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 - Tuesdays, 2:10-5:00, Sproul 922
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.
Spring 2026
REL 230B- Thematic Topics - Language, Rhetoric, and Performance -Archana Venkatesan- Topic: Religion and Translation; Religion in Translation