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Graduate Seminars 2025-2026

GRADUATE COURSE OFFERINGS 2025-2026

**all topics courses can be repeated for credit

Fall 2025

REL 200A- Historical Roots of  the Study of Religion- Lynna Dhanani- Wednesdays 2:10-5:00 in Sproul 922
In this graduate seminar, we examine how “religion” emerges as distinct category of analysis and understanding by looking at its relationship with the intertwined categories of alchemy, medicine, and science from pre-modernity through the Reformation, Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, and modern period.  Drawing on primary sources—including theological, alchemical, yogic, scientific, medical, and theosophical texts—from European, Islamic, and Indian contexts, we trace the shifting boundaries and epistemologies between religion, science, and medicine as we explore views of the material world, body, and self in these texts and contexts.

REL 230A—Thematic Topics - Body and Praxis - Professor Naomi Janowitz -NEW TIME! THURSDAYS, 3:10-6:00 IN SPROUL 922
This seminar centers of the problem of materiality, using the body as exemplar. From Paul’s distinction between the spirit and the letter of the law to Protestant suspicions of the agency of objects and emphasis on sincerity in prayer, ideas about material bodies are caught up with questions about language and representation. We will read both classic and recent studies about
language and bodies with a focus on praxis in several religious traditions. Assessment is based on oral presentations of the readings and presentation of a final project based on the interests of each student.


 

 


 

Winter 2026

REL 200B- Foundational Theories of Religion- Mairaj Syed - Mondays, 2:10-5:00, Sproul 922

Course Description
This graduate seminar provides an in-depth exploration of foundational and contemporary theories in the academic study of religion. Students engage with key thinkers and methodological debates that have shaped the field, developing the critical tools necessary for both interpreting and constructing theoretical arguments about religion. The course moves through major approaches—phenomenology, cultural materialism, functionalism, hermeneutics, and tradition-based inquiry—while continually returning to central tensions such as interpretation versus reduction, insider versus outsider perspectives, and descriptive versus normative analyses.
Special attention is paid to the roles of race, gender, and power in the formation of religious thought and the study of religion itself. By the end of the term, students will have a working knowledge of the major theoretical frameworks used to analyze religion and will be equipped to situate their own scholarly projects within these broader conversations.
Learning Objectives-By the end of the course, students will be able to:
  1. Identify and critically assess major theoretical approaches in the study of religion.
  2. Analyze how concepts such as culture, materiality, power, and interpretation shape scholarly discourse on religion.
  3. Evaluate the intersection of religion with race, gender, and social theory.
  4. Develop nuanced arguments that engage both classical and contemporary theorists.
  5. Apply theoretical insights to their own research and disciplinary interests.
Course Structure & Readings-Each week introduces a new theoretical tradition through readings from seminal and modern scholars, including Clifford Geertz, Talal Asad, Marvin Harris, David Sloan Wilson, Richard Rorty, Alasdair MacIntyre, Stephen S. Bush, Darlene M. Juschka, Cornel West, and Judith Weisenfeld. The course culminates with Bush’s Visions of Religion: Experience, Meaning, and Power, which synthesizes many of the perspectives explored throughout the quarter.
Themes covered include:
  • Theories of religion and cultural systems
  • Functionalist and evolutionary interpretations of religion
  • Hermeneutics and the philosophy of interpretation
  • Tradition, rationality, and theology
  • Theorizing religion through race and gender

 

REL 230C- Thematic Topics - Modernity, Science, and Secularism- The Tarot and Western Esotericism Gregory Dobbins- Wednesdays 2:10-5:00, Sproul 922

This course will serve as an introduction to the history of Western Esotericism, but it will focus specifically on the emergence of the Tarot at the end of the Nineteenth Century-- from the rise of Eliphas Levi to the collapse of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn-- as an occult response to modernity. We will be treating the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot (1909) as a portable and symbolic archive that serves as a crystallization of the 2000+ year history of Western Esotericism; through our specific focus on the Tarot, we will consider the fundamentals of the earlier movements and beliefs that contributed to its production: Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, Astrology, Alchemy, the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, Symbolist poetry. and Ritual Magic among other systems of belief and representation. Time permitting, we will also take a look at the role the aesthetic form of the Tarot played in the work of the Modernist poets W.B. Yeats and H.D. The reading list is yet to be finalized, but alongside excerpts from the source materials, it is likely to include Levi's The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic (1854-1856), Papus' The Tarot of the Bohemians (1889), A.E. Waite's The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911) as well as more contemporary writing about the Tarot that will enable us to consider how it contributed to the emergence of Theosophy, Wicca, and Neopaganism. Prospective students for the seminar will be expected to have obtained their own personal Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck before the quarter begins and to bring it to every class session.

A flyer for REL 230.


 

Spring 2026

REL 230B- Thematic Topics - Language, Rhetoric, and Performance -Archana Venkatesan- Topic: Religion and Translation; Religion in Translation

This course explores the intersection of religion and translation with a focus on the Indian subcontinent. Some topics we will explore--the particularities of translating Indic religious texts, translation as a metaphor for cultural and religious exchange, and colonial legacies and receptions of translated religious texts. We might also discuss how to teach religious texts in translation in the classroom.
 
The reading list for this course has not been finalized, but will include the following:
 
Ronit Ricci. Islam Translated: Literature, Conversion, and the Arabic Cosmopolis of South and Southeast Asia
Sankar Nair. Translating Wisdom: Hindu-Muslim Intellectual Interactions in Early Modern South Asia
Elaine Fisher. Meeting of Rivers (Forthcoming)
Anna Schultz. , Echoes of Translation: Audibility and Relationality in Bene Israel Women’s Song (Forthcoming)
 
REL 297: The Study of Religion--Understanding the Profession-Archana Venkatesan- TBD
 
This course is focused on the academic field of Religious Studies. Students in this course will be trained in grant writing, developing research skills, working on public scholarship and composing book reviews. In addition, we will have the opportunity to discuss other elements of academic professionalization as it pertains to the academic discipline of Religious Studies.