for RELI 644.

Long Title: SECOND CENTURY CHRISTIANITIES

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Seminar examines controversies and debates among the second-century Christians as catholic Christianity emerged from a diversity of Christian movements. Literature reviewed will vary. Students will select to focus on one controversy and write a research paper (undergraduates, 5000 words; graduate students, 7500 words). Oral discussion and presentations will be required. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 549. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 449 if student has credit for RELI 549.

Long Title: THE OTHER GOSPELS AND APOCRYPHA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Covers selections of the New Testament Apocrypha, including the Gospels of Thomas, Judas, Philip, and Mary, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and more. Learn what the early Christians were doing and thinking as regional lore emerged in the second and third centuries and Christian diversity and identities expanded. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 550. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 450 if student has credit for RELI 550.

Long Title: THIRD CENTURY CHRISTIANITIES

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Seminar examines controversies and debates among the third-century early Christians as catholic Christianity emerged from a diversity of Christian movements. Literature reviewed will vary. Students will select to focus on one controversy and write a research paper (undergraduates, 5000 words; graduate students, 7500 words). Oral discussion and presentations will be required. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 551.

Long Title: MYSTICISM: THEORIES AND METHODS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: A history of the development of the modern category of "mysticism" from the seventeenth century to today, with side studies of cognate terms like "spirituality," "metaphysical religion," and the "paranormal," as these forms of extreme religious experience are by social-scientific and humanistic methods. RELI 558: Additional readings and writing. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 558. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 458 if student has credit for RELI 558.

Long Title: BUDDHIST WISDOM TEXTS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Indo-Tibetan analyses of the mind and its functions, especially differing views on the role of reasoning and the nature of the "ultimate" in major philosophical schools of Tibet and India. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 570. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: KABBALAH SEMINAR

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This seminar will delve into literature known as "kabbalah." through close readings of first-hand accounts of thinkers and mystics known as "kabbalists," will explore themes like secrecy and mystery, the nature of the divine, and religious ecstasy. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 472 if student has credit for RELI 582.

Long Title: FROM DECOLONIZATION TO GLOBALIZATION

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Taught in English. Novels, and films, from North and West Africa, and the immigrant population in France, from 1960 to 2010. Emphasis on the tensions between narratives of political emancipation, modernity, secularism, and religious fundamentalism and mysticism. Extra reading for graduate students in theories of colonialism, postcolonialism, globalization. Cross-list: FREN 324, POLI 324, Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 604. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 476 if student has credit for RELI 604.

Long Title: SPECIAL TOPICS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Internship/Practicum, Laboratory, Lecture, Seminar

Credit Hours: 1 TO 4

Description: Topics and credit hours may vary each semester. Contact department for current semester's topic(s). Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 477 if student has credit for RELI 353/RELI 574. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: GNOSTICISM SEMINAR

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In depth examination of one (or more) Gnostic texts within its literary, social, historical, and religious landscapes. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 581. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 481 if student has credit for RELI 581.

Long Title: THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS SCHOOLS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An historical survey of the History of Religions School that emerged in the 1960s and 70s at the University of Chicago and came to play such an important role in the comparative study of religion. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 588. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 488 if student has credit for RELI 588.

Long Title: RELIGIONS FROM INDIA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will survey the religions of India, namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism. Emphasis will be placed on the study of scriptures of these traditions and their continuing global relevance, particularly in American history and culture. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 232. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 500 if student has credit for RELI 232.

Long Title: LOSING YOUR RELIGION IN FILM & FICTION & MUSIC

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Doubt, sex, despair, obsession, ecstasy in directors, writers, musicians wanting spiritual reboot, 1890-2015: such as Allen Ginsberg, Oscar Wilde, D.H. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, H.P. Lovecraft, John Updike, and Ingmar Bergman. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 395. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 503 if student has credit for RELI 395.

Long Title: RELIGIONS IN AMERICA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Examines the religions and religious practices of America from colonial encounter with native peoples to the contemporary period with a special focus on the morphing natures and historical complexities of American Christianities, religious pluralism and secularism. Graduate students will be required to read a standard and well-known two-volume, 1,200-page collection of primary historical sources. They will also write a research paper (25-30 pages) that is approximately twice as long as the undergraduate paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 300. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 504 if student has credit for RELI 300.

Long Title: CHRISTIANITY AND LATE ANTIQUITY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This advanced seminar treats the formation of Christinaity as an instituional power in relation to the Roman Empire. Starting with the Edict of Milan in 313 CE, which put an end to persectution of Christians, and closing with the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE, which established normative Christian doctrine, we will move through this development in seven roughly chronological units. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 406. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 506 if student has credit for RELI 406.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO BIBLICAL HEBREW I

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An introduction to Biblical Hebrew with emphasis on grammar and vocabulary. Write an exegetical paper on a Hebrew text of your choice. Instructor Permission Required.Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 125. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 507 if student has credit for RELI 125.

Long Title: LOST JUDAISMS: THE APOCRYPHAL WRITINGS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: After the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament canon was closed, Jews and Christians continued to compose texts and attributed them to the biblical figures of the past. Seminar offers a close reading of some of these apocryphal/pseudepidgraphic little known texts. Students in RELI 509 will additionally conduct a research project. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 382. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 509 if student has credit for RELI 382.

Long Title: APOCALYPSE THEN AND NOW

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This is a course on early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature. It will be offered jointly by Rice University and the University of Leipzig, Germany (Professor Jens Herzer). During the first half of the Spring semester, we will be reading early Jewish apocalypses. Then, during Spring Break (March 16–23, 2025), a group of students from Leipzig, Germany, will come to Rice for a joint block seminar on the apocalypse in the New Testament. Rice students (graduate AND undergraduate students) who take this class must be at Rice during the entire Spring Break for the joint Rice/Leipzig seminar. Graduate students will have 8 additional books assigned to them with the expectation of reporting back to the class; two 6- to 8-page research papers; and a final research paper with a length of 15-17 pages. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 339. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 510 if student has credit for RELI 339.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO BIBLICAL HEBREW II

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Continuation of RELI 507. We will finish the grammar in the second half of this semester and then read selections from the Hebrew bible. Write an exegetical paper on a Hebrew text of your choice. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 126. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 511 if student has credit for RELI 126.

Long Title: INTERMEDIATE BIBLICAL HEBREW III

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): RELI 125 AND RELI 126

Description: Readings in the Hebrew Bible as well as some unvocalized texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Review of grammar and vocabulary. Write an exegetical paper on a Hebrew text. UG/GR Equivalent: RELI 127. Instructor Permission Required.Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 127. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 512 if student has credit for RELI 127.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO SYRIAC

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An introduction to Syriac Grammar and vocabulary. Graduate students are expected to write an exegetical paper on a Syriac text of their choice. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 313. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 513 if student has credit for RELI 313.

Long Title: RELIGION IN FICTION AND FILM

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The sacred in interreligious, international, and interdisciplinary encounter, approached via social sciences, theology, theories of literature and mythology. Authors and directors can include Waugh, Mishima, Mann, Proust, Hesse, Percy, Gardner, Updike, Gibson, Sterling, Coupland, Ray, Resnais, Fellini, Bergman, Anderson, Bunnel, and Nutley. Term paper twice as long as undergraduate requirement. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 294. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 514 if student has credit for RELI 294.

Long Title: NIETZSCHE AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 301. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 515 if student has credit for RELI 301.

Long Title: THE BIBLE: A BRIEF INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An investigation of how the perception of the Bible changed from antiquity to the 21st century. The course is structured chronologically. A close reading of the works of major thinkers from each period, together with specific examples of biblical exegesis. Graduate students will have one extra reading assignment per week and complete a 14-15 page paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 318. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 518 if student has credit for RELI 318.

Long Title: INDEPENDENT STUDY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Independent Study

Credit Hours: 1 TO 15

Description: Multiple sections of this course are offered. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: INDEPENDENT STUDY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Independent Study

Credit Hours: 1 TO 9

Description: Multiple sections of this course are offered. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: HISTORY AND METHODS: 19TH CENTURY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Focused discussion of the history and methods of the study of religion via close readings of classical texts and narratives of the field from 1800-1900. Graduate course will require reading of more books and a longer paper to write. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 427. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 527 if student has credit for RELI 427.

Long Title: RELIGION AND GLOBAL POVERTY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Advanced study of religion and poverty in global context. Course materials will address religious, ethical anthropological theories of development, analyze specific themes economic and social development, examine the role of Faith Based Organizations and do specific case studies. Students will be graded on short reflections papers and a final term paper. Graduate students taking the course will be assigned 4 additional texts, do a major review of one of the texts, and do two class presentations on one of the texts. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 328. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 528 if student has credit for RELI 328.

Long Title: PEDAGOGY PRACTICUM

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Internship/Practicum

Credit Hours: 2

Description: As an integral part of the department's apprenticeship program, this is a semester-long practicum through which a graduate student apprentices with a faculty member teaching an undergraduate course in order to be trained in all aspects of course design, lecturing, advising, and grading. Required of all graduate students. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: THE BIBLE AND THE BRAIN

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The study of religious thought, behavior, and practices in the Bible from the perspective of cognitive science, evolutionary science, and cognitive linguistics. Explores human memory, extreme religious experiences, ritualized behaviors, shamanism and religious therapy, religious community, universality of religion, and the emergence and transmission of religious ideas and practices among early Jews and Christians. GR: seminar leadership, 7500 word research paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 431. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 531 if student has credit for RELI 431.

Long Title: ADVANCED TIBETAN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): RELI 131

Description: This class builds on RELI 500 and 564, now including more challenging material in Tibetan, and continuing the trajectory of gaining familiarity with Buddhist philosophical systems as these touch on epistemology, ontology, and contemplative practice. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 332. Recommended Prerequisite(s): Basic reading ability in Tibetan. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 532 if student has credit for RELI 132/RELI 332. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: EDITING AND PUBLISHING PRACTICUM

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Internship/Practicum

Credit Hours: 1

Description: This practicum involves real-world experience in the production of one of the journals in the Department of Religion at Rice University. Students will learn the methods and best-practices to produce and sustain high-quality journals in the study of Religion on print and digital platforms. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: RELIGION AND POLITICS IN AFRICA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Course explores interdisciplinary perspectives on religion and politics in Africa focusing on indigenous religious, Christianity, and Islam. Readings will reflect theoretical perspectives, historical developments, regional angels, and contemporary issues such as sharia, gender, and reconciliation as political options. RELI 534 requires additional reading, review a book on the subject, and write a 25 page research paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 424. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 534 if student has credit for RELI 424.

Long Title: THE BIBLE IN AFRICA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Independent Study

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The Bible in Africa is a reading/lecture course which explores the reception history of the Bible in Africa, African interpretations of the Bible, and the broader role the Bible has played in African culture, education, economic, social and political life of the continent. Special attention will be paid to the place of the Bible in the long independence struggle, especially in the Southern African region where racial segregation and apartheid systems carried out a dehumanizing praxis that was deemed inimical to biblical teachings, fair political praxis, and international conventions governing the recognition and the respect of human rights and gender equality. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 538 if student has credit for RELI 426.

Long Title: THE CHURCH OF AFRICA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 338. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 540 if student has credit for RELI 338.

Long Title: CLASSICAL AND CONTEMPORARY ARABIC TEXTS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Study and read classical Arabic texts with the goal of learning the material as well as the syntax and grammar of Arabic. Graduate students will have an additional assignment of a paper (15-20 pgs) analyzing their text. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 442. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 541 if student has credit for RELI 317. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: AMERICAN JUDAISM: RELIGION AND THOUGHT

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will examine the distinct character of Jewish religion and thought as it has taken shape in America, including its incorporation within secret societies and the occult. Topics to be examined are American Jewish denominationalism, interfaith relations, pluralism and individualism, and developments in American Jewish spirituality. Grad students will write a 25-30pp research paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 341. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 542 if student has credit for RELI 341.

Long Title: THE RELIGIOUS THOUGHT OF MARTIN L. KING, JR. AND MALCOLM X

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 312. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 546 if student has credit for RELI 312.

Long Title: WHAT'S RELIGIOUS ABOUT BLACK RELIGION?

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course examines two questions: How is religion defined within the study of lack religion? What constitutes the nature and meaning of blackness within black religion? These questions provide opportunity to explore how scholars explain what it has meant to be black and religious within the United States. Additional requirements for RELI 547: Write 5 reflection papers; lead at least two class discussions; complete a 30-page research paper; and complete additional readings. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 357. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 547 if student has credit for RELI 357.

Long Title: SECOND CENTURY CHRISTIANITIES

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Seminar examines controversies and debates among the second-century Christians as catholic Christianity emerged from a diversity of Christian movements. Literature reviewed will vary. Students will select to focus on one controversy and write a research paper (undergraduates, 5000 words; graduate students, 7500 words). Oral discussion and presentations will be required. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 449. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 549 if student has credit for RELI 449.

Long Title: THE OTHER GOSPELS AND APOCRYPHA

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Covers selections of the New Testament Apocrypha, including the Gospels of Thomas, Judas, Philip, and Mary, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and more. Learn what the early Christians were doing and thinking as regional lore emerged in the second and third centuries and Christian diversity and identities expanded. Graduate students enrolled in this course will submit a 7000 word research paper (compared to 5000 words for undergraduate students) and will complete a book review and additional readings in scholastic literature. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 450. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 550 if student has credit for RELI 450.

Long Title: THIRD CENTURY CHRISTIANITIES

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Seminar examines controversies and debates among the third-century early Christians as catholic Christianity emerged from a diversity of Christian movements. Literature reviewed will vary. Students will select to focus on one controversy and write a research paper (undergraduates, 5000 words; graduate students, 7500 words). Oral discussion and presentations will be required. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 451. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 551 if student has credit for RELI 314.

Long Title: THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 383. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 553 if student has credit for RELI 383.

Long Title: REPRESENTING THE DEVIL IN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY AND ART

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course focuses on representations of the Devil, demons and ambiguous spirits in Christian theological, ritual, and narrative sources from the early medieval to early modern period. Graduate work includes added reading (30-50 pp weekly above undergraduate requirements), article length essay (8 to 10 thousand words) and two presentations. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 367. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 557 if student has credit for RELI 367.

Long Title: MYSTICISM: THEORIES AND METHODS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: A history of the development of the modern category of "mysticism" from the seventeenth century to today, with side studies of cognate terms like "spirituality," "metaphysical religion," and the "paranormal," as these forms of extreme religious experience are by social-scientific and humanistic methods. RELI 558: Additional readings and writing. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 458. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 558 if student has credit for RELI 458.

Long Title: HISTORY AND METHODS: TWENTIETH CENTURY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Focused discussion of the history and methods of the study of religion via close readings of classical texts and narratives of the field from 1900-present. Graduate course will require reading of more books and a longer paper to write. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 428. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 559 if student has credit for RELI 428.

Long Title: CHRISTIANITY IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Readings on Christianity in the Global South analyzing historical developments, mission and colonial encounters, growth and expansion; diversity of expression, the development of local initiated Churches, Pentecostalism, and public role of the Church. Graduate students will lead class on a church in a country of their choice. Each graduate student will prepare and lead a seminar on one aspect of the region or country. Each graduate student will also present in class an in-depth study of a selected theme. Graduate students will read additional books selected from a list of texts discussed with instructor. They will also write a 25 page research paper on any topic in Global Christianity. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 371. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 561 if student has credit for RELI 371.

Long Title: RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This advanced seminar analyzes interdisciplinary efforts by scholars of religion to engage scientific research in the cognitive and neuro- sciences. We assess the possibilities for collaboration, as well as conflict, between humanistic and scientific disciplines, asking how the tools of interpretation and empiricism might enrich our understanding of religious phenomena. Graduate students will lecture one course session and will engage additional secondary literature throughout the semester. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 362. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 563 if student has credit for RELI 362/RELI 461.

Long Title: INTERMEDIATE TIBETAN LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CULTURE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Continued training in Tibetan language-extending vocabulary and facility with grammar. Final includes a paper drawn from readings and class discussion. RELI 564: Write a paper approximately one-third longer and complete a more substantial oral presentation. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 234. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 564 if student has credit for RELI 234. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: JEWISH PHILOSOPHY: GREAT THINKERS AND THEMES IN JEWISH THOUGHT

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An introduction to the main figures and themes in Jewish philosophy. Topics to be discussed include reason vs faith and prophetic revelation; Israel’s chosenness vs human universalism; creation vs eternity; divine providence and necessity vs free will; evil, justice, and divine omnipotence; prayer, contemplation, and divine and human perfection. Graduate students are required to write a research paper (25-30 pp.) and to prepare and lead at least one class. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 363. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 567 if student has credit for RELI 363.

Long Title: RISE OF THE NONES: HUMANISMS AND HUMANITIES

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will look at the rise of the “nones,” that is, individuals who affiliate with no religious tradition, through both a history of secular thought in the West and a close reading of key texts and figures. Atheism, humanism, secularism and the “spiritual but not religious” will all be treated as key categories. RELI 568 will require additional readings, 3 additional papers plus a longer research paper, leading discussions and teaching. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 368. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 568 if student has credit for RELI 368. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: FOUCAULT & THE HERMENEUTICS OF SELF

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Best known for analyzing domination and power, Michel Foucault shifts his attention to ethics and “technologies of the self” in 1976. In this advanced seminar, we study and critique Foucault’s turn to western antiquity through his lectures and volumes of foregrounding resistance to power through religion, politics and ethics. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 421. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 569 if student has credit for RELI 421.

Long Title: BUDDHIST WISDOM TEXTS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Indo-Tibetan analyses of the mind and its functions, especially differing views on the role of reasoning and the nature of the "ultimate" in major philosophical schools of Tibet and India. RELI 570: More difficult readings and two longer papers required. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 470. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHISM: ARTS FOR LIFE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Buddhist ideas, art, and meditation. Exploration of the Buddhism in India, China, and Japan and their impact in the USA today. Readings include Buddhists classics and contemporary responses from mediators and scientists. Additional readings, more writing. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 322. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 572 if student has credit for RELI 322.

Long Title: KNOWING BODY/GLOWING MIND: BUDDHIST ARTS OF CONTEMPLATION AND ANALYSIS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Buddhism is a performing art engaging both mind and body. Our course investigates Buddhist and other literature, epistemology and rituals with an eye to how they speak to contemplative practice. Contemplative practice itself, in class and out, supplements our exploration of the interplay between traditional Asian and contemporary Western perspectives. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 333. Recommended prerequisite(s): One course in Buddhism. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 573 if student has credit for RELI 333. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: MIND AND ART, FILM AND LITERATURE IN BUDDHISM

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: What is mind? What is self? What can a human being become? Drawing on a wealth of Buddhist-related art, film, and literature, this course introduces you to Tibetan and other Buddhist approaches to these crucial questions. RELI 578 requires additional readings and research papers. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 378. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 578 if student has credit for RELI 378.

Long Title: RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE IN THE CRUCIBLE OF GLOBALIZATION

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Explores context and consequences of the concept of religious tolerance in the crucible of globalization politics. Background in settlement of Reformation-era religious wars; American attitudes; impetus for tolerance policies and their implementation, 1945 to present (including governmentality and surveillance); results for historically Christian populations, esp. in US and Europe. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 359. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 580 if student has credit for RELI 359.

Long Title: GNOSTICISM SEMINAR

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In depth examination of one (or more) Gnostic texts within its literary, social, historical, and religious landscapes. RELI 581 requires preparation and delivery of public presentations. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 481. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 581 if student has credit for RELI 481.

Long Title: RELIGION, PSYCHOLOGY, AND CULTURE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: . Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 430. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 584 if student has credit for RELI 430.

Long Title: WESTERN ESOTERICISM: METHOD AND THEORY

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course explores the relation between esoteric texts and the idea of "Western Esotericism." We will look at primary writings from Agrippa to Madame Blavatsky and consider the historical and methodological approaches emerging as Esotericism is constructed as an academic area. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 587 if student has credit for RELI 387.

Long Title: THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS SCHOOL

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An historical survey of the History of Religions School that emerged in the 1960s and 70s at the University of Chicago and came to play such an important role in the comparative study of religion. Graduate Students will have twice the reading and will require a longer paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 488. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 588 if student has credit for RELI 488.

Long Title: MUTANTS AND MYSTICS: RACE, SEXUALITY, AND THE FUTURE OF THE HUMANITIES

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This is a course about the deep historical and conceptual connections between the histories of science fiction, the paranormal, and social transformation around race, gender, sexuality, and the human. We will see that such events tend to erupt in the “gaps” or “fractures” of society and within both personal and historical traumatic contexts in order to both deconstruct the reigning social formations, epistemologies, and ontologies—usually of an objectivizing, colonizing, and scientistic nature--but also supply the numinous foundations for the imagining of new humanities, or what queer theorist Ramzi Fawaz calls our emerging “mutanity.” Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 393. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 589 if student has credit for RELI 393.

Long Title: BASIC COPTIC 1

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: A first semester introduction to Coptic grammar and vocabulary. Select a Coptic text, read in its original language, and prepare a commentary or an exegesis on that text (5,000 words). Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 307. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 591 if student has credit for RELI 307.

Long Title: BASIC COPTIC 2

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): RELI 307

Description: Second semester introduction to Coptic grammar and vocabulary, with selected readings from the Coptic New Testament, nag Hammadi, and monastic literature. Pre-requisite: Introduction to Coptic Language I RELI 592: Select a Coptic text, read in its original language, and prepare a commentary or a exegesis on that text (5,000 words). Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 308. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 592 if student has credit for RELI 308.

Long Title: BASIC COPTIC 3

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 1 TO 3

Description: Varied readings in original language to include the New Testament, Nag Hammadi, and monastic literature. Pre-requisite: Coptic 1 and 2. RELI 593: Students will select a Coptic text, and in addition to reading it in its original language, prepare a commentary or an exegesis on that text (5,000 words). Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 309. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 593 if student has credit for RELI 309. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: PENTECOSTALISM

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Graduate stud and analysis of introduction to Pentecostalism in a global context focusing historical developments, expansion in Europe, North America, Africa, Latin America and Asia. Graduate students will read 4 additional texts one from East, Central, West, and Southern Africa. Graduate students will write weekly reflections on the reading to the braded satisfactory or unsatisfactory. They will do two presentations during the semester. Each student will write a research paper that will be at least 25 double spaced pages. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 396. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 595 if student has credit for RELI 396.

Long Title: CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Activity Course

Credit Hours: 1

Description: Literary and artistic creativity, religious experience, and textual interpretation often draw on focused states of consciousness made possible by contemplative practices. The practice will provide historical information about such practices and offer opportunities to participate in techniques ranging from meditation and observing breath to freeform writing and T'ai Chi. Graduate students would be expected to write a longer paper and/or to include a segment on contemplative practice in connection with whatever course they are taking. In either case this will involve readings and issues beyond what the undergraduates are responsible for, and which will be developed with each graduate student on an individual basis. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 399. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 597 if student has credit for RELI 399. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: GEM RESEARCH FORUM

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Research

Credit Hours: 1

Description: The GEM Research Forum meets regularly throughout the academic year to share and engage the ongoing research of the GEM faculty and students. The annual capstone experience of the Forum features an invited speaker. Evaluation is based on student participation, research and presentations. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: FROM DECOLONIZATION TO GLOBALIZATION

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Taught in English. Novels, and films, from North and West Africa, and the immigrant population in France, from 1960 to 2010. Emphasis on the tensions between narratives of political emancipation, modernity, secularism, and religious fundamentalism and mysticism. Extra reading for graduate students in theories of colonialism, postcolonialism, globalization. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 476. Recommended Prerequisite(s): Any 200 level course or above in English or French, or HUMA 101 or HUMA 102, or a FWIS course. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 604 if student has credit for FREN 324/POLI 324/RELI 476.

Long Title: ARCHIVES OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Research

Credit Hours: 3

Description: After reading Prof. Kripal's Authors of the Impossible as a basic theoretical structure for the semester, this advanced archival research seminar will involve students engaging original historical documents contained in Rice University's archive on Paranormal Currents in American Culture toward the writing of a graduate or undergraduate thesis. Graduate students will be responsible for a much more extensive engagement with Whitley Strieber's corpus. They will be required to read examples of Stieber's nonfiction (particularly COMMUNION and THE AFTERLIFE REVOLUTION) and fiction, including WOLFEN, THE GRAYS, and THE HYBRIDS. Each of these books bears directly or indirectly on the content of the Anne and Whitley Strieber Collection. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 407. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 607 if student has credit for RELI 407.

Long Title: ANTHROPOLOGIES OF RELIGION: KNOWLEDGE, REALITY, AND THE SOCIAL

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course introduces students to theoretical tools from the discipline of Anthropology useful for thinking about religious topics, whether students are involved with ethnographic or historical research projects. Students look at how shared knowledge informs collective apprehensions of reality in different historical, religious and social contexts. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 410. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 610 if student has credit for RELI 405/RELI 410.

Long Title: READINGS IN MEDIEVAL LATIN

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Guided readings in Latin from a range of medieval genres, including medicine, theology, visionary literature. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: THE PSALMS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: A seminar on biblical poetry. The Psalms have constituted a book of study, devotion, and prayer for Jews and Christians for two millennia. This course explores the psalms’ poetic force, liturgical setting in ancient Israel, theology, and enduring significance today. Counts for the Minor in Jewish Studies. RELI 612: Additional readings and longer paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 388. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 612 if student has credit for RELI 388.

Long Title: NEW TESTAMENT / CHRISTIAN ORIGINS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: How did Christianity emerge as a new religious movement in the Roman Empire? Covers the history and literature of the first generations of Christians , focusing on Post-Temple developments, issues of authority and leadership, rise of regional forms of Christianity, and formation of distinct Christian identities. Graduate requirements: addtional writings and presentations. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 416. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 616 if student has credit for RELI 416.

Long Title: ART OF INTERPRETING THE BIBLE

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Explores issues of history, historiography, and hermeneutics within the context of Biblical Studies. While traditional forms of Biblical criticism are covered, the bulk of the course focuses on intertextuality, reception history, sociological methods, feminist views, and cognitive approaches. Graduate students (7500 word paper, seminar leadership, and oral presentation); Undergraduate students (5000 word paper and oral presentation). Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 420.

Long Title: VISIONS AND VISONARY PRACTICES: MEDIEVAL TO MODERN

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course examines accounts of visions, comparing medieval and modern visionary techniques and processes and relating visionary writings to cultural and personal contexts. Includes some Christian theology along with other theoretical frameworks, but emphasis on praxis. Graduate work includes 10 additional readings (200 pp), double the pages to be written, 30 more minutes presentation time. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: RELI 444. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for RELI 644 if student has credit for RELI 444.

Long Title: I : METHODS IN THE STUDY OF RELIGION (DOCTORAL SEMINAR)

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: I : Methods in the Study of Religion is a required seminar for doctoral graduate students in the Department of Religion. This seminar focuses on the philosophical and theoretical texts central to the study of religion, in its historical formation and its contemporary relevance. Graduate students will be trained to think historically as well as theoretically about the emergence of the study of religion over the long nineteenth century and its role in the development of the university. Texts that remain relevant to the study of religion in the twenty-first century will be drawn from philosophy of religion, queer studies, critical race theories, feminist studies, affect theories, and environmental studies.

Long Title: II : METHODS IN THE STUDY OF RELIGION (DOCTORAL SEMINAR)

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: II : Methods in the Study of Religion is a required seminar for doctoral graduate students in the Department of Religion. This seminar focuses on the sociological, anthropological, and psychological texts central to the study of religion, in its historical formation and its contemporary relevance. Graduate students will be trained to think historically as well as theoretically about the emergence of the study of religion over the long twentieth century and its impact throughout cultural formations. Texts that remain relevant to the study of religion in the twenty-first century will be drawn from sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, economists, and other theorists of religion and culture.

Long Title: THE MYSTICAL LIFE OF ETHICS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This is an advanced seminar, exclusive for graduate students, treating the intersection between the ethics of everyday life and the mystical and political frameworks within which this life unfolds. Ethics has often been understood as “morality” — what is right or wrong to do, following the rules and norms of one’s context. Instead, we will follow Michel Foucault and take up “ethics” as the everyday practices of relation to self and others that allow us to challenge norms and forge new ways of individual and collective life. We will trace the long history of the intersection between ethics as an everyday mystical practice, that connects individuals to their communities and to a sense of something “more” — whether in relation to the cosmos (Plato, Plotinus), to a divinely supported sociality (Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine), to a gender-breaking self-authorization (Marguerite Porete, Mechtild of Madeburg), to queer resistance to social inscription (Foucault, Butler), to Black female self-care as political resistance (Audrey Lorde, Sylvia Wynter), to embodied practices that knit together the social and spiritual (Francisco Varela, Iris Marion Young).

Long Title: SPECIAL TOPICS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Independent Study, Internship/Practicum, Laboratory, Lecture, Lecture/Laboratory, Seminar

Credit Hours: 1 TO 4

Description: Topics and credit hours vary each semester. Contact department for current semester's topic(s). Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: RESEARCH FOR COMPREHENSIVE EXAMS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Research

Credit Hours: 1 TO 12

Description:  Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: CHRISTIAN ORIGINS READING AND RESEARCH GROUP

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Research

Credit Hours: 1 TO 3

Description: Advanced research and reading group for graduate students studying Christian Origins. Topics vary. Instructor Permission Required. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: RESEARCH FOR DISSERTATION

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Research

Credit Hours: 9

Description: (no change to be made to course catalog description) Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: RESEARCH FOR M.A. THESIS

Department: Religion

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Research

Credit Hours: 3 TO 9

Description: Students work independently researching and writing their thesis. Repeatable for Credit.