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.

The Harlem Renaissance (HR) of the 1920s is most often depicted as "the flowering of African American arts and literature." It can also be characterized as a period when diverse forms of African American religious expressions, ideologies, and institutions emerged. This course explores the literature of the Harlem Renaissance, particularly the writings of Langston Hughes, to understand the pivotal intersection of race and religion during this time of black "cultural production."

This course examines classical Chinese texts and their commentary traditions, with commentary selections and additional readings from the earliest periods through the early twentieth century.

Jews have often been thought of as a 'nation without art' who disparaged the visual and discouraged artistic creation. But the reality is very different: Judaism has a rich tradition of artistic production as well as a long history of reflection on the role of images in religious life. This course explores the nature and function of visual expression in ancient Judaism, with a particular focus on Jewish art from Late Antiquity. In addition to considering these materials in their own immediate contexts, we also use them to assess how Jews viewed and engaged with the wider visual culture of the ancient Mediterranean world.

This graduate course seeks to provide the participants with a broad introduction to major intellectual trends in the history of Islam in South Asia from the early nineteenth century to the present. We focus on the work of select individuals and discuss their writings in the context of their intellectual, social, cultural, and political milieu. Translations and exegeses of the Qur'an, Islamic law, politics, and social thought are among the themes on which we focus.

This graduate course seeks to provide the participants with a broad introduction to major intellectual trends in the history of Islam in South Asia from the early nineteenth century to the present. We focus on the work of select individuals and discuss their writings in the context of their intellectual, social, cultural, and political milieu. Translations and exegeses of the Qur'an, Islamic law, politics, and social thought are among the themes on which we focus.

This seminar surveys recent trends in historiography about medieval Jews and Judaism. We read and compare major works of scholarship written mainly during the last two decades that focus on medieval Jewish history in both Europe and the Middle East, from the 9th century to the 14th century. Special emphasis is placed on works of social and cultural history that illuminate Jewish communal life and religious identity in varying historical contexts. All required readings are in English, but supplementary readings are suggested for students with reading knowledge of Hebrew.

Most varieties of late ancient Judaism disappeared after late antiquity, leaving rabbinic Judaism challenged only by Karaism (a medieval anti-rabbinic movement). This course examines this shift, focusing especially on the role played by the Babylonian Talmud's canonization and circulation throughout the Near East. Students will learn to work with the medieval Jewish scholastic genres that developed around and against the Talmud (rabbinic responsa, commentaries, and digests, as well as Karaite exegesis), consider material evidence for these texts' production and consumption, and survey their historical contexts and parallels.

Karaism was the only major alternative to rabbinic Judaism in the Middle Ages: an anti-rabbinic, scripturalist, scholarly, messianic, and proto-Zionist Jewish movement that developed in Iran and Iraq in the ninth century and that by the tenth century had spread across the Islamic Middle East. This course examines how and why Karaism emerged and flourished during this period and after, and what its history tells us about Judaism in the medieval Islamic Middle East more generally. Proficiency in either Hebrew or Arabic required.

An introduction to medieval Near Eastern legal cultures that focuses on the intertwined development of Jewish and Islamic law from late antiquity until the twelfth century. We consider both legal writings such as codes and responsa and evidence for practices in state and communal courts. Geared both to students interested in legal history and to students interested in using legal texts and documents for general historical research.

In this seminar, we probe the idea of an "Islamic Republic," both in the writings of the most prominent leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and in the writings of modern and contemporary Iranian thinkers and political figures. We engage in an extensive study of Khomeini's theory of Islamic government, as well as a study of scholars who influenced him. We also study political debates in the decade after the Revolution over what institutions should comprise an Islamic government. The course ends with a study of reformist and conservative theories of state in contemporary Iran.

The seminar examines Kant's main writings in practical philosophy. The goal is to understand Kant's ethical thought generally, but in this edition we pay particular attention to his account of moral motivation, practical belief, and moral argument.

This course is a close reading of Spinoza's "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus." Topics discussed include the relation between philosophy and theology, the status of revelation and prophesy, Spinoza's account of miracles, the relation between religion and politics, and the freedom of religious practice and expression. We are especially interested in the relation of this text to others of Spinoza's writings, and to the writings of other figures, including Descartes, Hobbes, and Maimonides.

This course is part of a 2-semester sequence co-taught with Gideon Rosen which aims to provide a graduate-level overview of contemporary analytic ontology. Rosen leads the spring semester course "Almost Everything Concerning the Abstract Part of Reality." After taking both courses, a graduate student may expect to have a level understanding of analytic ontology which would provide the basis for original further research in the area.

A seminar on Kantian epistemology and philosophy of mind. Topics include: the nature of assent; the nature of faith and hope; fallibilism vs. infallibilism about justification; transcendental arguments; opinion and common sense; the sources of epistemic normativity, and the structure of practical arguments. Kant is the main focus, but we also consider how some of these themes are treated by his influential successors J.G. Fichte and G.W.F. Hegel. We may also look at some broadly Kantian movements in contemporary epistemology and pistology (theory of faith).

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.

A critical introduction to developments in social theory that have influenced the academic study of religion, including the classic contributions of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber as well as more recent debates in anthropology and cultural theory. Required of, and designed for, first- and second-year graduate students in religion; others must receive the instructor's permission to enroll.

A critical introduction to developments in social theory that have influenced the academic study of religion, including the classic contributions of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber as well as more recent debates in anthropology and cultural theory. Required of, and designed for, first- and second-year graduate students in religion; others must receive the instructor's permission to enroll.

A critical introduction to developments in social theory that have influenced the academic study of religion, including the classic contributions of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber as well as more recent debates in anthropology and cultural theory. Required of, and designed for, first- and second-year graduate students in religion; others must receive the instructor's permission to enroll.