Religious Studies Courses: 2012-2013
RELIGIOUS STUDIES 15. Faith and Reason. Fall. The Department. 4 meetings weekly. Block C1235. Distributional credit in the Social Sciences or the Humanities. Often rational thought and religious belief are posed as opposites. How does the life of faith relate to the life of the mind? Is there inevitable conflict between religion and science, for example? Are there points that religion and science, faith and reason can agree upon? What efforts have been made to reconcile these two areas of human concern? Part of our work will be to understand some basics of theology and philosophy so that we can better understand how some prominent figures have tackled these questions and how we might tackle these questions ourselves.
RELIGIOUS STUDIES 16. Heresy and Orthodoxy. Spring. The Department. 4 meetings weekly. Block F1235. Distributional credit in the Social Sciences or the Humanities. This course will examine moments when the boundaries between “right thinking” (orthodoxy) and “thinking otherwise” (heresy) have been either challenged or crossed. While there is a powerful religious context to this discussion, the course will feature a mix of secular and sacred works across a wide variety of genres from plays to poetry to novels to gospels. The goal of the course is to consider how the choices we make (against the backdrop of what is either popular or forbidden) are crucial life decisions with implications transcending individual moments and people.
