In this course we examine a variety of new religious movements that tested the boundaries of acceptable religion at various moments in American history. We pay particular attention to government and media constructions of the religious mainstream and margin, to the politics of labels such as "cult" and "sect," to race, gender, and sexuality within new religions, and to the role of American law in constructing categories and shaping religious expressions. We also consider what draws people to new religions and examine the distinctive beliefs, practices, and social organizations of groups labeled by outsiders as "cults."

In this course we examine a variety of new religious movements that tested the boundaries of acceptable religion at various moments in American history. We pay particular attention to government and media constructions of the religious mainstream and margin, to the politics of labels such as "cult" and "sect," to race, gender, and sexuality within new religions, and to the role of American law in constructing categories and shaping religious expressions. We also consider what draws people to new religions and examine the distinctive beliefs, practices, and social organizations of groups labeled by outsiders as "cults."

This course explores the relationship between, sex, sexuality, and religion in the United States over the last two centuries. We employ historical methodologies to trace how sex and sexuality have been contested and contentious issues within certain American religious contexts and focus on how religiously informed notions of sex and sexuality have touched every area of American life, including popular culture, politics, and the law. Sex not only "sells" as the old adage states, but the control and/or prohibition of sex and sexuality have set the terms for most aspects of American society.

A survey of themes central to theologies in the period from Augustine to the end of the Middle Ages, issues of theological method, genre, and linguistic medium; doctrines of God, the Trinity, Incarnation and grace; the place of the Bible and its interpretation in medieval theology. Throughout all of these, it will be necessary to bear in mind in general terms, and explore in each of these texts in some detail, a series of overarching, and governing, connections: between the theological and the 'mystical', contemplation and action, intellectual enquiry and holiness, knowledge and love.

In this class, we will explore how the Hebrew Bible imagines the interactions of the state with military and other extreme violence. We will focus on three biblical books--Joshua, Kings, and Nahum--and look at how Israelite violence becomes a shifting signifier, enfolding aspects of ritualization, ethnic and gendered consolidation, and theological fantasizing about enemies' deserved downfalls. The highly marked nature of textualized violence will facilitate study of intermediate Biblical Hebrew linguistic topics, including nominal and verbal syntax in prose and poetry, pragmatics, and lexical and other semantics.

This course explores the history of Black religions from the colonial times to the present. We study African American religions within and in relation to the African Diaspora and how various forces of modernity have shaped Black religions and the resilience and ingenuity of Black people across the centuries. Students will come away with an enhanced sense of the complexities of Black religious life through explorations of race and religion, religion and resistance, and the emergence of New Religious Movements like the Black Hebrews, Buddhists and Hip Hop.

What is a scripture? How does a text become one? In this class we'll study several American scriptures, relatively recent texts that allow important perspective on these questions. We'll read parts of The Book of Mormon, Science and Health, The Circle Seven Koran, and Dianetics, along with several other new-world scriptures and American iterations of some old-world ones. Emphasis will be on thinking through how these texts know what they know, and how they make that claim of knowledge to readers. We'll investigate their discursive influences, internal logic, and rhetorical effects to think about how scriptures function in the world.

What is a scripture? How does a text become one? In this class we'll study several American scriptures, relatively recent texts that allow important perspective on these questions. We'll read parts of The Book of Mormon, Science and Health, The Circle Seven Koran, and Dianetics, along with several other new-world scriptures and American iterations of some old-world ones. Emphasis will be on thinking through how these texts know what they know, and how they make that claim of knowledge to readers. We'll investigate their discursive influences, internal logic, and rhetorical effects to think about how scriptures function in the world.

This course introduces some of India's most important traditions, covering topics in metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics from a non-Western philosophical perspective. We will examine some of India's most significant contributions to debates on personal identity, free will, spiritual liberation, and the nature of truth itself. We will also explore the implications of religious doctrines for contemporary moral philosophy. For example, how might belief in inter-dependence shape attitudes towards the environment? And what explains the misogyny of some Indian philosophers given their commitment to non-violence and inclusivity?

In this course the different types of manuscripts, languages and texts from Ancient Egypt will be discussed. Papyrus is a prominent material from Ancient Egypt and we will study several examples in Princeton Collections. We will also discuss the use of modern techniques in manuscript studies like databases, ink analysis, x-ray and computer tomography. An overview will be given of the different materials including those from Elephantine Island. At the end, the students will curate a small exhibition demonstrating the specialties of ancient Egyptian manuscripts.

Living as we do in a culture that is primarily either secular or monotheistic and in which the sacred and profane are largely kept separate, how can we possibly understand the world of ancient polytheism? The ancient Greeks did not have a word for "religion", nor did they conceive of "religion" as a distinct domain of human experience. Rather, the practices, beliefs, and rituals that we would term "religious" were embedded in every aspect, public and private, of life. We will explore how people interacted with their gods in their everyday lives, both individually and collectively, and how this interaction shaped and structured Greek society.

In this course we will learn about the diverse world of ancient Jews and discover not one, but many ancient "Judaisms." The course will cover a broad timespan, from the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple under Persian rule in the sixth century BCE, to the compilation of the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds sometime in the fifth and sixth centuries CE. This eventful millennium witnessed imperial conquests, revolts, and much inner-Jewish strife. We will examine literary and material sources, produced by Jews in Egypt, Palestine, and Babylonia, including stories, philosophical writings, amulets, and burial inscriptions.

This course offers an introduction to the development of ancient Judaism during the eventful millennium from the establishment of the Torah as the constitution of the Jewish people in the fifth century BCE--an event that some have seen as marking the transition from biblical religion to Judaism--to the completion of the other great canonical Jewish document, the Babylonian Talmud, in perhaps the sixth century CE.

This course offers an introduction to the development of ancient Judaism during the eventful millennium from the establishment of the Torah as the constitution of the Jewish people in the fifth century BCE--an event that some have seen as marking the transition from biblical religion to Judaism--to the completion of the other great canonical Jewish document, the Babylonian Talmud, in perhaps the sixth century CE.

This course offers an introduction to ancient Judaism during the fascinating and eventful long millennium that gave rise to both Judaism and Christianity as we know them today. It traces the development of competing visions of Judaism from the establishment of the Torah as a sort of constitution for the Jewish people in the fifth century BCE to the completion of the Babylonian Talmud, the work that more than any other shapes later Jewish culture, in perhaps the sixth century CE. Classes will center on the discussion of primary texts, and the development of the skills of close reading will be a major focus.