The noun "mysticism" is of recent invention, the most common traditions of theorizing about it today derive from William James' Varieties of Religious Experience. Older vocabularies go back to the very beginnings of Christian reflection, see Andrew Louth's Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition. In this course we will be reading from selected texts in the Christian mystical traditions, from Gregory of Nyssa in the fourth century to Elisabeth of the Trinity in the nineteenth, women and men in equal numbers, leaving theoretical issues about the nature of "mysticism" to the end.

This course considers the social and cultural encounters between religious/ethnic groups in the ancient Mediterranean world. It aims to challenge the idea that these groups (for example, Greeks, Jews, Romans, Christians) had stable boundaries or that they spoke with a unified and authoritative voice. The dynamic and even fluid relationships among these groups had a deep impact on the nature of religious life during the formative period of Late Antiquity and beyond. The course will thus explore religious contact and conflict, proximity and separation, dialogue and prejudice-both ancient and modern.

This course will be a critical examination of a method known as Perfect Being Theology. Most associated with Anselm of Canterbury, Perfect Being Theology attempts to determine the attributes of a divine being from the supposition of its absolute perfection. Common in all of the Abrahamic faiths, it is increasingly popular among philosophers of religion. The course asks questions: what kinds of inference do practitioners of perfect being theology make? What presuppositions underlie the method, and do they face challenges from the facts of religious diversity? Are there alternative theological methods that have been overlooked or ignored?

This course offers to students with significant background in Jewish Studies orientation to the critical tools for studying the Jewish tradition and its development in multiple geographical and historical contexts. We begin with the Hebrew Bible, go through Rabbinic Literature, continue through Kabbalah and the Early Modern period. Knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic and background in Bible and Talmud is necessary.

This course introduces two of India's most sophisticated religious-philosophical traditions: Jainism and Buddhism. We will cover familiar topics - e.g. the free will problem, the possibility of omniscience, and the nature of reality - but will use less familiar, non-Western, concepts to shed light on seemingly perennial problems. Our initial focus is on metaphysics and epistemology but we will explore the ramifications of these theories for ethics. For example, how does the idea of inter-dependence shape Buddhist views on the environment? And why do Buddhists and Jains share commitment to non-violence yet disagree over strict vegetarianism?

The impact of twentieth-century philosophical ideas on the academic study of religion: naturalism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, structuralism, Nietzschean genealogy, and American pragmatism, among other philosophical movements.

The impact of modern philosophical ideas on the academic study of religion: naturalism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, genealogy, ideology, social construction, and epistemic injustice, among other philosophical movements, as well as the complex interplay between constructions of religion, race, and gender.

The impact of twentieth-century philosophical ideas on the academic study of religion: naturalism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, structuralism, Nietzschean genealogy, and American pragmatism, among other philosophical movements.

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The idea to be explored is that there are many distinctively human capacities that the ability to speak does not presuppose but that the practice of conversing does, mostly, catalyze. These capacities may include the capacity to make up our minds, to reason and follow rules, to make conscious perceptual judgments, to make mutual commitments, and to hold and be held responsible.

The idea is to look at some central capacities of the human mind beginning with judgement and reasoning, including reasoning from perception, then moving on to discuss the capacity to make value judgements, ascribe and assume responsibility, and achieve the status of a person.

The "mystical" as understood in the Western Christian traditions refers to experience of the divine pressing on the limits of language, and poetry is often its natural expression. This course examines some poetic expressions of the mystical from the Hebrew Song of Songs through Dante, John of the Cross, George Herbert, to Hopkins, and TS Eliot.

We revisit some of the basic normative questions to do with religion and democratic politics: how can democratic polities be protected from religion, and how can religion be protected from politics? Might certain forms of democratic politics depend on religious sources? In particular, might liberal democracy actually "live off" religious sentiments in ways that many liberal theorists fail to acknowledge? Does even the religiously neutral state need a "civil religion" of some sort or other to preserve its moral foundations?

Is there an affinity between particular religions and particular forms of politics? Is religion a necessary basis for any stable politics, as many canonical authors in the history of political thought asserted, or is it in fact a threat, as religion provokes strife and poses a danger to modern ideals of autonomy - including democracy? The course addresses such broad questions by engaging classic works as well as recent sociological writings, studies in comparative politics, and legal theories on politics and religion.

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