The University of Chicago Divinity School

DVSC 622 30300

Introduction to Constructive Religious Studies

Gamwell

PQ: Open only to first-year A.M.R.S. and M.A. students.
Discussion groups will meet Fridays, 3:00-4:50, S106

DVSC 622 45100

Reading Course: Special Topics in Divinity

Staff

Petition with bibliography signed by instructor; enter section from faculty list.

DVSC 622 49900

Exam Preparation: Divinity

Staff

Open only to Ph.D. students in quarter of qualifying exams; enter section from faculty list.

DVSC 622 50100

Research: Divinity

Staff

Petition signed by instructor; enter section from faculty list.

DVSC 622 59900

Thesis Work: Divinity

Staff

Petition signed by instructor; enter section from faculty list.

BIBL 603 30600

Judaic Civilization I: How to Read a Bible Story

Frymer-Kensky

The biblical story is deceptively simple, hiding its multiple layers of meaning behind an apparently straightforward plot. This course is an introduction to the Bible that concentrates on understanding contemporary ways of reading the Hebrew Bible. Different techniques and how they illuminate the Biblical text will be presented.
Ident. JWSG 31000, RLST 11001

BIBL 603 34000

Introductory Biblical Hebrew II

Staff

PQ: BIBL 33900 or consent of instructor.

BIBL 603 35300

Introductory Koine Greek II

Staff

PQ: Open to Undergraduate Students with consent of instructor.
Ident. NTEC 35100 or consent of instructor.

BIBL 603 42801

Revelation: The New Testament Apocalypse

Klauck

For many Christian readers, Revelation, the last book of the New Testament, remains "a book with seven seals" (cf. Rev 5:1). Others are inclined to take it in a most literal way and use it to unlock the secrets of history and of end time. A more sober perspective is established if we firmly place it within its generic (i.e. prophetic, apocalyptic, and epistolary) tradition, and take a closer look at the author and his addressees. The letters to the seven churches in Rev 2-3 are of central importance for this project. We will read and discuss representative sections of the text, with a special focus regarding chapters 2-3 and chapters 12-14.
PQ: Greek not required, but Greek reading will be offered.
Ident. NTEC 32801

BIBL 603 44500

Philo of Alexandria

Martinez

In this course we will read the Greek text of Philo’s de opificio mundi, with other brief excerpts here and there in the Philonic corpus. Our aim will be to use this treatise to elucidate the character of one of the most prolific theological writers of the first century. We will seek to understand Philo as a Greek author and the nature and origins of his style, Philo as a proponent of middle Platonism, and Philo as a Jew in the context of Alexandrian Judaism. We will also examine his use of the allegorical method as an exegetical tool, and its implications for early Christian approaches to the biblical text.
Ident. NTEC 44500

BIBL 603 53400

Early Christianity in Asia Minor

Klauck

Much of the growth and development of the early Christian movement took place in Asia Minor. There we find Ephesus and the other cities of Rev 2-3; Tarsus, the home of Paul; Bithynia, the province where Pliny served as proconsul; Ancyra, where the famous Monumentum Ancyranum was found, to name just a few. We will read literary texts (for example orations by Dio Chysostom and Aelius Aristides, letters by Pliny) and inscriptions (confession inscriptions, for example, and the edict on the calendar from Priene), which will help to illustrate the political, social, and religious context of the Christian communities. We will also integrate archaeological data wherever accessible and appropriate. A comparison with early Christian texts is also on the agenda.
PQ: Greek (and some Latin, if possible).
Ident. NTEC 43400

BIBL 603 53500

Seminar on Early Christian Biblical Interpretation

Mitchell

This course will provide a focused opportunity to engage and test recent scholarly works (by Frances Young, David Dawson, Elizabeth Clark and others) that are calling for a reconsideration of the traditional map of patristic exegesis as divided between Alexandrine allegorists and Antiochene literalists. We shall engage this question through a close reading in Greek of the debate between Origen of Alexandria and Eustathius of Antioch on 1 Samuel 28 (the woman of Endor raising Samuel from the dead to speak to Saul) in which, surprisingly, it was Origen who called for a “literal” reading, and Eustathius who contested him over it.
PQ: Greek
Ident. HCHR 53500, NTEC 43500

BIBL 603 53600

Jeremiah

Frymer-Kensky

This is an advanced exegesis course on the Book of Jeremiah. All possible techniques will be used to examine this fascinating text.
PQ: Hebrew required or consent of instructor.
Ident. JWSG 43600

THEO 604 30400

History of Christian Thought 4: History of Christian and Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Mendes-Flohr/Tanner

A survey of major figures and movements in European Christian and Jewish thought from the late seventeenth through the eighteenth centuries.
Ident. HIJD 30200, HCHR 30400

THEO 604 41600

Jonathan Edwards

Gilpin

A seminar on the theology of Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) in relation both to its immediate context in colonial New England and to broader trends in religion and theology in the transatlantic world.
Ident. HCHR 43400

THEO 604 42701

Trends in Contemporary Christian Ethics

Schweiker

This course is a survey of contemporary trends in Christian ethics attentive to classical sources (biblical, theological, philosophical) and also basic themes that influence Christian reflection on the moral life. Noting such classic sources as the biblical portrait of Jesus's ministry, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, and others, the burden of the course will be to examine principal trends in thought. These trends include, among others, so-called narrative ethics (Hauerwas), current work on the role of Christ in the moral life (Spohn; O'Donovan), feminist and revisionary forms of Roman Catholic ethics (Porter; Hollenbach), liberation and womanist ethics, and social teachings on topics ranging from economics to war and sex. The course will thereby attend not only to fundamental conceptual and theoretical issues in contemporary Christian ethics, but also questions in applied ethics especially pressing in the current world situation. The course will proceed through lecture, discussion, and presentation. Previous work in theology and/or ethics required.
Ident. RETH 42701

THEO 604 44500

Black Theology and Womanist Theology in Dialogue

Hopkins

THEO 604 46700

Race

Hopkins

THEO 604 46900

Reinhold Niebuhr: Theology and Ethics

Gamwell

An examination of Reinhold Niebuhr’s systematic theology, especially his arguments for the Christian understanding of human existence and for the relation of the moral enterprise to the reality of God.
Ident. RETH 46900

THEO 604 50200

Karl Barth’s “Church Dogmatics”

Tanner

Close reading of representative volumes of the Church Dogmatics.

THEO 604 50501

Mourning, Melancholia, & Feminism

Hollywood

DVPR 605 58702

Topics in Contemporary European Thought

Davidson

Ident. CHSS 58000/PHIL 58702

CHRM 606 30200

Public Church

Brekus

PQ: Restricted to first-year M.Div. students.

CHRM 606 30500

Introduction to the Study of Ministry

Boden

PQ: Required of all first year M.Div. students.
DO NOT REGISTER FOR THIS CLASS.

CHRM 606 35500

Arts of Ministry: Worship

Staff

This course explores the art of Christian liturgy from four angles—historical, theological, pastoral, and aesthetic. It serves as the basis for student inquiry into the practice of worship throughout the field education experience.
PQ: Open to second-year M.Div. students only.

CHRM 606 40600

The Practice of Ministry I

Piñón

CHRM 606 42500

Senior Ministry Project Seminar

Gilpin

HIJD 625 30200

History of Christian Thought IV: History of Christian and Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Mendes-Flohr/Tanner

A survey of major figures and movements in European Christian and Jewish thought from the late seventeenth through the eighteenth centuries.
There are no prerequisites.
Ident. HCHR 30400, THEO 30400

HIJD 625 34301

Spiritual Piety in Sixteenth Century Safed: Mystical Ethics

Fishbane

This course will focus on the teachings of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero’s treatise “Palm Tree of Deborah” (Tomer Devorah), emphasizing issues of “imitatio dei”, humility, and the good will. Attention will also be given to the work of his student, R. Elijah de Vidas, especially on humility. Some of the spiritual exercises used by these and other masters at this period will also be studied.
PQ: Knowledge of Hebrew required or the consent of instructor. Course available for students in Jewish Studies.
Ident. JWSG 28501/ JWSG 38501

HIJD 625 36600

Eastern and Western European Conceptions of Judaism I

Mendes-Flohr/Brinker

Ident. JWSG 36100

HIJD 625 49000

Studies in Midrash: Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael

Fishbane

A close examination of this Tannaitic commentary on the Book of Exodus, giving special attention to modes of exegesis, hermeneutical principles, forms of discourse, and theology. Comparison with contemporary and later midrashic sources may be made, as pertinent.
PQ: Knowledge of Biblical or Rabbinic Hebrew required, or consent of instructor. Course available for students in Jewish Studies.
Ident. JWSG 49000

HCHR 626 30400

History of Christian Thought IV: History of Christian and Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Mendes-Flohr/Tanner

A survey of major figures and movements in European Christian and Jewish thought from the late seventeenth through the eighteenth centuries.
Ident. THEO 30400, HIJD 30200

HCHR 626 31201

Transatlantic Christianity, 1500–1900

Gilpin

This course is a comparative history of Christianity in Europe and the Americas, since 1600, employing selected issues to examine the circulation of religious movements and ideas in the transatlantic world and to explore the connection of Christianity to wider developments in politics, science, and culture.

HCHR 626 42600

The American Religious Historical Canon

Brekus

Ident. HIST 63702

HCHR 604 43400

Jonathan Edwards

Gilpin

A seminar on the theology of Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) in relation both to its immediate context in colonial New England and to broader trends in religion and theology in the transatlantic world.
Ident. THEO 41600

HCHR 626 53500

Seminar on Early Christian Biblical Interpretation

Mitchell

This course will provide a focused opportunity to engage and test recent scholarly works (by Frances Young, David Dawson, Elizabeth Clark and others) that are calling for a reconsideration of the traditional map of patristic exegesis as divided between Alexandrine allegorists and Antiochene literalists. We shall engage this question through a close reading in Greek of the debate between Origen of Alexandria and Eustathius of Antioch on 1 Samuel 28 (the woman of Endor raising Samuel from the dead to speak to Saul) in which, surprisingly, it was Origen who called for a “literal” reading, and Eustathius who contested him over it.
PQ: Greek
Ident. BIBL 53500, NTEC 43500

HREL 628 40800

Mythologies of Tranvestism and Transsexuality

Doniger

Studies in selected Greek and Hindu myths, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and As You Like It, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly, Roland Barthes’ S/Z, Marjorie Garber’s Vested Interests, Wendy Doniger’s Splitting the Difference and Bedtrick, and selected operas (Marriage of Figaro, Rosenkavalier, Arabella) and films (such as Queen Christina, Some Like It Hot, I Was a Male War Bride, Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire, All of Me, The Crying Game, and Boys Don’t Cry).
PQ: By application only. Permission of instructor. Fifteen to twenty-five-page paper due at end of course and class presentation of that paper.
Ident. SCTH 40300, GNDR 40800, SALC 25901/35901

HREL 628 41900

Storytelling in India

Doniger

Readings selected from the following: Tales of Sex and Violence (O’Flaherty); Panchatantra (Olivelle); Kathasaritsagara/Ocean of Story (Arshia Sattar); Dreams, Illusion and Other Realities (O’Flaherty); Kim (Kipling); Midnight’s Children and Haroun (Salman Rushdie) Yogavasistha (Chapple); Mondays on the Dark Side of the Moon (Kirin Narayan); Essays (A.K. Ramanujan); Folktales of India (Ramanujan).
PQ: By application only. Permission of instructor.
Ident. SCTH 40700, SALC 25702/35702

HREL 628 42100

Religion and Society in Pre-Christian Europe

Lincoln

RLIT 635 30000

Introduction to Religion and Literature

Yu

PQ: Divinity students have priority to register; students of other units per consent of instructor.
Ident. ENGL 30100, CMLT 31700

RLIT 635 31600

Medieval Epic

Murrin

We will study a wide variety of heroic literature, including Beowulf, The Volsunga Saga, The Song of Roland, The Purgatorio, and the Alliterative Morte D’Arthur. A paper will be required, and there may be an oral examination.
Ident. ENGL 15800/35800, CMLT 25900/35900

RLIT 635 32700

The Novel: Theory and Texts

Rosengarten

A survey of the genre in its manifestation in the modern period, focused on monuments in its development (Cervantes, Richardson, Flaubert, Joyce) and examining the intrinisic and incipient thematic and social engagements of these specific texts with religion. The central topic will be the self-conscious recourse to fictionality in narrative. We will think about this via a range of specific questions, including: the role of retrospection in narrative viewpoint, and its association with ideas about providential design; character development, with relation to both the concept of virtue and to issues of gender; the ongoing problematic moral status of the novel in the legal and religious institutions of Spain, England, France, and Ireland (and, by extension in the case of Joyce, the United States); and the vexed question of formalism and the genre. A concluding section will consider the phenomena of the novel's geographic dispersion in the last fifty years, with representative readings.

RLIT 635 35900

Seminar: Introduction to Comparative Literature I

Murrin

This course is for English/Comparative Literature Ph.D. students and Religion and Literature Ph.D. students in the Divinity School.
PQ: Consent of instructor.
Ident. CMLT 30100

RLIT 635 49100

Journey to the West I

Yu

PQ: CHIN students expected to consult original text in paper; students from other units need no Chinese language; undergraduates may enroll under undergraduate number, no prior knowledge of Chinese.
Ident. CHIN 21206/31206, CMLT 28400/38400, SCTH 49100

RETH 638 42701

Trends in Contemporary Christian Ethics

Schweiker

This course is a survey of contemporary trends in Christian ethics attentive to classical sources (biblical, theological, philosophical) and also basic themes that influence Christian reflection on the moral life. Noting such classic sources as the biblical portrait of Jesus's ministry, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, and others, the burden of the course will be to examine principal trends in thought. These trends include, among others, so-called narrative ethics (Hauerwas), current work on the role of Christ in the moral life (Spohn; O'Donovan), feminist and revisionary forms of Roman Catholic ethics (Porter; Hollenbach), liberation and womanist ethics, and social teachings on topics ranging from economics to war and sex. The course will thereby attend not only to fundamental conceptual and theoretical issues in contemporary Christian ethics, but also questions in applied ethics especially pressing in the current world situation. The course will proceed through lecture, discussion, and presentation. Previous work in theology and/or ethics required.
Ident. THEO 42701

RETH 638 46900

Reinhold Niebuhr: Theology and Ethics

Gamwell

An examination of Reinhold Niebuhr’s systematic theology, especially his arguments for the Christian understanding of human existence and for the relation of the moral enterprise to the reality of God.
Ident. THEO 46900

RETH 638 50200

Political Realism

Elshtain

An exploration of the realist tradition in politics and its ethical implications. Readings include Thucydides, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Waltz, Arendt, and R. Niebuhr.
Ident. PLSC 50200

RETH 638 51301

Law-Philosophy Seminar

Nussbaum/Sunstein

This is a seminar/workshop most of whose participants are faculty from seven area institutions. It admits approximately ten students by permission of the instructors. Its aim is to study, each year, a topic that arises in both philosophy and law and to ask how bringing the two fields together may yield mutual illumination. There are twelve meetings throughout the year, always on Mondays from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Half of the sessions are led by local faculty, half by visiting speakers. The leader assigns readings for the session (which may be by that person, by other contemporaries, or by major historical figures), and the sessions consists of a brief introduction by the leader, followed by structured questioning by the two faculty coordinators, followed by general discussion. Students write either two 4- to 6-page papers per quarter, or a 20- to 25-page seminar paper at the end of the year. The course satisfies the Law School Writing Requirement. The schedule of meetings will be announced by mid-September, and prospective students should submit their credentials to both instructors by September 20. Past themes have included: practical reason; equality; privacy; autonomy; global justice; pluralism and toleration; war; sexuality and family.

The theme for 2004-5 will be race. Likely speakers include: Kwane Anthony Appiah, Lawrence Blum, Lani Guinier, Sally Haslanger, Randy Kennedy, Michelle Moody-Adams, Patricia Williams (outside visitors); Danielle Allen, Cathy Cohen, Bob Gooding-Williams, Bernard Harcourt, Tracey Meares, David Strauss, Ken Warren (locals).
Ident. LAW 61502, PHIL 51200, GNDR 50101, HMRT 51301, PLSC

RETH 638 51700

Contemporary Virtue Ethics

Nussbaum

This class with study the revival of the ethics of virtue in contemporary moral philosophy, considering, among others, Iris Murdoch, John McDowell, Philippa Foot, Nancy Sherman, Henry Richardson, Annette Baier, Rosalind Hursthouse, and Bernard Williams. Is virtue ethics a single movement, with a single set of philosophical motivations and normative commitments, or a more complicated plurality of positions and motivations? What is the relationship of virtue ethics to the idea of ethical theory? To the aspiration to put reason in charge of human life? Is virtue ethics inherently conservative, deferring to socially formed passions and patterns of conduct, or is (some form of) it capable of radical criticism of entrenched social norms, e.g. of class and gender? We will be alluding to the Greeks throughout, so some background in ancient Greek ethics is highly desirable.
Ident. LAW 99202, PLSC 52110, GNDR 51700