Spring 2010 Course Descriptions
PLEASE NOTE: This document is subject to amendment. It is intended for descriptive and informational use only. DO NOT USE IT TO REGISTER FOR CLASSES. To register, please consult the University Time Schedules.
The Following "Special Courses" are for M. Div. students only:
629-60000-01/02 Special Course — Chicago Theological Seminary
629-63000-01/02 Special Course — Meadville Lombard Theol School
629-65000-01/02 Special Course — Catholic Theological Union
629-66000-01/02 Special Course — Lutheran Theological School
629-68000-01/02 Special Course — McCormick Theol. Seminary* An asterisk indicates that the course so designated may count toward the required “designated introductory courses” for M.A. students.
DVSC 42000 Divinity School: German Reading Exam
Staff: ARR
PQ: Open only to Divinity School students (to be held Monday, April 19 at 6:00 p.m.)
DVSC 45100 Reading Course: Special Topic
Staff: ARR
PQ: Petition with bibliography signed by instructor; enter section from faculty list.
DVSC 49900 Exam Preparation
Staff: ARR
PQ: Open only to Ph.D. students in quarter of qualifying exams. Department consent. Petition signed by Advisor.
DVSC 50300 Research: Divinity
Staff: ARR
PQ: Petition signed by instructor; enter section from faculty list.
DVSC 59900 Thesis Work: Divinity
Staff: ARR
PQ: Petition signed by instructor; enter section number from faculty list.
BIBL 32700 Law in Biblical Literature
Chavel, Simeon
T/Th 11:30-12:50 S106
PQ: First year of Biblical Hebrew
BIBL 44800 Words of the Wise: Proverbs and Qohelet
Chavel, Simeon
T/Th 4:00-5:20 S200
PQ: First year Biblical Hebrew.
BIBL 45800 The Three Letters of John
Klauck, Hans-Josef
M/W 9:00-11:00 S208
The Gospel of John tends to overshadow somewhat the three letters of John also found in the canon of the New Testament. They deserve to be read on their own right; when we do this, we may get additional glimpses of a project that might be called Johannine theology. The two brief letters 2 John and 3 John give us some insight into the situation of the community where these writings were produced. They are also highly interesting for the use they make of Greek epistolography. The longer first letter looks more like a theological meditation of major themes of the Gospel tradition like light and darkness or truth and lie. However, it also reflects a bitter schism in the community, provoked by issues of Christology.
PQ: No Greek required. A special Greek reading section will be offered M/W 10:20-11:00).
BIBL 50400 Early Christian Rhetoric
Mitchell, Margaret
Th 3:00-5:50 S403
An examination of the rhetorics (persuasive strategies) of early Christian literature, and how they were rooted in the ancient paideia (education system) and forms of public life in the Greco-Roman world. We shall focus on significant points of intersection with the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition in terms of style, “invention”, arrangement, and delivery, by triangulated close readings each week in Greek of selected early Christian writings, Greco-Roman rhetorical compositions, and samples of rhetorical theory. The early Christian texts will range from Paul to the fourth century, and may include: Galatians, I Corinthians, Athenagoras, legatio pro Christianis, Gregory of Nazianzus’ funeral oration for his brother, Caesarius, and John Chrysostom’s de laudibus sancti Pauli and de sacerdotio.
PQ: Strong Greek skills.
Ident. HCHR 50401
THEO 31600 Introduction to Theology *
Hector, Kevin
T/Th 10:30-11:50 S208
This course is designed to introduce students to the language, controversies, and figures of theology, and to encourage students to improve their own theologizing by considering its public relevance, intelligibility, and justifiability.
THEO 36501 Creation and Providence
Tanner, Kathryn
Tu 9:00-11:50 S403
The course explores fundamental issues in the Christian understanding of creation and procidence, among them: creation ex nihilo, the compatibility of belief in providence with naturalistic and non-teleological scientific description, the character of putative supernatural occurrences (e.g., miracles), ethical objections to appeals to providence in everyday life, ways of conceptualizing God’s action in the world, , and attempts to make sense of the way God directs the outcomes of decisions made by free, fallible, and often misguided humans.
THEO 41100 James H. Cone: Self, Identity and Freedom
Hopkins, Dwight
Tu 9:00-11:50 S400
James H. Cone is known as the founder of black theology of liberation within the U.S. and as one of the first originators of liberation theologies globally. His first book on a black theology of liberation was published in April 1969, followed by his second in 1970. Throughout his publications, he has emphasized the question of what it means to be human—to be a full individual in connection to a complete community. In one sense, one could argue that a large part of his intellectual project has been focused on the question of theological anthropology. How does one achieve one’s sense of the self, identity, and freedom? Though Cone initiated his intellectual journey in pursuit of answers by studying the human predicament of minority groups experiencing restrictions on their human dignity, his questions raise universal issues for all human communities.
THEO 42001 Feminist Theory and Theology: Beauvoir’s Second Sex
Culp, Kristine
T/Th 1:00-2:20 S208
In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir’s Le Deuxieme Sexe took up the old question of sexual difference; it was never the same question again. Her attention to the situation and “situatedness” of women resulted in new ways of thinking about freedom, destiny, reciprocity, and subjectivity; it brought literature, autobiography, and cultural studies into philosophical reflection. In this seminar, we will read The Second Sex in English translation (1952) and with reference to the original (unedited) French text, giving attention to how the text addressed religious themes (e.g., mysticism, transcendence) and its French Catholic audience. We will also consider how Beauvoir’s work has been received and used by feminist theologians such as Mary Daly.
PQ: Some ability to read French will be useful.
THEO 45700 Late Medieval Religion
Schreiner, Susan
M 1:30-4:20 S200
Ident. HCHR 45700
THEO 46700 Race
Hopkins, Dwight
M 9:00-11:50 S200
The purpose of this course is to examine the concept of “race.” What are its origins, history, and the contemporary debates around its definition, and how does race figure in current thought? In addition, we will examine race beyond the usual black-white paradigm. Finally, we want to engage theological interpretations of race.
Ident. CRPC 46700
THEO 49502 Theology and Theory II: identity and Subject Formation
Tanner, Kathryn
Th 1:30-4:20 S200
How might theological accounts of Christian identity and subject formation be informed by contemporary cultural and critical theory? Readings to include Bourdieu, Butler, Althusser, Stuart Hall, and Foucault.
DVPR 31700 Birth and Death of the metaphysical Proofs of the Existence of God, Descartes and Kant
Marion, Jean-Luc
M 3:00-5:50 S106
The attempt to prove the existence of God has itself a history, and was not a common request of philosophy and theology before Descartes. As both philosophy and theology has continued to think about God after the deconstruction of those proofs by Kant. Therefore attention will be paid to the system of the three main proofs, the parallel between Descartes and Kant. The final issue will be the legitimacy and meaning of the endeavor to prove the existence of God.
Ident. PHIL
DVPR 39200 Simone Weil *
Meltzer, Francoise
W 3:00-5:50 S208
This course will consider Simone Weil from the perspectice of her philosophy, religious convictions and political activism. These three areas of Weil’s work are often considered as discrete compartments, but we will approach them as parts of a cohesive philosophical system.
Ident. CMLT
DVPR 41400 De-theologizing Christianity
Coyne, Ryan
T/Th 10:30-11:50 S201
A study of how Christian religious and/or theological tropes are taken up and transformed by modern philosophers since Kant. In particular, we will try to situate current articulations of a “religion without religion” within a broader tradition of critical philosophy. Readings will be drawn from: Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Overbeck, Heidegger, Bataille, Blanchot, Derrida, and Nancy.
DVPR 43600 Lacan’s Ethics
Coyne, Ryan
Tu 3:00-5:50 S208
A careful study of Book VII of Jacques Lacan’s Seminars, entitled The Ethics of Psychoanalysis (1959-1960). This course will be devoted to understanding what Lacan called “the tragic dimension of psychoanalytic experience.” We will supplement our study of Seminar VII by reading Sophocles’ Antigone, various selections from Freud and Heidegger, and various essays by Lacan.
DVPR 49800 Yogacara Texts: The Mahayanasamgraha
Arnold, Dan
F 1:30-4:20 S403
PQ: Some Sanskrit or Tibetan preferred.
Ident. SALC 48402
DVPR 51300 Brauer Seminar: Religion and the Idea of Practice
Hector, Kevin/Fox, Richard
Tu 3:00-5:50 S400
Under what conditions might practice be taken as an object of critical knowledge? And why should it matter for scholars of theology and religion? Popular usage tends to set practice in opposition to theory or belief, replicating a well-worn dualism of mind and body, form and matter, epistemology and ontology. It is precisely this dualism, however, that more philosophically nuance.ed approaches to practice have aimed to challenge. These approaches include scholarship in the American pragmatist tradition, the Russian critique of formalism, analytic philosophy of language, and poststructuralism (with its variations in anthropology, history, queer theory, critical politics, and postcolonial studies) The aim envisaged for the seminar is (a) to arrive at some judgment about whether and how this category should inform the study of religion, by (b) examining ‘practice’ both as a means of interpreting phenomena and as itself an object of interpretation.
PQ: Applications for admission to the Brauer Seminar will be received during the Winter Quarter.
Ident HREL 51300
DVPR 52600 Heidegger on Being and Presence
Marion, Jean-Luc
W 3:00-5:50 S106
Having in past years extensively studied the first Heidegger (Being and Time), the constitution of metaphysics and its interpretation as onto-theo-logy, will now focus on the central period of Heidegger’s thought and the question of how far Being should be explained according to Presence (whatever this word may mean). Connected questions will be God’s questionable “existence”, and philosophy without metaphysics.
Ident. PHIL
CHRM 30700 Colloquium: Introduction to Ministry Studies
ARR ARR ARR
PQ: First year ministry students only.
DO NOT REGISTER FOR THIS COURSE.CHRM 35700 Arts of Ministry: Pastoral Care
Lindner, Cynthia
F 9:00-11:50 S400
PQ: 2nd year M.DIV. students; others with approval of instructor.
CHRM 36700 Advanced Seminar in Pastoral Care
Lindner, Cynthia
W 3:00-5:50 S400
PQ: Arts of Ministry: Pastoral Care or permissions of instructor.
CHRM 40800 Practice of Ministry III
Boyd, Kevin
F 1:30-4:20 S400
PQ: 2nd year M.DIV. students.
ISLM 40100 Islamic Love Poetry
Sells, Michael
Tu 2:30-5:20 MEM Library
PQ: Some acquaintance with one of the following languages: Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Ottoman, Arabic, Punjabi, or other languages of classical Islamic love poetry.
Ident. NEHC 40600/RLIT 40700/CMLT 40100
HIJD 37000 Jewish Liturgical Poetry and the Making of the Rabbinic Epic
Fishbane, Michael
Tu 9:00-11:50 S200
This course will be an introduction to Jewish liturgical poetry with an emphasis on epic forms, and will treat thematically the topic of Sinai and revelation. The focus will be on the integration of midrashic themes into coherent poetic units.
PQ: Hebrew is required.
HIJD 41700 Giving and Receiving
Fishbane, Michael
Tu 1:00-3:50 S200
Emphasis will be on care of the indigent. The focus will be textual (classical biblical and rabbinic sources, also some medieval legal codes), but will include comparative issues drawn from anthropology. The larger concern of this course, and its future sequel will be on theological matters.
HIJD 44000 Ethnography and Literary Genres in Rabbinic Literature
Hasan-Roken, Galit
ARR ARR ARR
Ident. RLIT 44000
HCHR 32405 Medieval Monasticism
Fulton, Rachel
Tu/Th 1:30-2:50 ARR
In modern popular culture, the Middle Ages is often imaginatively synonymous with war: knights in shining armor, Vikings in their longships, Robin Hood with his longbow and “merry men.” This lecture-discussion course seeks to complicate this image by examining warfare as a central fact of European civilized life. Problems to be addressed include the technology and economics of warfare, the sociology of warfare, major phases in the development of European warfare from the Carolingians through the Hundred Years’ War, and the literary, religious, and psychological significance of war for the development of European Civilization.
Ident. HIST 22405/32405
HCHR 42300 Readings in Luther
Schreiner, Susan
M/W 10:00-11:20 S201
HCHR 42700 Revising the American Religious Historical Canon
Brekus, Catherine
M 9:30-12:20 S400
This course examines recent trends in the writing of American religious history. Since the 1970s, American religious historians have argued that the “canon” needs to be revised. By reading some of the most influential articles and books in the field, we will critically assess both the strengths and weaknesses of the “new” history. Besides reading textbooks such as Catherine Albanese’s America: Religion and Religions and George Marsden’s Religion and American Culture, we will read case studies of new approaches and methodologies. Students are required to lead class discussion once during the quarter and to write a final 20-25 page paper.
PQ: Enrollment is strictly limited to students who have taken “The American Religious Historical Canon (HCHR 42600/HIST 63700)
Ident. HIST 63801.
HCHR 44700 Theology in America, 1865-1965
Gilpin, W. Clark
Tu 1:00-3:50 S403
The course will focus on readings from major American theologians and philosophers of religion.
PQ: Research paper.
HCHR 45102 Consumerism, Capitalism, and Christianity in the United States
Brekus, Catherine
W 1:30-4:20 S201
This course asks how Christianity has both shaped and reflected economic change from the 18th century to the present. Besides examining diverse Christian attitudes toward consumerism and capitalism, we will ask how economic developments have shaped understandings of God and the self. Students are required to write a 20-25 page research paper.
Ident. HIST
HCHR 45600 African American Religion in the 20th Century: Historiography and History
Evans, Curtis
M 3:00-5:50 S201
We explore the major interpretations of African American religions in the U.S. in the 20th century. Special attention is paid to deconstructions of “the black church,” enduring debates about the nature and function of African American Christianity, and interpretative concerns about the distinctiveness of African American religion.
HCHR 45700 Late Medieval Religion
Schreiner, Susan
M 1:30-4:20 S200
Ident. THEO 45700
HCHR 50401 Early Christian Rhetoric
Mitchell, Margaret
Th 3:00-5:50 S403
An examination of the rhetorics (persuasive strategies) of early Christian literature, and how they were rooted in the ancient paideia (education system) and forms of public life in the Greco-Roman world. We shall focus on significant points of intersection with the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition in terms of style, “invention”, arrangement, and delivery, by triangulated close readings each week in Greek of selected early Christian writings, Greco-Roman rhetorical compositions, and samples of rhetorical theory. The early Christian texts will range from Paul to the fourth century, and may include: Galatians, I Corinthians, Athenagoras, legatio pro Christianis, Gregory of Nazianzus’ funeral oration for his brother, Caesarius, and John Chrysostom’s de laudibus sancti Pauli and de sacerdotio.
Ident. BIBL 50400
HCHR 52400 Race and Religion in the U.S. Since World War II
Evans, Curtis
W 3:00-5:50 S403
This is an intensive reading seminar of major secondary and primary sources that examine the ways in which churches and religious persons have engaged the problem of race in America since the Second World War. Although due attention is paid to African American religion, this course is also about how blacks and whites have wrestled individually and collectively with racial division in light of their religious heritage, especially Christianity.
HREL 32300 Hindu Mythologies of Evil
Doniger, Wendy
W/F 1:30-2:50 S208
Readings in Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology, David Shulman, The Hungry God, and selected passages from the Rig Veda, the Upanishads, Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Puranas, and other, later texts.
PQ: 15-20 page paper at the end of the quarter.
Open to both College and Graduate students.
HREL 45200 Historiography for Historians of Religion
Lincoln, Bruce
M/W 10:00-11:20 S403
HREL 51001 Seminar: States of Nature
Doniger, Wendy/Daston, Lorraine
Th 1:30-4:20 S201
Animals have been used across cultures and history to imagine what it is to be human. This seminar will explore the animal/human boundary on hand from texts from Eastern and Western traditions and from religion, philosophy, literature and science, including Aesop, medieval bestiaries, Descartes, Darwin, and Heideger; and Sanskrit texts about the origins of animals, the divisions into sacrificed and hunted animals, and animals used to symbolize particular castes of humans. The aim of the seminar is to understand not just how animals have been used to think about the human (and vice versa) but also why particular animals are good to think with.
PQ. 15-20 page paper at end of quarter. Preference will be given to students from Committee on Social Thought and Ph.D.students in the History of Religions.
Ident. SCTH 51001
HREL 51300 Brauer Seminar: Religion and the Idea of Practice
Fox, Richard/Hector, Kevin
Tu 3:00-5:50 S400
Under what conditions might practice be taken as an object of critical knowledge? And why should it matter for scholars of theology and religion? Popular usage tends to set practice in opposition to theory or belief, replicating a well-worn dualism of mind and body, form and matter, epistemology and ontology. It is precisely this dualism, however, that more philosophically nuanced approaches to practice have aimed to challenge. These approaches include scholarship in the American pragmatist tradition, the Russian critique of formalism, analytic philosophy of language, and poststructuralism (with its variation in anthropology, history, queer theology, critical politics, and post colonial studies). The aim envisaged for the seminar is (a) to arrive at some judgment about whether and how this category should inform the study of religion, by (b) examining ‘practice’ both as a means of interpreting phenomena and as itself an object of interpretation.
PQ: Applications for admission to the Brauer Seminar will be received during the Winter quarter.
Ident. DVPR 51300
HREL 52400 Everyday Practices of the Unseen
Fox, Richard
Th 3:00-5:50 S400
This course examines the practices of everyday life in contemporary Bali with a special emphasis on relations with unseen beings and forces. Materials for analysis will be drawn from ethnographic and historical studies, but also medical, divinatory and other indigenous texts.
PQ: Either The Idea of Religion in Bali or Religion and Performance in Java and Bali; exceptions may be requested by petition.
HREL 52500 Readings in Tibetan Religious Literature
Wedemeyer, Christian
M/W 2:00-3:20 S406
HREL 53200 Advanced Tibetan Reading
Wedemeyer, Christian
M/W 3:30-4:50 S406
RLIT 31500 Travelers on the Silk Road
Murrin, Michael
ARR ARR ARR
We will read some of the major travel narratives of the Silk Road and Tibet, from Xuanzang, the most famous of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims who went West, through Marco Polo and others, who went East, including a diplomat like Clavijo, who went to see Tamerlane, to modern travelers like the spies the British government sent from India to explore and map the area, the prototypes for Kipling’s Kim, and archaeologists like Aurel Stein who went both ways on the Silk Road. Choice among all the travelers will be limited, of course, by time and by the availability of texts. Through slide lectures students will gain a sense of the physical characteristics of the region and its art at various periods. At the same time the student will learn indirectly about the different religions and political regimes travelers experienced, which changed dramatically over the eleven centuries and more which we will cover in the course.
Ident. ENGL 16180/36180
RLIT 40700 Islamic Love Poetry
Sells, Michael
Tu 2:30-5:20 MEM Library
PQ: some acquaintance with one of the following languages: Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Ottoman, Arabic, Punjabi, Pashtu, or other languages of classical Islamic love poetry.
Ident. ISLM 40100/NEHC 40600/CMLT 40100
RLIT 41000 Spenser
Murrin, Michael
ARR ARR ARR
The class will read all of The Faerie Queene, plus The Shepheardess Calendar, The Amoretti, Epithalamion, and Prothalamion. Requirements are a final essay and perhaps an oral examination.
Ident. ENGL 36202
RLIT 43301 Tragedy: Theory & Texts
Rosengarten, Richard
W/F 10:00-11:20 S200
RETH 32900 Emotion, Reason, and Law
Nussbaum, Martha
ARR ARR ARR
Emotions figure in many areas of the law, and many legal doctrines (from reasonable provocation in homicide to mercy in criminal sentencing) invite us to think about emotions and their relationship to reason. In addition, some prominent theories of the limits of law make reference to emotions: thus Lord Devlin and, more recently, Leon Kass have argued that the disgust of the average member of society is a sufficient reason for rendering a practice illegal, even though it does no harm to others. Emotions, however, are all too rarely studied closely, with the result that both theory and doctrine are often confused.
The first part of this course will study major theories of emotion, asking about the relationship between emotion and cotnition, focusing on philosophical accounts, but also learning from anthropology and psychology. We will ask how far emotions embody cognitions, and of what type, and then we will ask whether there is a reason to consider some or all emotions “irrational” in a normative sense. We then turn to the criminal law, asking how specific emotions figure in doctrine and theory: anger, fear, compassion, disgust, guilt, and shame. Legal areas considered will include self-defense, reasonable provocation, mercy, victim impact statements, sodomy laws, sexual harassment, shame-based punishments. Next, we turn to the role played by emotions in constitutional law and in thought about just institutions—a topic that seems initially unpromising, but one that wll turn out to be full of interest.
Ident LAW/PHIL/PLSC.
RETH 51303 Seminar: Law-Philosophy
Nussbaum, Marth
M 3:00-6:00 ARR
This is the third part of the seminar-workshop which began in the Autumn quarter.
PQ: Students who were admitted to the Autumn seminar may register.
Ident. LAW/PHIL/PLSC 51303
RETH 52900 Advanced Seminar in Ethics: Murder Most Foul
Elshtain, Jean Bethke/Meredith, Stephen
M 1:00-3:50 S208
From the story of Cain and Abel to the present moment, a tragic fact of civilization is murder—the unjust taking of a human life. Why is murder a pervasive feature of human society, past and present? What are the multiple ways in which murder is explained, interpreted, and punished? What ethical understandings enter into conflicting positions on murder and what should be done with murderers?
These and other issues will be explored from a variety of points of view—medical and neurological, sociological, political, legal, theological—and through a variety of texts, from Shakespeare’s MacBeth to law codes and statutes, from divine commandments to tabloid journalism. We will also screen films that display the range of views about ‘why’ murder and what should be done with murderers.
Ident. PLSC 52901
