A seminar introducing the past, present, and future of law and religion, exploring U.S. and Indian Supreme Court and Beth Din decisions, Moslem Shari'a, Hindu and Buddhist dharma and karma, the influence of advanced technology, civil and criminal liability compared with heterodoxy and heresy, originalism and fundamentalism, and the ethics of compassionate lawyering. This course will serve to provide a wide but detailed exploration of Jewish Mysticism, raising questions about its connection to other Jewish traditions, the kind of symbolism and hermeneutics at stake, and the conception of God, man and world we are dealing with, amongst other major ideas. Schools (Tiantai/Tendai, Nichiren) and cultic practices such as sutra-chanting, meditation, confessional rites, and Guanyin worship based on the scripture. At Columbia, there are over 500 opportunities to explore, to grow, to lead, to share, with support from a variety of offices like Student Engagement, Multicultural Affairs and Residential … An investigation of the main textual sources of the Buddhist ethical tradition, with attention to their historical operation within Buddhist societies, as well as consideration of their continuing influence on comtemporary developments, Western as well as Asian. We will examine the historical origins, development and institutionalization of Sufism, including long-standing debates over its place within the wider Islamic tradition. Lecture and discussion. Hindu contexts, causes, and responses. The relationship of terror to trauma and horror will also be considered. Nuns and laywomen in Chinese Buddhism, Buddhist attitudes toward women, ideals of female sanctity; gender and sexuality, women leaders in contemporary Chinese Buddhism. ... Columbia University School of Professional Studies 3 points. Taking analytical cues from critical race theory, questions of agency, power and difference will be fore-grounded, as witnessed in how religious discourses and practices negotiate such categories as race, class, gender and sexuality. Course readings address both ethnographic methods and related ethical and epistemological issues, as well as substantive topical issues of central importance to the study of urban religion, including transnationalism and immigration, religious group life and its relation to local community life, and issues of ethnicity, race and cosmopolitanism in pluralistic communities. With a focus on Jewish, Christian and post-religious environments of "The West," this seminar explores the history of angels and demons, and their changing theological meanings, psychological and cultural roles. RELI UN2670 Magic and Modernity. This course introduces students to a number of models for interfaith dialogue and collab­oration, as they are practiced in New York City and elsewhere. The program should include courses in a variety of religious traditions. Examines the interpretive history of Leviticus 18:3, "...and in their laws you shall not go," a verse that instructs Israel to be different from surrounding peoples. Specifically, we examine the discourse surrounding Islamic family (medical ethics, marriage, divorce, women's rights) and criminal (capital punishment, apostasy, suicide/martyrdom) law. This multidisciplinary seminar will emphasize the role of popular media in constituting an evangelical public, the gendered nature of evangelical subjectivity, the role of sex and sexuality in evangelical self-definition, and the ways that evangelical theological categories have shaped what we think of as "the secular" in the United States. RELI UN3208 Aaahh Real Monsters: Critical Monster Studies. Scholarships, Federal and State Middle East Studies Collection Middle East Studies covers all disciplines in the study of human societies, past and present, in the following countries: Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, and Egypt, the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Iran, … New York, NY 10027. 3 points. No prior knowledge of South Asian language or religion is required. How is one to construct a definition of Islam beyond orientalist legacies? An examination of the concepts of religious experience and mysticism and the social practices associated with them, with particular attention to how those concepts and practices have developed. Together we will wonder about a variety of core issues in queer studies and religion, such as embodiment, sexuality, gender-variability, coloniality, race appearing as religious identity and religious identity as gendered, as well as the role of catastrophe, utopia, and redemption in our experience of the world. Each interpretive tradition will bring us deeper into the world of the Bible as it was received and came to be read. Examination of different currents in early Christianity. Each week, a faculty member will present his or her field of specialization and methodological/theoretical approach to it. The advent of high-speed computing, Big Data, new forms of Artificial Intelligence, and global networking is rapidly transforming all aspects of life. Planning, Premedical This course investigates marginal religious groups, including apostates, heretics, Jews, magicians, Muslims, etc. Institute of Latin American Studies Columbia University 420 West 118th Street 8th Floor IAB, MC 3339 New York NY 10027 Phone: (212) 854-4643 Fax: (212) 854-4607 Email: ilas-info@columbia.edu This course in the Philosophy of Religion will consider the relationship between faith and reason, religion and morality, religion and art, and religion and technology. Explores mystical dimensions that have evolved in Judaism and Islam in a comparative perspective with the aim of pointing to similarities and differences between the two major religions of Abraham. Over the course of the past three centuries, individualism has become more or less institutionalized in Europe and North America. Planning, Premedicine Emphasis will be placed on critical skills for analyzing any group's approach towards others. He ponders, instead, if such a historicist analysis should be followed by an emphatic “But so what?” The importance of asking “so what” is that it allows us to begin to refuse, Scott writes, “history its subjectivity, its constancy, its eternity” and “interrupt its seemingly irrepressible succession, causality, its sovereign claim to determinacy” (105) The question “so what?” requires, in other words, we answer for history’s prominence and providence as well as consider other possible formations of community, temporality, and inheritance not anchored by the weight of ‘history’. In this course we will read secondary scholarship in English that probes the complex relationships between Buddhism and Daoism in the past two millennia. 4 points. 0 points. We will also analyze some of the underlying tropes of impurity and danger that characterize nastiness involving bodily fluids, sexuality, and knowledge. Strong emphasis on reading primary sources in translation. While the course does cover material that progresses roughly chronologically from the first millennium BCE to contemporary times, it is not a systematic historical survey. Psychoanalysis and deconstruction are also markers of a long conversation in which the meaning of subjectivity, authorship, agency, literature, culture and tradition is spelled out in detailed readings that intervene in and as dialogue and interruption. Study of apocalyptic thinking and practice in the western religious tradition, with a focus on American apocalyptic religious movements and their relation to contemporary cultural productions, as well as notions of history and politics. RELI GU4207 Religion and the Afro-Native Experience. The platform of every modern Islamist political party calls for the implementation of the sharia. By focusing on the development of ritual responses within these traditions to disease and spirits, the course will highlight the degree to which contemporaneous understandings of the body informed religious discourse across East Asia. The purpose of this seminar is to study the interactions between two major intellectual trends in Jewish History, the philosophical and the mystical ones. 4 points. 3 points. 4 points. Considers efforts since 1900 to synthesize a coherent understanding of what "Hinduism" entails, sometimes under the heading of sanatana dharma. Admitted Students, Current In reality, Islamic law is an organic and constantly evolving human project aimed at ascertaining God's will in a given historical and cultural context. 3 points. While no hard and fast rules for thinking about the relationship between right conduct and material interests cut across all religious and philosophical traditions, human agents invest real faith into currency, into markets, and into the reigning economic order to bring about increased opportunities, wealth, and freedom to people across the globe. This course focuses on the varieties of Judaism in antiquity, from Cyrus the Great to the Muslim Conquest of Syria, and the emergence of rabbinic Judaism. Why do humans insist on remembering and often memorializing violence? Concentration in Journalism and Religion Dual (MA/MSLIS) in Religious Studies and Library Science Graduate Research Fund GSAS Policy on Internships for Academic Credit Financial Assistance The Lerner Workshop This seminar examines the legacies of psychoanalysis through a critical exploration of how its concepts, practices and institutes have operated in colonial and postcolonial contexts. Military Veterans, Veterans Request We will examine how religious practices change in relation to losses and reflect on losses of religion both personally (e.g., because one’s hitherto familiar value system breaks down) and collectively (e.g., the forced conversions and suppression of religious traditions by colonialism). To what degree did it shape the language of revolutionary Marxism both in Europe and Africa, as the work of Fanon notably testifies? 3 points. Financial Aid, Prospective Previous coursework in Buddhism or East Asian religion is thus recommended but not required. We will address topics on terminology, doctrine, cosmology, eschatology, soteriology, exorcism, scriptural productions, ritual performance, miracle tales and visual representations that arose in the interactions of the two religions, with particular attention paid to critiquing terms such as “influence,” “encounter,” “dialogue,” “hybridity,” “syncretism,” and “repertoire.” The course is designed for both advanced undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of East Asian religion, literature, history, art history, sociology and anthropology. This class interrogates classic social theory by exploring the religious history of Dalits, or "untouchables," in colonial and postcolonial South Asia: from mass conversions to Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity to assertions of autonomous and autochthonous religious identities. 4 points. What makes certain religious voices and institutions more authoritative than others? The first part of the semester is dedicated to classical Islamic jurisprudence, concentrating on the manner in which jurists used the Qur'an, the Sunna (the model of the Prophet), and rationality to articulate a coherent legal system. As the study of religion is truly interdisciplinary, students find their work in the department enhanced by their coursework in the College's Core curriculum and in related departments. It is designed for the study of the history, literature, theory, and functions of religion, in its various forms, within different societies and cultures. This course focuses on the American context, and American museums. RELI UN3401 MUSLIMS IN DIASPORA-DISC. From ancient debates over the proper vehicles for religious transmission to the modern construction of a postcolonial nation-state, ideologies of language have been central to South Asian intellectual, philosophical, cultural, religious, and political life. Special focus will be on contemporary American topics, including religion and transnationalism, the role of religious actors and discourses in American politics, law and economics, and everyday religious practice. The primary adviser of the thesis must be a member of the Religion Department faculty. This course is divided into two units: In the first unit we will become familiar with some central themes of Heidegger’s thought and explore the question of the philosophical grounding of his political failing. All majors are encouraged to pursue both depth and breadth by constructing a program of study in consultation with the Director of Undergraduate Studies. We will ask what if anything comes after or alongside loss, especially given the perdurance of loss that is brought about by centuries of systemic violence. Â. RELI GU4322 Exploring the Sharia: Topics in Islamic Law. They provide broad and alternative frames that aim to identify problems, chart trajectories cutting across different field specialties, and set parameters for theoretical and methodological questions. Is it still a mode of theological reasoning, as many critiques have argued, or a revolutionary form of secular critique? A methods course that considers the nature of the event and the uses of the event for the purposes of ethnographic and historical analyses. Introduction to the Science of Psychology (PSYH0101) AM. In trying to understand the complex ways in which men and manhood are made in Islamic societies we will center our attention on the perceptions of bodily and social differences in Muslims’ larger articulations of gender and sexuality. 4 points. This course is a seminar open to undergraduate and graduate students who wish to gain an understanding of the diverse religious traditions of the Iranian world from ancient to contemporary times. The Auditing Programs administered by the School of Professional Studies invite adults to join the greater Columbia University community through select Arts and Science courses in subjects such as English, literature, history, religion and philosophy. (No prerequisites). Please visit Religion Study of the development of the Japanese religious tradition in the premodern period. Planning, Premedical Clinical and Research Opportunities, Current The Internet of Things and the Internet of Bodies are becoming interconnected to transform what once was known as human being. We will engage the issue of perspective in, for example, the construction of a conflict between religion and science, religion and modernity, as well as some of the distinctions now current in the media between religion, politics, economics and race.  And we will wonder about God and gods. Looking at various forms of migration (voluntary and forced displacement) and religious communities (African, Muslim, Jewish), this seminar will explore two critical issues in relation to mobility and religion. Recent SF, unlike the traditional “space opera,” revolves around the relations between the human mind and Artificial Intelligence — a challenge that our fast-evolving technoscientific society is confronting with a new sense of urgency. Schools (Tiantai/Tendai, Nichiren) and cultic practices such as sutra-chanting, meditation, confessional rites, and Guanyin worship based on the scripture. From the medieval period to the twenty-first century, we will discuss their interactions, polemics and influences. An introduction to the history, literature, and ideology of Tantra and Tantric texts, deities, rituals, and traditions, proceeding chronologically from the early centuries C.E. You must register for that course before registering for this course. against the backdrop of Christianity in medieval Western Europe. Students are encouraged to pursue a course of study in which they develop breadth and depth, as well as the tools and expertise to pose (and even answer) necessary questions about religious phenomena of the past or present. 4 points. This course is a survey of the history and culture of the Sephardic Jews, originally from Spain and Portugal.  In addition, religious communities turn to popular culture as a way to preserve their own identities and uniqueness in the face of homogenization and assimilation..... RELI UN1612 Religion and the History of Hip Hop. Historical survey highlighting major developments in Chinese religion: includes selections from the "Warring States" classics, developments in popular Daoism, and an overview of the golden age of Chinese Buddhism. The Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies at Columbia University 617 Kent Hall, 1140 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027 E: iijs@columbia.edu. An exploration of Hasidism, the pietist and mystical movement that arose in eastern Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Special emphasis is placed on hellenization, sectarianism, and the changes precipitated by the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. While there may be some persistent threads in language, mythic heritage, and religiosity that one can observe throughout the Iranian plateau and Central Asia across the centuries, it is more useful to examine these as part of a larger matrix of exchanges with adjacent cultural and religious systems. RELI UN3902 Guided Reading and Research. RELI GU4206 HISTORY, TIME, AND TRADITION. What are some of the major debates in contemporary American Muslim thought regarding violence, gender, race and economic justice? How does imagination serve inquiry? 4.00 points. Finally, in the third section, we will focus on the idealization of region or nation as a sacred space, and examines the manner in which narratives are invoked to formulate identities and to negotiate conflicts and differentials of power. 3.00 points. Many students find that identifying a thesis project earlier in the junior year, in conjunction with the Juniors colloquium, presents an opportunity to develop a proposal in advance of deadlines for summer research funding from various sources, including the undergraduate schools and the Institute for Religion Culture and Public Life. Columbia University in the City of New York, Postbac Premed Students likewise are actively encouraged to explore the world-renowned archival resources within Columbia's libraries (including the Rare Book and Manuscript Room, the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, the C.V. Starr East Asian Library), and to explore and investigate the equally wide range of living religious communities represented in New York's global neighborhoods. At the same time, African American religious life has been the subject of much scrutiny throughout the history of the United States, serving arguments that advocated abolition, emancipation and full enfranchisement, but also functioning as evidence to justify enslavement and second-class citizenship. This course will consider the question of silence from the perspectives of theology, philosophy, literature, politics, and art. Discussion section associated with RELI UN3407-MUSLIMS IN DIASPORA. This course will draw on the rich expertise represented by the Religion faculty. More specifically, this course is organized chronologically to narrate a history ot religion in the United States (from 1970 to the present day) by mapping the ways that a variety of religious ideas and practices have animated rap music’s evolution and expansion during this time period. RELI UN3204 Religion, Sexuality, and Truth. Reading these selections through multiple methodological frameworks—social history, history of the body, and material culture, students will gain an appreciation of the rich diversity that characterized Buddhist healthcare practices before the introduction of Western medicine. Students, International Nomads, natives, peasants, hill people, aboriginals, hunter-gatherers, First Nations—these are just a handful of the terms in use to define indigenous peoples globally. This interdisciplinary course explores a variety of Muslim modes of masculinity as they have developed over time and as they have varied across different regions of the Islamic World. An exploration of alternative theoretical approaches to the study of religion as well as other areas of humanistic inquiry. RELI GU4224 Dialectics: Theology and Philosophy between Europe and Africa. to the early 4th century C.E. Approaches topics of civil religion, church-state relations, religious pluralism in the public sphere, and the role of congregations in local communities using sociological theories and methods. Examines this claim critically by reading these Biblical books against the history of their philosophical interpretation. Study of the development of the Japanese religious tradition in the pre-modern period. The Institute for Research in African-American Studies was established at Columbia in 1993, expanding the University’s commitment to this field of study. This interdisciplinary seminar investigates the intersections between language and religion in South Asia over the course of two millennia. This course introduces classical and contemporary theoretical and empirical approaches to the sociological study of religion, including secularization and secularity, religious identity formation, and sociological approaches to religious practice and meaning. Special attention to ritual and worship, the forms of religious literature, central concepts, religious leadership and institutions, Israel among the nations. The religion program at Columbia awarded 10 bachelor's degrees in 2018-2019. The course will focus on Western (Christian and Jewish) models in the medieval and early modern periods. It affords an excellent introduction to Judaism as a religion and culture. Survey of Christianity from its beginnings through the Reformation. Students, University What does queerness have to do with religion? 4 points. RELI GU4562 Wittgenstein and Religion. This course explores the political, religious, economic, and social dynamics of religious conversion. Primary texts read against the backdrop of various theories of the nature of mysticism, addressing issues such as relationship of mysticism and tradition and the function of gender in descriptions of mystical experiences. The study of religion intersects with history, philosophy, art, music, film, literature and joins these in ongoing public conversations. Also discusses key methodological issues involved in the study of Daoism, such as the problematic distinction between "elite" and "folk" traditions, and the dynamics of sectarianism and syncretism. 4 points. An examination of Derrida’s writings on Heidegger reveals how he simultaneously appropriates and criticizes Heidegger in developing his critique of the western philosophical and theological tradition. RELI GU4617 Image Theories in Chinese Religions. Unlike other collections, this anthology emphasizes the dynamic relationship between "religion" as an … What do monastic codes stipulate? The second part of the course focuses on those areas of the law that engender passionate debate and controversy in the contemporary world. Artificial, Treatment vs. Enhancement, the Artificial Intelligence Revolution, Ubiquitous Computing, the Internet of Things, the Singularity, Extended Mind and Superintelligence, Internet of Bodies and Superorganisms, Death and After Life. Readings include Gilgamesh, and other ancient Near Eastern literature, the Bible, the Odyssey, Plato's Phaedo, Apuleius' The Golden Ass. Students are also encouraged to conduct their studies by exploring one or more zone of inquiry. lead singer Michael Stipe explained that the phrase “losing my religion” in the song of the same title does not refer to what we might commonly understand by “religion.” Rather it cites the expression used in the Southern U.S. for losing one’s temper, feeling frustrated, exasperated, and desperate. RELI GU4355 The African American Prophetic Political Tradition from David Walker to Barack Obama. Close study of pivotal texts from the classical periods of Islamic mysticism, including works by Hallaj, Attar, Rumi, In Arabi, and others (all texts in English translation). The course culminates in an independent research project in which students critically analyze a previously unstudied primary source. Readings are drawn from philosophy, anthropology, religious studies, sociology, drama, literature, history, history of science, and political theory. The exploration of different theoretical perspectives will provide alternative interpretations of the interplay of media, technology, and religion that make it possible to chart the trajectory from modernity to postmodernity and beyond. The purpose of this seminar is to study the interactions between two major intellectual trends in Jewish History, the philosophical and the mystical ones. We will also examine how African uprisings challenge and challenged Imperial and State powers both before and during the Panafrican movement. Ideally, students should experience this course as enlarging the set of critical tools at their disposal for creative and rigorous thinking. Through the combination of perspectives we will learn about the variety of the interpretative approaches to a canonical texts such as the Book of Psalms: the dense web of meanings and uses given to one biblical text over the course of Jewish history; the methods and goals of Hasidic exegesis of the Bible. Though noting these changes produced by colonial rule, this course also explores the arguments scholars of South Asia have made distinguishing between “secularisms” and the production of a tolerant and cosmopolitan South Asian orientation. 203 Lewisohn Hall In their research, scholars of religion employ a variety of methods to analyze "texts" ranging from historical documents to objects of visual culture. Investigates relations among religion, gender, and violence in the world today. Rather, engaging with disciplines and scholarship within and without religious studies, it will contend with religion as a comparative problem between fields and traditions as well as between scholarly and methodological approaches. An examination of the current state of hte field of Tokugawa religious and intellectual history through a survey of recently published sholarship on the period. Science fiction is often perceived as hostile to religion, yet it often blurs the boundaries between science and religion. A survey of the legal obligations an individual owes, and the privileges he or she receives from being a member of a family. Students will examine a series of interrelated themes that are key to the studies of religion in the Iranian world. Ranging from auteurs to blockbusters, the course will analyze movies that make use of the sacred and of religious themes, figures or metaphors. Completed Coursework, Degree After tackling these theoretical concerns, the remainder of the course will entail a cross genre and thematic engagement with the terrain of black popular culture(s) in which students will be challenged to apply new theoretical resources in order to interpret a wide range of "religious" phenomena.