A weekly, year-long workshop providing students in the Religions of Late Antiquity with the opportunity to present their current research for discussion. Note: REL 525 (fall) and REL 526 (spring) constitute this year-long workshop. In order to receive credit and/or a grade, students must take the course both semesters.

A weekly, year-long workshop providing students in the Religions of Late Antiquity with the opportunity to present their current research for discussion. Note: REL 525 (fall) and REL 526 (spring) constitute this year-long workshop. In order to receive credit and/or a grade, students must take the course both semesters.

A weekly, year-long workshop providing students in the Religions of Late Antiquity with the opportunity to present their current research for discussion. Note: REL 525 (fall) and REL 526 (spring) constitute this year-long workshop. In order to receive credit and/or a grade, students must take the course both semesters.

A weekly, year-long workshop providing students in the Religions of Late Antiquity with the opportunity to present their current research for discussion. Note: REL 525 (fall) and REL 526 (spring) constitute this year-long workshop. In order to receive credit and/or a grade, students must take the course both semesters.

A weekly, year-long workshop providing students in the Religions of Late Antiquity with the opportunity to present their current research for discussion. Note: REL 525 (fall) and REL 526 (spring) constitute this year-long workshop. In order to receive credit and/or a grade, students must take the course both semesters.

A weekly, year-long workshop providing students in the Religions of Late Antiquity with the opportunity to present their current research for discussion. Note: REL 525 (fall) and REL 526 (spring) constitute this year-long workshop. In order to receive credit and/or a grade, students must take the course both semesters.

A weekly, year-long workshop providing students in the Religions of Late Antiquity with the opportunity to present their current research for discussion. Note: REL 525 (fall) and REL 526 (spring) constitute this year-long workshop. In order to receive credit and/or a grade, students must take the course both semesters.

How far reaching is the "fragmentation" of religious authority in modern Islam? How have traditional religious scholars sought to rearticulate their authority in conditions of radical change? On what basis do "new religious intellectuals" make their claims to authority? How has the state shaped structures of religious authority? What is peculiar to modern Islam so far as conceptions of and contestations over religious authority are concerned? These are among the questions this seminar seeks to examine.

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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).

This course explores "book history" and its application to the study of religion. These approaches consider technological change over time in text production; the effects of paratexts; the practical aspects of circulation; and the phenomenology of reading. We read some of the essential theorists working in this field and case studies by religious studies scholars, and spend the semester thinking about the potential of material-text methodologies to provide traction on religious-studies questions: What is (a) scripture? What is the relationship among concepts such as revelation, writing, transcription, translation, and publication?

In this seminar, we read critical theoretical, methodological, and historiographical work on the construction, production, and use of archives. Some of the questions we consider are: How does power shape the archives with which we work? How should scholars approach the silences and distortions built into the archives, particularly historians of religion, race, gender, and sexuality? What constitutes an archive? What are the possibilities and pitfalls of alternative and non-traditional archives? How do we as embodied actors shape the archives with which we engage--as historians, critical scholars, participants, and curators?

This seminar introduces students to the field of papyrology, the study of ancient texts preserved on papyrus. Papyri have contributed greatly to our understanding of daily life, government, and textual transmission and many other aspects of antiquity. The course teaches students the skills to read and understand ancient documents and literature preserved on papyrus. The papyri found at the garbage heaps of the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus will serve as case studies in this class. Special attention will be paid to the importance of papyri for religious and social history.

"One and the same is the study of opposites," says Aristotle, and any study of atheism must take account both of what gods atheists deny and what atheisms theists resist. The first task of this course is to examine some basic theist models that atheists deny, specifically those of Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, and Karl Barth: what do they affirm? And then to examine four styles of atheism in the modern/post-modern eras--those of Feuerbach-Marx, Nietzsche, Jacques Derrida, and Dawkins-Dennett. Also, what about secularization: is it wishful thinking, or is it really happening?

This graduate seminar examines key scholarly trends, debates, and conversations in the field of Qur'anic Studies over the last three decades or so. It explores themes including debates over the Qur'an's origins, Qur'an and Late Antiquity, the Qur'an's commentarial tradition, Qur'an and translation, the Qur'an in multiple regional contexts, and Qur'an and modernism. A major thrust of this course will be on connecting a study of the Qur'an with broader questions and conversations in the Humanities on related themes such as hermeneutics, language, orality and experiential elements of scripture.

This graduate seminar examines key scholarly trends, debates, and conversations in the field of Qur'anic Studies over the last three decades or so. It explores themes including debates over the Qur'an's origins, Qur'an and Late Antiquity, the Qur'an's commentarial tradition, Qur'an and translation, the Qur'an in multiple regional contexts, and Qur'an and modernism. A major thrust of this course will be on connecting a study of the Qur'an with broader questions and conversations in the Humanities on related themes such as hermeneutics, language, orality and experiential elements of scripture.

This seminar explores the titular question across traditions and from a variety of material, methodological, and theoretical angles pertinent to the study of religion. These include book history, postcolonial analysis, genre theory, and the phenomenology of reading. Students pursue an article-length final paper bringing our work together to bear on their own areas of interest, and are responsible for sharing relevant sources and scholarship from their corners of the academy as readings for the seminar.

The goal of this course is to introduce a significant part of the literature of the Jews of Palestine and Egypt in the period from Alexander to the destruction of the Second Temple.

The goal of this course is to introduce a significant part of the literature of the Jews of Palestine and Egypt in the period from Alexander to the destruction of the Second Temple.

This course treats ancient Jewish and Christian texts involving ascent to heaven, tours of hell, and journeys to hidden places on earth, from the Book of the Watchers in the Hellenistic era to the hekhalot texts in the early Islamic era. We consider the contexts in which the texts were composed, their possible relations to each other, and their significance for beliefs about the relationship between humanity and the divine sphere, reward and punishment after death, and cosmology. Among the texts to be studied are Aramaic Levi, the Testament of Levi, Revelation, 2 Enoch, 3 Baruch, the Apocalypse of Peter, and the Apocalypse of Paul.