Theology (THEO)

THEO 0912. Requirement Preparation. (0 Credits)

For Ph.D. and master’s students, registration is necessary to maintain continuous enrollment while preparing for a milestone requirement, such as comprehensive exam, master’s thesis, or dissertation submission. Students who are studying for comprehensive examinations while still completing coursework do not need to register for any special status; however, if they are neither registered for coursework nor taking comprehensive examinations during the semester in question, they must register for Requirement Prep.

THEO 0914. Requirement Preparation in Summer. (0 Credits)

For Ph.D. and master’s students, registration is necessary to maintain continuous enrollment while preparing for a milestone requirement during the summer (e.g., to be used by Ph.D. students after the oral examination/defense and prior to receiving the degree). Students who are studying for comprehensive examinations while still completing coursework do not need to register for any special status; however, if they are neither registered for coursework nor taking comprehensive examinations during the semester in question, they must register for Requirement Prep in Summer.

THEO 0930. PhD Comprehensive Examination-Theology. (0 Credits)

THEO 0934. Master's Comprehensive Examination Preparation. (0.5 Credits)

THEO 0936. Master's Comprehensive Examination-Theology. (0 Credits)

THEO 0938. Master's Capstone-Theology. (0 Credits)

Required interdisciplinary capstone project for all M.A. students in Theology.

THEO 0950. Proposal Development. (1 Credit)

THEO 0960. Proposal Acceptance. (3 Credits)

THEO 0970. Dissertation Mentoring-Theology. (0 Credits)

The Theology Ph.D. student is required to register for Dissertation Mentoring, which has a 3 credit fee, the semester after the student's proposal is accepted.

THEO 1000. Faith and Critical Reason. (3 Credits)

An introductory theology course designed to acquaint students with the analytical study of religion and religious experience, and to give them some critical categories of evaluating the history of theological discourse. The academic study of some of the forms, concepts, experience, and theological formulations found in Christianity and various other traditions will be introduced.

Attributes: FRPT, REST, THFR.

THEO 1006. Sin and Salvation in Medieval Theology. (3 Credits)

This Manresa seminar will provide a survey of Christian understandings of sin and salvation in the medieval West, c. 400-1500. Theologians whose writings on these topics will be considered include Augustine, Anselm, Peter Lombard, Thomas-Aquinas, Bonaventure, John Duns Scotus and Martin Luther.

Attributes: MANR, MVST, MVTH.

THEO 1007. Sinners, Saints, and Stories. (3 Credits)

This course will explore both the ways that biblical narratives have informed the traditional self-understanding of the western world and the ways in which that self-understanding has been complicated in the modern era. Of particular interest for this course is 1) the different biblical presentations of what it means to be a “sinner” or a “saint,” 2) the further reflection on these narratives and topics found in post-biblical literature, and 3) the competing narratives that may be found in the modern world.

Attributes: FRPT, MANR, THFR.

THEO 1008. Mystics Monks and Mindfulness: Contemplation-In-Action Today. (3 Credits)

This course explores the tensions between contemplation and action in the modern world by engaging writings by and about the Ignatian, Buddhist, Benedictine, and Islamic traditions. Given the demands to act in and improve the world, what is the role of silence, contemplation, and devotion? This course may include field visits to off-campus religious communities. This course satisfies the Faith & Critical Reason Core requirement for both FCRH and Gabelli students.

Attributes: FRPT, MANR, SL, THFR.

THEO 1010. Restless Heart: Quest. (3 Credits)

Many writers throughout history, have described their personal quest for the transcendent. Writers-both classical and popular, devout believers and atheeists, some reverent, some vulgar- describe this quest as a matter of first losing and then finding oneself. This seminar will explore the search of several of these writers though their autobiographies.

Attributes: FRPT, MANR, THFR.

THEO 1050. Syriac Language and Literature I. (3 Credits)

This course is part of a two-semester introduction to Syriac, a dialect belonging to the Aramaic language branch. The first semester will introduce the scripts, cover grammatical foundations, and expose students from early on to the reading of texts. The second semester will be mostly spent reading Syriac literature, but some time will be devoted to select special topics in Syriac grammar. It is possible to take the first semester only.

Attributes: MVLA, MVST, OCST, REST.

THEO 1051. Syriac Language and Literature II. (3 Credits)

THEO 1060. Elementary Coptic I. (3 Credits)

This course is part of a two-semester introduction to Coptic, the latest stage of the Egyptian language. The first semester will introduce the script, cover grammatical foundations, and expose students from early on to the reading of texts. The second semester will be mostly spent reading Coptic literature, but some time will be devoted to select special topics in Coptic language and culture. The two semesters can be taken independently from one another.

Attributes: CLAS, MEST, REST.

THEO 1800. Internship. (1 Credit)

Internship.

THEO 1999. Tutorial. (1 Credit)

Independent research and readings with supervision from a faculty member.

THEO 2800. Internship-Theology. (2 Credits)

Internship.

THEO 2999. Tutorial. (2 Credits)

Independent research and reading with supervision from a faculty member.

Prerequisite: THEO 1000.

THEO 3100. Introduction to Old Testament / Tanakh. (3 Credits)

The Old Testament (Tanakh) is a book of stories about tricksters, rebels, patriarchal males, and wily women. Who wrote these outrageous stories, what were they up to, and what cultural influences were they responding to? The central character is a wily, elusive figure called the LORD. What’s the relation between this character and God? This course explores these questions, while also asking how societies shaped by these accounts live with an iconic text that complicates contemporary sensibilities about gender, otherness, and the way we make meaning in our lives.

Attributes: JSTH, JWST, MEST, MVST, MVTH, REST, STCJ, STOT, STXT.

THEO 3102. Book of Genesis. (3 Credits)

This fascinating and influential book of the Bible will be studied for its historical origins, literary forms, and theological ideas. In addition,the course will address the impact of the stories in Genesis on the development of western culture.

Attributes: MVST, MVTH, STCJ, STOT, STXT.

THEO 3105. The Torah. (3 Credits)

Study of different types of literature found in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible and of the methods for its interpretation. This course will focus on the process by which this material moved from oral tradition to written literature to sacred scripture in Israel.

Attributes: JSTH, JWST, MEST, MVST, MVTH, STCJ, STOT, STXT.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1008 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1007.

THEO 3120. The Prophets. (3 Credits)

A study of prophecy in the Bible from its origin in the religious practices of the ancient Near East to the final literary shape of biblical books. Moses, Elijah, Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Ezekiel are among the figures to be studied.

Attributes: MEST, MVST, MVTH, STCJ, STOT, STXT.

THEO 3130. Bible as Migration Literature: Then and Now. (4 Credits)

The migration experience—whether voluntary or forced—runs through biblical literature. This course approaches the Bible (with a focus on the Hebrew Bible) as migration literature, exploring the Bible’s engagement with the themes of immigration, emigration, exile, multilingualism, diaspora, alien, lawful belonging/un-belonging, refugee, empire, return migration, generational conflict, and identity negotiation. In addition to pluralistic ancient Mediterranean contexts that produced biblical literature, this course will explore contemporary responses to and engagements with the Bible by migrant communities across the globe in the formation and reformation of transnational Christianity. Special attention will be given to topics in racial/ethnic minority migrant communities in America—such as, receptions of the Bible in contesting immigration, reading biblical literature in juxtaposition with Asian American literature, and interpreting the biblical text in conversation with ethnic studies, with a focus on Asian American studies and Latinx studies. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AASR, EP3, GLBL, LAHA, LALS, PJRJ, PJST, RSCS, STCJ, STOT, STXT.

THEO 3200. Introduction to New Testament. (3 Credits)

This course is an introduction to the literature that comprises the New Testament. Attention will be devoted to the historical setting of the New Testament, the process by which the New Testament writings came into existence, and the structure and content of each writing. Where appropriate, comparisons will be made with similar themes in Jewish and Greco-Roman literature of the period, and opportunities to utilize various methods of textual interpretation will be provided. On a more general level, the course’s specific focus on the New Testament will serve as a vehicle to explore broader intellectual questions of theology and historical study: what does it mean to investigate a religious text from a critical perspective? What is the relationship between historical-critical inquiry and the text’s ongoing role as scriptural or authoritative for Christians in modern society? What are the different ways in which modern Christians bridge the gap between the New Testament’s ancient context and their own contemporary interpretation and application?.

Attributes: AMCS, CLAS, MVST, MVTH, REST, STCJ, STNT, STXT.

THEO 3207. The First Three Gospels. (3 Credits)

Introduction to the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke. The formation of the gospels, the distinguishing characteristics of each, and the life and teachings of the historical Jesus.

Attributes: MVST, MVTH, STCJ, STNT, STXT.

THEO 3212. Gospel of John. (3 Credits)

Literary and theological analysis of the fourth gospel; special attention to the theme of personal revelation in Jesus Christ, the motif of misunderstanding and the thematic unity of the gospel as a whole.

Attributes: AMCS, CLAS, MVST, MVTH, STCJ, STNT, STXT.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1010 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1007.

THEO 3250. Jesus in History and Faith. (3 Credits)

A study of the early Christian understanding of Jesus' life and ministry as this understanding is expressed in the Gospels, and of the so-called problem of the "historical Jesus" which issues from a critical reading of these texts. This course will cover several divergent readings of Gospel texts by contemporary scholars.

Attributes: STNT, STXT, THAM.

THEO 3300. Who Cares About the Bible?. (3 Credits)

Who cares about the Bible? If you live in the United States and are a college student today, the question has an easy answer: probably not you. Increasingly, the so-called “Good Book” is viewed as obsolete, irrelevant, or perhaps not even good. On campus the question “Who cares about the Bible?” is most likely said sarcastically. Yet around the world, billions of people do still care about the Bible for reasons of personal devotion and religious tradition. Who are they, and what are their motivations? Beyond that, countless others have cared for reasons unrelated to religious affiliation. In one form or another, the Bible has infused the work of visual artists, popular musicians, decorated novelists, museum curators, funeral directors, international diplomats, and persuasive politicians. Why do they think encountering the Bible is part of making a good life? Should you be one of them? Or instead, will you end this course with a solid rationale for selling your (not good) book back to the bookstore, accompanied by a half-hearted “Who cares?”.

Attributes: AMCS, REST, RSHR, STCJ, STXT.

THEO 3310. Early Christian Writings. (3 Credits)

A selective study of the writing of prominent Christian theologians from Justin Martyr to Augustine, concentrating on early beliefs concerning God, Christ, the Church and the sacraments.

Attributes: CLAS, MEST, MVST, MVTH, OCST, REST, STXT, THAM, THHC.

THEO 3314. St. Augustine of Hippo. (3 Credits)

A study of the life and thought of St. Augustine (354-431). Particular attention is given to his early philosophical writings, the Confessions, and his teaching on sin and grace. Students read Augustine's works in translation and write several short papers.

Attributes: CLAS, MVST, MVTH, OCST, STXT, THAM, THHC.

THEO 3316. Byzantine Christianity. (3 Credits)

Historical and critical study of classic authors and texts in the Orthodox tradition including: Basil of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, John Climacus, John of Damascus, and Gregory Palamas.

Attributes: MEST, MVST, MVTH, OCST, REST, STXT, THAM, THHC.

THEO 3317. Women of the Christian East. (3 Credits)

This Sacred Texts and Traditions course focuses on three overlapping but distinct aspects of women's religious life in Eastern Christian societies: (1) the theological framework by which (male) religious authorities understood gender difference, (2) the multiple forms of women's piety that were celebrated as holy, and (3) the real-life experience of Eastern Christian daughters, wives, nuns, deaconesses, and empresses. Throughout the course, we will examine authoritative texts central in the Orthodox Christian tradition—including Hebrew and Christian scriptures, Church Fathers, hagiography, and hymnography—as well as additional historical sources such as letters, imperial edicts, and works of art.

Attributes: OCST, PJGS, PJST, STXT, THAM, THHC.

THEO 3320. Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther. (3 Credits)

This course provides a historical introduction to the life and thought of three of the most significant and influential theologians in the history of Christianity. The course will be divided into three units, one per theologian, and the general rubrics wilthin each unit will be "Faith and Reason" and "Nature and Grace."

Attributes: MVST, MVTH, REST, STXT, THAM, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1007.

THEO 3330. Medieval Theology Texts. (3 Credits)

Historical and critical study of classic theological texts of Augustine, Pseudo Dionysius, Anselm, Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas. Doctrine of God, the human person and Christ; relation of theology and philosophy.

Attributes: MVST, MVTH, OCST, REST, STXT, THAM, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1007.

THEO 3332. Christians, Muslims, Jews in the Medieval Period. (3 Credits)

This Sacred Texts and Traditions course explores theological writings from Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Middle Ages. We will explore moments of both inter-religious conflict and peaceful co-existence, and we'll interrogate what this complex, distant history can teach us about possibilities of mutual understanding among members of Christian, Islamic, and Jewish faiths today.

Attributes: JWST, MVST, MVTH, OCHS, OCST, REST, STXT, THAM, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 3335. Queer Interpretations of Sacred Texts and Theology. (3 Credits)

This course provides an introduction to the history, theory, and practice of queer interpretations of sacred texts and theology. The course introduces students to foundational concepts in queer and trans studies by focusing on queer Jewish, Christian, and Islamic theologies. In examining the queering of Scripture, theological doctrines, and biblical hermeneutics, this course will ask the following questions: What resources, if any, are there for articulating queer experiences within sacred texts? Is there a queer theology to be found within our sacred texts and traditions? How have LGBTQ+ people reinterpreted sacred texts and reimagined religious practices? How do modern-day queer persons and communities interact with the impacts of biblical interpretation? As a “Sacred Texts and Traditions” course, Queer Interpretations of Sacred Texts and Theology examines sacred texts and scripture from a queer lens in order to better understand both the status of contemporary biblical analysis and the history of queer expression and spirituality. Students will read interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches to the questions and problems posed by gendered and sexed religious symbolism and the constitutions of worldviews, institutions, and ideas of God and human beings that such symbolism supposedly informs. Students will consider the urgency of such work amid current political events and recent global history and contextualize the faith-based language enlisted to both invent and represent LGBTQIA+ “issues.” This course hopes to provide groundwork for continued study in queer theologies.

Attributes: PJGS, PJST, STXT.

THEO 3340. Christian Mystical Texts. (3 Credits)

This course will introduce students to classic texts from the Christian mystical tradition with a primary focus on their close interpretation and analysis. Broader topics may include the nature of religious experience, explorations of the category of “mysticism” itself, gender and mysticism, and the interpretive issues at stake in comparing mystical texts across time and culture. Depending on instructor, course may focus on mystical texts from one particular period in the history of Christianity, or it may range from the patristic, medieval, modern, and/or contemporary periods. This course counts as core course in the Sacred Texts and Traditions serious.

Attributes: MVST, MVTH, OCST, REST, STNT, STXT, THAM, THHC.

THEO 3345. The Book of Revelation. (3 Credits)

The course includes a close reading of the final book in the Christian New Testament with special attention to contemporary biblical scholarship as well as various interpretations offered in times of crisis throughout Christian history.

Attributes: MVST, MVTH, REST, STCJ, STXT.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1007.

THEO 3350. Apocalyptic Literature: Ancient & Modern. (3 Credits)

This course examines the multifaceted phenomenon of apocalyptic thought, beginning with the texts of Second Temple Judaism and the New Testament, where we see a specific "unveiling" of events signaling the End of History. Using both textual and historical analysis, we will consider the social, political, and religious contexts of this pattern of thought in its setting in antiquity and then consider its subsequent functions and interpretations in medieval, modern, and postmodern periods, including novels and films.

Attributes: STXT, THAM, THHC.

THEO 3360. Reformation Texts. (3 Credits)

This course will examine major Protestant and Catholic texts from the sixteenth century with attention to their religious, social and theological context and their importance for their respective ecclesial communities.

Attributes: STXT, THHC.

THEO 3361. Protestant Texts. (3 Credits)

An exploration of major Protestant texts from the Reformation to the present, focusing on themes that have been especially prominent in Protestant Christian thought, e.g. sources of revelation, justification, ecclesiology, the role of images/material objects in worship, Christianity's relationship to culture, etc. Students will be introduced to major Protestant figures and movements within Protestant theology through careful reading of significant theological texts. The course will focus especially on texts from the 18-20th centuries, concluding with an exploration of theological diversity within contemporary Protestantism.

Attributes: REST, STXT, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1007.

THEO 3365. Pentecostal Christianity. (3 Credits)

This course examines the historical and contemporary significance of the Pentecostal movement in Christianity, arguably the fastest-growing and most impactful sector of global Christianity and a major trend in lived religion. Students will consider the movement’s historical precursors, contextual influences, and the interaction between adherents’ theological vision of “life in the Holy Spirit” and the unique embodiments of that commitment, as well as the continuity and discontinuity of this vision with mainstream Christianity. Possible topics of consideration may include globalization, secularism, migration, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, psychology and affect, material and pop culture, and philosophy and theology. Historical intervals that may be given special attention include the intersection of race and the quest for “Pentecostal origins,” the 1960s Catholic charismatic renewal and suburban secularity, and 21st-century manifestations of Pentecostalism in the context of globalization. Of particular interest will be the implications of Pentecostalism for the study of religion and for theological methods.

Attribute: STXT.

THEO 3371. The American Transcendentalists: Spirituality Without Religion. (3 Credits)

This course explores the spirituality and religious thoughts of the transcendentalists in the context of the 19th century liberal Protestant Christianity in the U.S. We will examine the influences of the transcendentalist movement (including Kant, German Romanticism, Indian Vedic traditions, and Swedenborg), read closely the most important works of it major figures (including Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, and Fuller), and consider its influence on ecological spirituality, social progressivism, and post-religious spirituality in contemporary U.S. culture.

Attributes: AMST, ASRP, ENST, ESEJ, ESEL, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3375. American Religious Texts and Traditions. (3 Credits)

A critical and contextual reading of significant texts in American religious history, focusing on diverse traditions and the history of religious debate about American culture, social structures, and identity. Major themes may include: nationhood and religious identity, secularism, religion and violence, new religious movements, religious pluralism, religious rights and freedoms, church-state relations, psychology and religion, religious intersections with race and ethnicity, spirituality, religious histories of liberation and oppression, religion and sexuality, religion and gender, science and religion, colonialism, religion and economic practice. Students will encounter themes through a variety of primary source materials, applying and critically assessing different modes of analysis. Genres considered may include autobiography and memoir, political speech, fiction, poetry, sermons, legal documents, self-help literature, scriptures, manuals and pamphlets, as well as various types of film, television, social media, art, music, and material culture.

Attributes: ACUP, AMCS, AMST, APPI, ASHS, ASRP, PLUR, REST, STXT, THAC, THHC.

THEO 3376. Spirituals, the Blues, and African-American Christianity. (3 Credits)

In the makings of the modern western world, the Christian imagination and African American cultural production have held a longstanding relationship. Afro-Christian, Afro-Blue is an invitation to read, view, and listen to two genres of African-American cultural production: the Blues, and the Spirituals. The course focuses specifically on the proliferation of these two genres in the early decades of the 20th Century. Through engagement with the Spirituals and the Blues, students will weigh in on three substantive problems in the making of the Americas: the involuntary presence of Africans and their descendants in the Americas, the God reality, and the religious meaning of Africa. The insights in the Blues and the Spirituals provide a sonic angle into how Americans have used their imagination of the Sacred to continuously restructure and reimagine options for life and living. Students will be afforded a unique opportunity not only to read texts, but also to listen to and view the sonic productions of a people and their efforts to speak, sing, and moan the Sacred otherwise.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, AFAM, AMST, ASAM, ASRP, REST, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3380. US Latinx Spiritualities. (3 Credits)

According to social scientists Robert Putnam and David Campbell, Latinx Catholics make up more than one third of the U.S. Catholic Church and are well on their way to achieving majority status. In light of these changing demographics, what impact do U.S. Latinx spiritualities have on the culture around them? This course will begin with an exploration of Latinx religious history and identity in the US, including Latinxs’ complex relationships to Anglo religious leadership. For generations, distinctly Latinx rituals such as Las Posadas and devotion to saints such as Our Lady of Guadalupe have fostered a thriving spiritual and cultural community on the margins. How can we interpret these Latinx practices as texts, and how do they de-center traditional Anglo understandings of religion? To conclude the course, we will examine the rich streams of Latinx theology that flow from grassroots, pastoral, and academic sources. Along the way, we will pay particular attention to popular expressions of Latinx spirituality such as music, fiesta, and dance, in addition to the everyday experiences of ordinary believers—what mujerista theologian María Isasi-Díaz calls lo cotidiano.

Attributes: ADVD, AMST, ASRP, LAHA, LALS, STXT, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 3383. Latin American Liberation Theologies. (3 Credits)

This course explores the development of liberation theologies in Latin America. In order to examine the historical, cultural, and religious situations out of which these theologies arose, readings will include key figures and texts from the mid-20th century to the present; its sources and methodologies; and assessments of its impact and reception, both from within and outside the Catholic Church and in other global cultures. Students will become familiar with key concepts, such as suffering and poverty, freedom and liberation, sin and injustice, and discipleship and solidarity.

Attributes: ACUP, AMST, APPI, ASRP, INST, ISLA, LAHA, LALS, LAUH, PJRJ, PJST, REST, RSCS, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3390. Church in Controversy. (3 Credits)

This course traces the Catholic Church’s negotiations with the revolutionary challenges inaugurated by modernity. Topics will vary according to the instructor, but may include the colonial missions, the Enlightenment, the Holocaust, the Second Vatican Council, the rise of feminism, changing notions of normative sexuality, and more recent developments, such as the unprecedented numbers of religiously “unaffiliated” or “nones,” the majority of which have come from the Catholic Church. How did the Catholic Church—its theologians, the millions of everyday faithful, and the Vatican—respond to, sometimes deepening, sometimes informing, and oftentimes critiquing these challenges? Controversies forced the Church not only to make pronouncements on the crises of the moment, but to refine and sometimes revise some of its basic foundational beliefs about human nature, revelation, reason, truth, and God.

Attributes: AMCS, INST, ISIN, REST, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3542. Catholic Social Teaching. (3 Credits)

This course is an introduction to modern Catholic social teaching. Major papal and conciliar documents will be read and critically examined from various Christian and non-Christian perspectives. Their relation to contemporary social issues will be explored.

Attributes: AMCS, HHPA, HUST, PJRJ, PJST, REST, RSHR, SOIN, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3546. The Bible and Social Justice. (3 Credits)

A study of social justice in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures that involves historical, literary, theological, and ethical interpretations. Students will explore key biblical texts that address themes such as poverty, war, justice, power, and marginalization in historical context, within a history of interpretation, and in light of contemporary practice and theory.

Attributes: AMST, APPI, ASRP, LAHA, LALS, PJRJ, PJST, REST, STXT, THAM, THHC.

THEO 3605. Scripture and the Human Response to Trauma. (3 Credits)

In this course, students consider how scriptural texts illuminate the human experience of trauma in the aftermath of historical and contemporary crises. How do these texts address suffering while creating a sense of safety after trauma? How does any text guide remembering, honoring victims, and supporting survivors in grieving after atrocities? How does reintegration in the world after trauma operate, and how can sacred texts be resources inspiring such reintegration? Drawing primarily from Jewish and Christian scriptures, but with some comparative study of other traditions, the course explores answers to these questions in four phases where scripture interacts with trauma theory. The first phase explores the idea of safety: internal safety related to the body, and external safety related to the environment. The second explores processes of memory and mourning, addressing the need to remember and tell aloud trauma while struggling with the duality of revenge and forgiveness. The third phase considers the ways in which communities and individuals make meaning of the past and reconnect or reintegrate with the world after trauma. In the final phase, we examine the fruits of our collective discussions. Each student will present works addressing how scripture functions in the aftermath of trauma.

Attributes: PJRJ, PJST, REST, STXT.

THEO 3610. Christ in World Cultures. (3 Credits)

At the center of the Christian tradition stands the person of Jesus Christ. Yetfrom a global perspective, Christianity takes many forms in its many contexts. This course examines the ways in which the Christian faith interacts with diverse world cultures and asks the central question, how do cultural differences shape contemporary interpretations of Jesus as the Christ?.

Attributes: AMCS, GLBL, INST, ISIN, LAHA, LALS, REST, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3611. Scripture and the Struggle for Racial Justice. (3 Credits)

This course explores the ways Christian scriptures have been used throughout American history as tools for both oppression and liberation in the struggle for racial justice and the creation of a multi-religious nation. By looking closely at the interpretive practices throughout various eras of American history, students are equipped to consider: (1) the continuity and diversity of Christian textual traditions, (2) the embedded locations of active agents involved in scriptural interpretation, (3) the impact of scriptural interpretation and textual traditions on U.S. legal systems and social practices, and (4) the ongoing need to investigate how sacred texts and traditions function for inclusion and exclusion.

Attributes: AMST, APPI, ASHS, ASRP, LAHA, LALS, PJRJ, PJST, REST, STNT, STOT, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3620. Great Christian Hymns. (3 Credits)

This course introduces students to key texts and traditions comprising the Christian hymn genre, from the earliest Christian hymns in the New Testament through the hymnody of the early Syriac church; the development of medieval Roman Catholic Latin liturgy, chant, and monasticism; the impact of the Protestant Reformation; the story of America’s most famous hymn; the Christian Orthodox chant tradition; spirituals, blues, and gospel songs of the Black church; the alabados of New Mexico; New Orleans jazz funerals; and more. The approach to the literature and materials in this course focuses on the following questions: 1) how do hymns, and the singing of hymns, form and transform the human being? and 2) how do hymns, and the singing of hymns, form and transform Christian communities? This course explores music, poetry, Scripture, theology, and the historical and worship contexts of selected hymns, and it also addresses issues of justice, grace, beauty, race, gender, oppression, liberation, and spirituality as they pertain to Christian song.

Attributes: AMCS, MVST, MVTH, REST, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3652. Liturgy That Does Justice. (3 Credits)

The thesis for this course claims that there is an inherent relationship between the Church’s worship and the Judeo-Christian mandate for justice. The purpose of the Church is threefold: first, to proclaim the Word of God; second, to offer praise to God in worship; and third, to provide service to the world in order to foster the right relationship among all creation. In light of this, we may come to see the final dismissal of the Catholic liturgy not as a simple adjournment but as a charge or command to put forth in daily life what we have professed in our prayer. A careful study of selected passages of scripture and other ancient texts, along with liturgical documents and contemporary authors, will strive to support this thesis. A special focus will be given to the Eucharist as bread, the sacredness of eating, and how the distribution of food is a matter of justice. In the words of Dr. Monika Hellwig, “While it is true that man does not live by bread alone, it is also true that without bread, man cannot live.”.

Attributes: PJRJ, PJST, STXT.

THEO 3655. The Journey of Faith: Autobiography as Sacred Text. (3 Credits)

Spiritual autobiography carries the lifeblood of religious experience. Through the reading of selected autobiographies, this course provides an inter-religious study of the personal quest for the transcendent.

Attributes: REST, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3670. Theology and Contemporary Science. (4 Credits)

A college level introduction to multiple dialogues underway between Christian theologians and scientists. There are biblical, theological, and contemporary elements to the course. Within the study of theology, special attention is given to methods of inquiry engaged in dialogue with the sciences. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: REST, RSCS, RSTE, THHC.

THEO 3711. Sacred Texts of the Middle East. (3 Credits)

This course introduces students to religious literature from the Middle East, broadly conceived. In the course, students will learn to analyze and contextualize texts from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia as well as foundational texts of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism, including the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic writings, the New Testament and early Christian writings, the Qur'an and early Muslim writings. Special attention will be paid to the interactions of these traditions and communities as well as to their enduring legacies.

Attributes: GLBL, HHPA, HUST, INST, ISME, JSTH, JWST, MEST, MVST, MVTH, OCST, REST, STSN, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3712. Shari'ah (Islamic Law). (3 Credits)

This course is a comprehensive introduction to shari'ah—commonly translated into English as “Islamic law.” We will cover the history of the development of Islamic law in both the Sunni and Shi’i traditions; understand usul al-fiqh—the principles of jurisprudence, or the rules that govern how to derive legal rulings; the spread of Islamic legal jurisdictions via the spread of Islamic empires; and the state of shari’ah today in post-modernity/post-coloniality, including debates around shari’ah in the United States. This class fulfills the Sacred Texts requirement and may be of particular interest to pre-law students.

Attribute: STXT.

THEO 3713. Classic Jewish Texts. (3 Credits)

An exploration of Jewish beliefs through close readings of the Bible and post-Biblical Jewish texts (Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, liturgy). The course will focus on Jewish methods of biblical interpretation, legal discussion, and the relationships between texts, practice and theology in Jewish tradition.

Attributes: GLBL, INST, ISIN, ISME, JSTH, JWST, MEST, MVST, MVTH, REST, STSN, STXT, THHC, WGSS.

THEO 3715. Classic Islamic Texts. (3 Credits)

This course explores classical, medieval, modern, and contemporary texts of Islam, including the Quran, Hadith, and philosophical, historical, mystical, ritual, and legal texts.

Attributes: GLBL, HHPA, HUST, INST, ISAS, ISFH, ISIN, ISME, MEST, MVST, MVTH, PJRJ, PJST, REST, STSN, STXT, THHC, WGSS.

THEO 3716. Islam and Modernity. (3 Credits)

From a western perspective, “modernity” refers to a time period—often thought to begin with the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries—and also to a set of characteristics, such as progress, secularization, technologization, human rights, citizenship, and individual freedom. From the perspective of “Islam”—by which we mean both the theological/legal tradition and the political and social realities of the Muslim-majority world—“modernity” connotes far more complex and fraught memories, opportunities, and challenges, including colonialism, loss of self-determination, and fundamental changes to the structure of religious authority. This course will explore “Islamic modernity” in a way that inverts some of what we might think about the contemporary world, giving us a new perspective on the complex ways the Islamic world experienced key events and movements in the 19th to 21st centuries. Our exploration of this theme will include historical texts, such as Abd al-Rahman Al-Jabarti’s (d. 1825) "Chronicle of the French Occupation: Napoleon in Egypt" (1798); theological reform classics, such as Rashid Reda’s (d. 1935) "Debates Between the Reformer and the Imitator"; polemical works that deeply influenced the developing world, such as Frantz Fanon’s (d. 1961) "The Wretched of the Earth"; and works that ushered in sweeping social change on issues like gender equality, such as Huda Sha’arawi’s (d. 1947) "Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist."

Attributes: ISFH, PJRJ, PJST, STXT.

THEO 3720. Hindu Literature and Ethics. (3 Credits)

This course involves a study of the four aims of life (purushartha) in Hinduism: kama (enjoyment), artha (material gain), dharma (sacred law), and moksha (liberation). Readings, drawn from a variety of classic and modern Hindu texts, will be viewed in their historical contexts as developments in the evolution of Hinduism.

Attributes: GLBL, HHPA, HUST, INST, ISAS, REST, RSCS, RSTE, STSN, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3723. Tibetan Religion: Visionary Experience. (3 Credits)

Tibetan religion regularly operates under the assumption that human beings are capable of transformative visionary experience. In this course, students will explore examples of Tibetan philosophy, ritual, visual art, literature, meditation technique, and pilgrimage practice that invite participants to see the world as other than it conventionally appears. Through these examples, students will learn about both the Bön and Vajrayana Buddhist traditions. The class will also ask how human beings more broadly are capable of imagining, discovering, or constructing realities radically different than those that appear to everyday sight.

Attributes: CNST, GLBL, REST, STSN, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3724. Classic Buddhist Texts. (3 Credits)

This course is an in-depth study of the Buddhist textual tradition starting with the early sectarian canon in South Asia and progressing through Chinese Buddhism to Japan, with a strong emphasis on Zen Buddhism. We will explore these religious texts in terms of their historical, cultural and artist contexts.

Attributes: CNST, GLBL, HHPA, HUST, INST, ISAS, REST, STSN, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3725. Buddhism in America: A Multimedia Investigation. (3 Credits)

This course traces the history of Buddhism in the United States from the nineteenth century to the present. It asks whether Buddhism in America is a single object of study, and whether we should understand it as a “religion.” It further explores different techniques and media at our disposal for considering the primary concerns of American Buddhists (using films, podcasts, etc.)

Attributes: AAST, ADVD, AMST, ASHS, ASRP, PLUR, RSCS, RSTE, STSN, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3728. Buddhist Meditation. (3 Credits)

What constitutes valuable knowledge in Buddhist communities, past and present? How does meditation enable the acquisition of meaningful knowledge? This course introduces students to a variety of strategies that Buddhist communities over the past 2,500 years have employed in order to discipline the minds and bodies of practitioners. Course assignments are intended to help students understand what is at stake in Buddhist debates about meditation and to prepare students to ask themselves how these debates might be relevant to the pursuit of transformative knowledge in their own lives.

Attributes: GLBL, INST, ISAS, REST, STSN, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3731. Japanese Religions: Texts and Arts. (3 Credits)

This course is an in-depth study of Japanese religions and literary compositions of enduring influence, including examples of Japanese poetry, drama, koans, and manga. The course will focus on those relevant ritual, cosmological, and stereological aspects of Japanese religion that manifest themselves in these cultural landmarks.

Attributes: GLBL, INST, ISAS, STSN, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3733. Chinese Religions. (3 Credits)

An introduction to the "The Three Teachings" (san jiao): Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. What do these traditions have to say about what it means to be "human?" What are humans' most essential ethical qualities? What forces in the world, within and without, dictate what it is to be "human"? The class will explore these questions as they appear in highly revered writings, including some of the world's most influential philosophical and ethical works (including The Analects, Mencius, the Daodejing, Zhuangzi, and The Lotus Sutra). The class also explores how foundational Chinese ideas relate to Chinese religious rituals and "folk religion" (concerning ancestors, divination, and immortality).

Attributes: CNST, GLBL, INST, ISAS, STSN, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3785. Spiritual Exercises and Culture. (3 Credits)

This course will be a comparative study of spiritual exercises across religions and cultures. Beginning with the exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, we proceed to the reception of his exercises in diverse global Christian contexts, feminist theology, and modern psychology. We then study lesser-known Christian spiritual exercises and their relation to Ignatius. Working backward, the course then turns to the ancient Mediterranean exercises that gave birth to Christian exercises.We conclude by studying spiritual exercises in religions and spiritualities beyond Christianity. Questions about comparative theological method will surface throughout.

Attributes: REST, STXT, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1009.

THEO 3822. The Bible in Cultural Conflict. (4 Credits)

The Bible has been a source of conflict for centuries. This course explores the complex causes and lasting effects of some famous controversies that involve the Bible. These include several biblical stories that have disturbed readers since antiquity; reactions to the work of Galileo and Charles Darwin, and their effects into the present; the origins and persistence of Fundamentalism; the Bible and slavery; and the place of the Bible in changing ideas about gender and sexuality. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: INST, ISIN, MEST, REST, THHC.

THEO 3826. Women in the Bible. (4 Credits)

In this course, we will employ various traditional exegetical and recent feminist tools to examine figures from both the New and Old Testaments including Eve, Sarah, Hagar, Ruth, Elizabeth and the Samaritan women as well as figures from the extra-Biblical Apocrypha. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: JWST, REST, STCJ, WGSS.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 3827. Bible and Human Sexuality. (4 Credits)

This course examines key biblical texts that have figured in discussions of human sexuality from antiquity to the present. In particular, it will explore how shifting paradigms of interpretation in different historical periods have informed the reading of the Bible in relation to sexual ethics, identity, and practice. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: BEHR, THAM, THHC, WGSS.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 3832. Christian Thought and Practice I. (4 Credits)

Christian Thought and Practice I surveys the variety of Christian thought and practice from the beginning of Christianity to the late antique period. The course aims to encourage a critical examination of such theological themes as; God, Chris, grace, church, sacraments and ethics. Topics will be situated within the broader historical study of social, economic, political and cultural forces. Students will engage a wide range of Christian texts, art, rituals and other artifacts including classical theology, sermons and literature. Engagement with traditional Christianity by everyday Christian men and women, reflected in such genres as memoirs, ethnography and historical writing will be studied, as well as influential philosophical critiques of Christianity. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: OCST, REST, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1009 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1010.

THEO 3833. Christian Thought and Practice II. (4 Credits)

Christian Thought and Practice II surveys the variety of Christian thought and practice from the late antique period through the middle ages. The course aims to encourage a critical examination of such theological themes as God, Christ, grace, church, sacraments, and ethics. Topics will be situated within the broader historical study of social, economic, political and cultural forces. Students will engage a wide range of Christian texts, art, rituals, and other artifacts including classical theology, sermons, and literature. Engagement with traditional Christianity by everyday Christian men and women, reflected in such genres as memoirs, ethnography and historical writing will be studied, as well as influential philosophical critiques of Christianity. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: MVST, MVTH, OCST, REST, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 3839. Theologies of America. (4 Credits)

A course in historical theology that examines the role of religion in the formation of american and political culture. The course will utilize various interpetive approaches to uncover how the "American self" is both the most religious and the most secular in the industrialized West. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: PLUR, REST, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1004.

THEO 3840. Atheisms. (4 Credits)

The Enlightenment posed a major challenge to traditional religion, and in its aftermath, rapid progress in the knowledge of nature and of history devastated the pre-critical understanding of religion among the educated elite. This course introduces the theological and anti-theological theories that developed from the beginning of the 19th century and that increasingly came to dominate the conception of religion, even to the present day. In this course, we will sketch the general theoretical contributions of each thinker engaged, examine their specific theories of God and religion, and assess their arguments by comparing and contrasting them with each other. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: EP3, REST.

THEO 3847. Latinx Theology. (4 Credits)

This course focuses on the theology and spirituality of U.S. Latinxs. Special attention will be given to how this explicitly contextual theology accounts for the role of popular religiosity, ethnicity, gender, race, and class in its reflection on Christian theological themes. Please note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ADVD, AMST, ASRP, LAHA, LAIN, LALS, MEST, PLUR.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 3849. Eschatology. (4 Credits)

An introduction to Christian eschatology with a biblical, historical, and contemporary component. Surveys biblical, apocalyptic, and New Testament teachings and developments in patristic, medieval, reformation, and modern Christianity. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: MVST, MVTH, THAM.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 3852. LGBTQ Arts and Spirituality. (4 Credits)

This course offers a broad examination of LGBTQ affiliations and identities considered through history and across religious traditions. It juxtaposes the vision of mystics with artistic vision, identifying common spiritual elements in both, and culminates in an examination of the contemporary arts of New York City as an example of LGBTQ spirituality. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: REST, THHC, WGSS.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 3854. Ignatian Spirituality. (3 Credits)

Focusing upon classic texts and their contemporary application, this course offers a historical-critical, hermeneutical, and theological engagement with selected texts by Ignatius, including his Spiritual Exercises, Constitutions, Autobiography, Spiritual Journal, and letters. Additionally, we will examine various methods of Ignatian contemplation, meditation, discernment of spirits, and discernment of God's will in our lives.

Attributes: STXT, THHC.

THEO 3856. Introduction to Bioethics. (4 Credits)

This course introduces students to contemporary bioethics topics through (a) an overview of different meta-ethical approaches to understanding moral status and personhood, b) discussion and readings on how these approaches can be applied to unraveling the complex threads of contemporary bioethics arguments related to the treatment/care/use of individuals, animals and the environment: and (c) introduction to the legal and social contexts in which bioethics public policies are framed. In addition to engaging a substantial amount of theological and philosophical literature, students will also be exposed to multidisciplinary perspectives (in the form of both texts and guest speakers) from disciplines such as biology, psychology, sociology, feminism, and ecology. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: BIOE, DISA, PJGS, PJST, REST.

THEO 3860. Contemporary Conversations in Theology. (4 Credits)

Conceived as a “capstone” course for the theology major/minor, this course examines recent methodological developments in the disciples of theology and religious studies with particular emphasis on their intersection with contemporary critical theory. Particular topics to be engaged may include hermeneutics, historiography, secularism, the human subject, gender/sexuality, and the problem of political and/or moral action. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attribute: REST.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 3871. Religion and Film. (4 Credits)

The study of faith and doubt portrayed in cinema. Students will view and analyze films that present struggles of the human spirit, the secular portrayal of the Christ-figure, the role of the secular "messiah" or hero in Western society, the conflict between religious and secular authority, and the dilemmas of moral choice. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008.

THEO 3874. Religion in America. (4 Credits)

Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AMCS, AMST, APPI, ASRP, PLUR, THAC, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 3876. Muslims in America. (4 Credits)

This course will examine the history and experience of Muslims in the United States from the time of the slave trade to the present day. Through a close analysis of both primary and secondary materials, students will explore the rich diversity of US Muslim communities and their multi-faceted contributions to the global ummah and the formation of an "American Islam". Particular emphasis will be given to the impact of 9/11 and the "war on terror" on the representations, challenges, and the experience of Muslims in America. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ADVD, AMCS, AMST, APPI, ASHS, ASRP, MEST, PJRJ, PJST, PLUR, RSHR, STSN, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 3882. Comparative Mysticism. (3 Credits)

This course engages and compares mysticisms across time and space, and the philosophies and practices that inform them. Materials will be drawn from ancient Greek and Roman philosophies, South Asian religions, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions, Renaissance hermeticism, Daoyin techniques, and shamanism. Students will examine how various forms of mysticism from around the world have made their way into modern, western practices, such as yoga, meditation, nature spirituality, fitness culture, cryotherapy, AI, and transpersonal philosophies. Through careful comparison of the words, artifacts, gestures, rituals, and sound expressions of mystics in each context, students will consider how self-transcendence and ineffable encounters with the divine or an ultimate reality are mediated through the situated body in similar yet different ways, and reflect on what those similarities and differences might suggest.

Attributes: GLBL, JSTH, JWST, MEST, MVST, OCST, REST, STXT, THAM, THHC.

THEO 3883. Medicine and Healing in Islam. (4 Credits)

This course explores Muslim perceptions of health, disease, medicine and healing across time and space, and in conversation with the religious traditions of Islam. Through a focused set of topics and a variety of methodological approaches, students will investigate more broadly epistemologies of health, healing and disease, practical application of knowledge and wisdom, and cultural histories of the body. Specific topics will include medicine and the cosmos; health and the environment; astrology, magic and ritual; sex, childbirth and pediatrics; cosmetic surgeries and reproductive technologies; and perceptions of suffering and pain, disability, mental illness, and old age, as they are addressed in both medieval and modern contexts. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: GLBL, INST, ISAC, ISIN, ISME, STSN, THHC.

THEO 3884. Sufism: Islam's Mystical Tradition. (3 Credits)

What is the significance of studying Sufism—Islam's mystical tradition—in an age filled with news about extremist groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS? Can Sufism's message of peace, love, compassion, and universality act as an antidote to extremist Islam? This course offers a detailed exposition of the origins, development, and various expressions of Sufism. We will begin with an inquiry into what Sufism is and what it is not, and then turn our attention to its practical and theoretical dimensions. We will explore these multiple dimensions with a focus on the Sufi understanding of the nature of love, beauty, self, God, desire, and ecstasy. This shall be done by surveying the conceptual development and unfolding of the tradition through a close reading of primary texts of some of Sufism’s principal representatives, both classical and modern. Through readings and discussions of the works of Rabia, al-Ghazali, Attar, Ibn al-Farid, Rumi, Ibn Arabi, Hafez, and more, students will become familiar with the various manifestations of mystical Islam.

Attributes: ISTP, MEST, REST, STSN, STXT, THHC.

THEO 3885. Women, Gender, and Islam. (3 Credits)

The rights, roles, and appearance of Muslim women have long been the focus of intense and polemical debate in the Muslim world. Both within Muslim societies and in the Western media, the image of the Muslim woman has been taken as emblematic of the perceived virtues or failings of the Islamic tradition. Women and gender are thus crucial to understanding the political, social, economic, and intellectual life of Muslim communities from seventh-century Arabia to the present-day United States. This course will cover significant moments in the religious and intellectual history of Muslim societies and explore several modern cases of gender in Islam. Through each, we will be asking several questions, including: Why is Islam often stereotyped as oppressing women? How do we square this claim with the view of many Muslim men and women that Islam speaks of true equality between man and woman? How significant is the metaphysics of gender as presented in the Qur’an and mystical literature in dealing with the notion of equality? After addressing the development of Islamic thought about women and gender, attention will be paid to portrayals of Muslim women in contemporary popular media and academic work.

Attributes: ISAC, MEST, REST, RSHR, STSN, THHC, WGSS.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1001 or THEO 1002 or THEO 1003 or THEO 1004 or THEO 1005 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1010.

THEO 3954. Apocalyptic Themes in Film. (3 Credits)

This course is a college level introduction to the use of apocalyptic terms, themes and rhetoric in contemporary films. Apocalyptic in religious writings is “crisis” literature. This assumption will be explained prior to surveying usage of apocalyptic in religious and secular films. Apocalyptic may have no religious implications. Students will develop a template of types of apocalyptic terms and usage as well as review film maker’s intentions.

Attributes: AMST, REST.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 3960. Religion and Race in America. (4 Credits)

This course explores the ways religion and race function in the American landscape as sources of both belonging and discrimination, in historical and contemporary perspectives. Special attention will be paid to theological discourses and religious communities as sites of both racism and race-justice. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AMST, LAHA, LALS, PJRJ, PJST, PLUR, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008.

THEO 3961. Religion, Sex, and Culture in America Since 1700. (4 Credits)

This course explores the complex and shifting engagement among religion, sex, and culture in North America from the eighteenth century to the present. Its treats a variety of religious traditions and explores how faith communities defined sexuality and gender relations in theological and spiritual terms and, in turn, helped to shape approaches to sex and sexual morality in the broader American culture. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, AMST, ASRP, THHC, WGSS.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1010 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1007.

THEO 3970. Catholics in America. (4 Credits)

History and culture of Spanish and French Catholicism in the colonial and post-colonial periods of the United States. Detailed study of English-speaking Catholicism from its beginnings to its present position. Relationships between Catholicism and American culture. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AMST, ASRP, PLUR, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008.

THEO 3993. Wartime Religion in U.S. History. (4 Credits)

This course explores American religion during the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the War in Vietnam, and the War in Iraq. The anxieties and passions of wartime open up dialogue on the "justice" of particular conflicts, but they also prompt reflection on more basic questions of human meaning, suffering, loss, and death, and the sources and boundaries of selfhood. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AMST, APPI, ASRP, THAC, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008.

THEO 3995. Religion and the American Self. (4 Credits)

A course in historical theology that examines the role of religion in the formation of American social and political culture. The course will utilize various interpretive approaches to uncover how the 'American self' is both the most religious and the most secular in the industrialized West. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AMCS, AMST, APPI, ASRP, PLUR, THAC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008.

THEO 3999. Tutorial. (3 Credits)

Independent research and reading with supervision from a faculty member.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008.

THEO 4005. Women and Theology. (4 Credits)

An examination of feminist/womanist approaches to the mystery of God. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AMCS, EP4, PJGS, PJST, VAL, WGSS.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1008.

THEO 4008. Religion and Ecology. (4 Credits)

This course studies the earth as a matter of ethical and religious concern. Students will analyze how several different religious traditions value the natural world, while also delving into shifting understandings of, and methods in, the study of religion and ecology. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AMCS, AMST, CORE, ENMI, ENST, EP4, EPLE, ESEJ, ESEL, PJEN, PJST, REST, THHC, VAL.

THEO 4009. Medieval Jerusalem. (4 Credits)

What has made Jerusalem so beloved to - and the object of continual strife for – Jews, Christians, and Muslims? This course will explore the ancient and medieval history of Jerusalem, from its Jebusite inhabitants before the time of King David through Suleiman’s construction of the modern city walls in the 1540s. Students will learn to analyze a variety of literature, through which we will explore the themes of sacred space, conquest, destruction and lament, pilgrimage and religious polemic. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ICC, JSPM, JWST, MEST, OCST, THAM, THHC.

THEO 4010. Death and Dying. (4 Credits)

This course represents an exploration of attempts to confront the reality of death, its practical consequences and its religious significance through historical, contextual, and theological frames (4 credits). This theology course fulfills the senior values requirement in the college core. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: BEHR, BIOE, EP4, LPHP, REST, THHC, VAL.

THEO 4011. The New Testament and Moral Choices. (4 Credits)

This course will explore the variety of moral choices made by Christians in the early Roman Empire in an effort to determine whether there is a way of life that is ethically consistent with basic Christian convictions. The course proceeds from the assumption that genuine ethical dilemmas emerge as a result of the collapse of the communal ēthos, a phenomenon connected with urbanization. The moral choices of the first Christians will be analyzed in four areas: private life, business ethics, legal ethics, and political ethics. Case studies will permit various hypotheses to be tested. Evaluation of early Christian morality will draw upon modern theories of ethical discourse, such as Alasdair McIntyre’s "After Virtue." The course will culminate in a search for the “grammar” of Christian morality and in an exploration of selected areas in which the first Christians sought to live with ethical consistency. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: EP4, SRVL, THAM, VAL.

THEO 4013. Religion and American Politics. (4 Credits)

This interdisciplinary seminar explores the nexus of religion and American public life. After treating topics related to electoral politics (e.g. canidate religion, voter religion, "value voters," religious rhetoric), students will then engage a series of "hot topics" that encompass ( and often combine) both religious and political discourse. The goal is to provide students with two alternative, yet complementary methods of analyzing the intersection of religion and American politics- one from a political science perspective and one from a theological perspective. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, AMCS, AMST, APPI, ASRP, ICC, IRST, POSC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010.

THEO 4014. Religion and Law. (4 Credits)

Increasingly, conflicts about religion in U.S. society are being contested, and occasionally resolved, through legal means. This course asks these overarching questions: How have parties, lawyers, and judges thought about religion? What solutions have they developed with regard to the conflicts about values embodied in the disputes they argue and decide? To what extent is the legal system able to resolve such conflicts? And to what extent should it try? Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: EP4, REST, VAL.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1001 or THEO 1002 or THEO 1003 or THEO 1004 or THEO 1005 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1010.

THEO 4016. Homosexuality and Christian Ethics. (4 Credits)

The issue of homosexuality, and the treatment accorded to LGBTQ persons, are among the most contentious matters facing Christian faith communities today. The disputes present among Christians are also highly relevant to public policy debates over same-sex concerns. This course will be a comprehensive examination of the various stances and moral evaluations found in the discipline of Christian Ethics on the topic of homosexuality, and the implications for social practices and church ministry concerning gay and lesbian persons that arise from these positions. While the course will study positions and debates present in the Catholic church, these will not be its exclusive focus.

Attribute: WGSS.

THEO 4025. Future of Marriage in the 21st Century. (4 Credits)

This course will explore the various dynamics of marriage, namely, intimate relationships, sexuality, family life, the relationship between families and the greater society, and the sacramental meaning of married life. The approach will be interdisciplinary and ecumenical, with an emphasis on the Roman Catholic tradition. At the core of this course is the quest to understand how the Christian tradition may enlighten our understanding of marriage and family life. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, AMCS, AMST, APPI, ASRP, EP4, REST, VAL, WGSS.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1010 or HPLC 1401 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009.

THEO 4026. Theologies of Peace. (4 Credits)

This “Eloquentia Perfecta” senior values seminar explores how to continue the long tradition of religious voices, ideas, and institutions contributing to reconciliation and playing a constructive role in forging more peaceful relationships among nations, communities and people of all faiths. Topics will include the just war theory, credal pacifism, and the role of conscience in making judgments about potentially justifying the use of force. Students will participate in debates and other participatory exercises as we explore optimal ways to encourage peace in our hearts, our neighborhoods and the international arena. Our in-class practice of dialogue will reflect the commitment to dialogic approaches to conflict transformation so desperately required today throughout our globalized society. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: BEVL, BIOE, EP4, INST, ISIN, PJCP, PJCR, PJST, REST, VAL.

THEO 4027. The Ethics of Life. (4 Credits)

Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions have yielded complex religious responses to ethical, human dilemmas involving life/death issues. This course examines some of those responses in relation to sexuality, love and family, punishment, health and disease, death, and the environment through the lenses of Jewish, Christian and Muslim authors, texts, and traditions. Students will investigate how such responses are crafted in a liberal, pluralistic society, and assess their own reactions to religious difference and challenges to their own fundamental values. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: BEHR, BEVL, BIOE, EP4, ISTP, MEST, REST, THHC, VAL.

THEO 4028. Religion & Bioethics. (4 Credits)

Religions have always shaped medical practice. In our religiously diverse world, religions intersect with medicine at many levels: patients, practitioners, institutional providers, law, and even international relations. We will explore how these intersections affect bioethics in our religiously diverse culture. We will look at traditional bioethical questions about what is permitted and forbidden in individual patient care, but we’ll also examine questions like the following: Christianity’s impact on the development of medicine; the ethical and religious impact of religiously affiliated hospitals’ ethical and religious directives; the challenges of accommodating patients’ and practitioners’ diverse religious beliefs in a medical system that is not religiously neutral; how religious communities have both shaped and used the fundamental principles of bioethics; the impact of religious convictions on bioethics beyond care of individual patients (for instance, issues of access to healthcare). Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: BEVL, BIOE, EP4, THHC, VAL.

THEO 4030. Moral Aspects of Medicine. (4 Credits)

The course examines the role of faith in the moral issues raised by advancements in medical science. The course will survey issues such as reproductive technologies, the patient-physician relationship, euthanasia and physician suicide, health care reform, AIDS and the human genome project. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: BEVL, BIOE, EP4, LPHP, REST, VAL.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010.

THEO 4035. Professional Responsibilities and Organizational Ethics. (4 Credits)

Applies ethical concepts and theories from religious ethics to professional and organizational life. Special attention is given to professional and corporate social responsibilities. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: BEHR, BIOE, EP4, REST, VAL.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1004 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 4036. Human Nature After Darwin. (4 Credits)

This course enters contemporary theological, political and scientific debates about how to conceptualize human nature after Darwin. We read Epicures, Lucretius, Augustine, Aquinas, Darwin and contemporary theologians, political theorists and scientists. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: BEHR, ICC, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010.

THEO 4037. Nature in Historical and Ethical Perspective. (4 Credits)

In anthropological, theological, and ethical discourse, nature has often been appealed to as that which is, by definition, outside of culture and history. However, nature’s meanings – especially in social-relational significations that it carries- have varied over time, according to a range of contexts and “controlling images.” This Interdisciplinary Capstone Course will analyze historical and contemporary methodologies and significations of the term “nature,” in ways that facilitate critical scrutiny of how this potent term is deployed in contemporary political, scientific, environmental, and religious discourse. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ICC, THAM, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 4040. Home, Away, and In-Between. (4 Credits)

This course draws on historical theology and literature to explore diverse human engagements with displacement. Reading focus on specific contexts and modes of displacement as they have upset and remade truth for those involved. Key examples include diaspora, quest, alienation, conversion, migration, and relocation. We will encounter characters and real-life actors whose experiences of these conditions-whether literal or metaphorical, whether cultivated or imposed-put them in highly charged space between feeling “at home” and “away.” In addition to studying the responses of literary characters and religious actors, we will explore the ways the disciplines of literature and theology themselves invite practitioners into experiences of disorientation and reorientation. We will also consider the relationship between literature and theology as ways of knowing about displacement and its meanings. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AMCS, ICC, REST, THHC.

THEO 4050. On Time and Its Value. (4 Credits)

For over two millennia, human beings have been asking enduring questions about the nature of time, the ways in which time might best be structured, how to use one’s time wisely, and how to change temporal habits. These questions are not merely academic or theoretical; they matter, and they are timely. Like all college students, you are managing your own school, work, and social schedules. You probably feel the pressure of technology and the new, faster-paced temporal rhythms of being constantly connected – and simultaneously, you might worry that you are wasting too much time online. You live in an era in which scientists are warning that our climate is changing irreversibly and that we are running out of time to implement sustainable solutions. In the midst of all this existential talk about time, you are also trying to figure out what to do with your time after you graduate. In other words, conceptions and discourses about time and how to spend it are a big part of your life already. In this course, you are invited to think expansively about the topic of time, both theoretically and practically. We begin by exploring interdisciplinary debates about time across the sciences, arts, and humanities (in physics and philosophy, geology and biology, religion and theology, literature and music, and so on). Then we turn to the global history of clocks, calendars, and chronologies, as they were developed and used from antiquity to modernity. We end by exploring debates about the value of rest, leisure, diversion, and free time. Exploring time through an interdisciplinary and intercultural lens will help you contextualize your own relationship to time within a long history of time and temporal reckoning. You will finish the semester empowered to make informed, bold, and ethical choices about how to use the time that is yours. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ICC, JSTH, JWST, THAM, THHC.

THEO 4051. Religion and the Making of the Self. (4 Credits)

What is the nature of the self? Is the self made in God’s image or is it constructed and constantly negotiated through social interactions? And how do conceptions of the self inform our ethical choices? This course examines how religious perspectives on human nature shape the nature of the ethical life, focusing especially on the ways one’s first-personal experiences of selfhood pose an existential crisis of meaning. This is an interdisciplinary course that investigates conceptions of the self and their moral implications from multiple religious, philosophical, and sociocultural vantage points. The readings include materials from Greek and Hellenistic thought, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, phenomenology, existentialism, and cultural studies. The course’s point of departure is cross-cultural and thematic since we will explore the main themes concerning the meaning of the self in several religious and intellectual traditions. Topics include, inter alia, self-knowledge, the care and practices of the self, meditation, emotion and subjectivity, self-transcendence, and human flourishing. By navigating one’s way through the ethical dilemmas of selfhood faced by the modern (and postmodern) subject, this course explores the interrelationship between religious belief, self-formation, and morality.

Attributes: EP4, VAL.

THEO 4055. What is College For?. (4 Credits)

This course begins with a close reading of "The Idea of a University," John Henry Newman’s classic account of the purposes of higher education, and an introduction to philosophy and theology. Next, the course will cover the history of American higher education and Catholic higher education in particular. We will study the origins of liberal arts colleges, the emergence of land grant and research universities, the growth and popularization of American higher education after World War II, and the current education landscape, including community colleges and online options. The course will consider such questions as the role of theology in the core curricula at contemporary Catholic universities, Jesuit values and U.S. News and World Report values, the Catholic preferential option for the poor and the student body at Catholic colleges, and the relationship between Catholic colleges and the surrounding communities. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AMST, ASRP, ICC.

THEO 4060. Religious Faith and Doubt in Western Thought. (4 Credits)

This course centers around the biblical books of Job and Qohelet (Ecclesiastes) read in conversation, respectively, with Tolstoy’s A Confession and Camus’ The Stranger to explore the enduring problem of faith and the persistence of doubt in Western thought and Western literature. The approach taken for all four texts will be both literary and theological, involving close reading with attention to both formal and thematic aspects of the material. For both the literary and the theological readings, attention will be given to specific issues appropriate to the individual texts. The course will conclude by exploring, synthetically, the interplay between the two types of readings. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attribute: ICC.

THEO 4062. Hagar in the Bible and Beyond. (4 Credits)

The story of Hagar – maidservant to Sarah and Abraham and mother of Ishmael – takes only two chapters in the Hebrew Bible and one in the Christian New Testament. Yet Hagar’s importance belies her minimal scriptural presence. She is a key figure in the patriarch’s story; a source of allegory for the church fathers; and a figure associated with the origins of Islam and Baha’i. She plays a powerful role in liberation and womanist theology, and, in the present era, has become a resonant figure with respect to the plight of immigrants and refugees. The uses made of Hagar in these varied contexts reveal the degree to which social setting and social institutions inform the reception and interpretation of religious ideas. This course will make use of the methodologies of theology and sociology to investigate the multiple meanings and utilities associated with Hagar. It includes analysis of primary and secondary texts from a sociological perspective with attention to issues of gender and social status as well as postcolonial and womanist lenses. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attribute: ICC.

THEO 4105. Religion, Gender, and Sexuality. (4 Credits)

This course considers the intersections of religion, gender, and sexuality. In many parts of the world, including the United States, and in many religious traditions, cultural and religious identity and continuity hinge on gendered practices and closely controlled sexual regimes. The goal of this course is to understand how religious institutions, communities, doctrines, practices and traditions shape gendered ideologies and practices, debates about sexuality and gendered division of labor, and the lives of men and women who participate in these religious communities. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ICC, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1010 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009.

THEO 4110. Muslim, Jewish, and Christian Feminist Theologies: Discourses of Difference. (4 Credits)

Feminist theologies reflect critically on religious traditions from the perspective of persons who identify as women. Feminist theologies challenge traditional beliefs and practices that devalue women, and construct alternatives to them. This course introduces students to some of the diverse feminist voices within Muslim, Jewish, and Christian theologies. This introduction is “intersectional” in that it surveys a variety of factors that shape a feminist position in each context. These include sex and gender identity, sexual orientation, race, class, nationality, ability, age, health, politics, patriarchy and structural violence, and social justice. With attention to conservative, liberal, postmodern, postcolonial, transnational, postfeminist, and queer theory perspectives, students will explore how Muslim, Jewish, and Christian feminists articulate a variety of positions on a shared set of theological questions: Who is God? What is our role within the creation? How do we treat the self, and the self in relation to others, within the context of that creation? What is our obligation to the cosmos, and to the nonhuman life within it? Students will be encouraged to critique, dialogue with, and position themselves in relation to the feminist thinkers they encounter in each context. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: INST, ISIN, ISTP, JSTH, MEST, PLUR, REST, THHC, WGSS.

THEO 4301. Jews and Christians in Antiquity. (4 Credits)

In this seminar, we will discuss the emergence of Christianity out of its Jewish matrix as well as the coexistence of Jews and Christians in Classical and Late Antiquity. We will examine change and diversity within these two religions, as well as their interactions and rhetorical depictions of one another. While the seminar has a strong historical and diachronic component, its main focus will lie on the question of religious otherness within a confined geographic and intellectual space, as well as on related issues of racial, ethnic, linguistic, and geo-cultural diversity. Thus, in addition to acquiring knowledge about an important topic in a formative period of religious history, students will gain insight into the processes whereby religious difference is articulated and religious identity shaped. The first goal of the course is to familiarize students, through the study of key texts and events, with the main landmarks in the history of coexistence between Christians and Jews over the long Late Antiquity. The second goal of the class is to allow students to acquire or consolidate skills in pursuing independent research. The third goal of the course is to increase students’ ability to examine critically diverging historiographic perspectives and to analyze, explain, and historically contextualize primary sources. This course fulfills the History, Culture, and Society advanced seminar requirement and the Ancient/Medieval period requirement for the theology religious studies major and minor. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: THAM, THHC.

THEO 4302. Law and Theology in Antiquity. (3 Credits)

In this course, we will discuss the relationship between the legal and religious elements of civilization in a variety of ancient cultures, including ancient Mesopotamia, Persia, Greece, Rome, and Byzantium. The class will include significant elements of religious and legal theory and anthropology.

THEO 4334. Envisioning Enlightenment: Buddhist Theories of Liberation. (4 Credits)

Early sermons attributed to the historical Buddha attest to the conviction that human beings have a capacity to awaken themselves to the full reality of suffering and liberate themselves from it entirely. Such awakening and liberation are often rendered as “enlightenment” in English. What might “enlightenment” actually mean? This seminar will explore debates in Buddhist communities about this very question. In order to understand the subtlety of these debates, students will consider the diverse conceptual resources that Buddhists have used to imagine what awakening might entail. The course will offer a diachronic study of Buddhist ideas about liberation, from 2,500-year-old sermons to recent applications of liberation theory to modern life. The class will introduce cultural differentiation by attending to South Asian, Southeast Asian, East Asian, Himalayan, and American Buddhist sources. Students will also spend time thinking alongside dramatically dissimilar artistic representations of liberation, as visible in New York City museums, cultural centers, and temples. After gaining some facility with Buddhist conceptual vocabulary, the class will tackle a series of interrelated questions. Do contemporary assumptions about historical consciousness and the uniqueness of the historical cause problems for historical Buddhist claims about universal awakened consciousness? How might our contemporary cultural obsession with happiness prevent us from understanding what historical Buddhists have meant by liberation? In short, is modernity a problem for enlightenment theory? Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attribute: THHC.

THEO 4351. Modern Christian Thought & Practice. (4 Credits)

Christianity has always been a global faith, quickly spreading north, south, east, and west of Palestine after the death of Jesus. Around the 16th century, however, the expansion of Christianity around the globe increased substantially, as the then center of Christianity—Western Europe—brought Christianity to Asia, Africa, and the Americas through exploration, colonization, immigration, circum-Atlantic trade, chattel slavery, and missionary expeditions. At the same time, both Catholic and Protestant reformers were calling for a return to early Christian belief and practice in Europe. These twin processes of globalization and reformation characterized ensuing centuries of Christian development, as increasingly diverse European Christians sought to spread their faith to newly encountered people and continents and as those interactions prompted new questions about Christian thought and practice. This course will track the diversity of Christian thought and practice from the 16th century to the present, with a particular eye to the diversity of Christian churches as they can be found around the world today, and in exemplary forms in New York City. While paying attention to central theological debates in the diversity of Christian confessions, we will focus on the role of and changes to sacramental practices, material devotional practices, rites of death and dying, and bodily experiences in the life of faith for ordinary believers. This course fulfills the History, Culture, & Society advanced seminar requirement for the THRS major and minor.

Attributes: INST, ISIN, THHC.

Mutually Exclusive: THEO 3834.

THEO 4355. Histories and Cultures of American Evangelicalism. (4 Credits)

This course explores the histories and cultures of American evangelicalism with special attention to how race and gender come to define what it means to be an evangelical Christian. We will explore the early histories of evangelicalism in the religious revivals of the 18th century, the split between White and Black evangelical movements during the Civil War, and the commonalities and differences with Pentecostal and Charismatic Protestant reform movements in the early 20th century. The majority of the course, however, will be spent on the second half of the 20th century when modern White evangelical Christians emerge as a dominant force in American electoral politics and initiate “culture wars” over issues of sexuality, gender equality, and racial justice. In addition to tracing historical developments and theological ideas of evangelical Christianity, the course will pay special attention to evangelical cultures—books, movies, music, clothing, jewelry, and personal piety—as a way to understand how evangelical Christianity shapes the inner lives and actions of those inside the tradition and how that tradition shapes broader American cultural life. This course fulfills the History, Culture, & Society advanced seminar requirement for the THRS major and minor. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, AMST, ASRP, THHC.

THEO 4371. Islam in Modern Egypt. (4 Credits)

This course, which requires no background in Islamic studies or Middle Eastern studies, focuses on Egypt, one of the oldest civilizations in the world with over 5,000 years of recorded history. Egypt has thus witnessed an incredible diversity of religious tradition, leaving us today with a kind of religious palimpsest—a series of traditions that have been built upon each other; sometimes replacing others—but always leaving a trace of what came before. This course examines one portion of Egypt’s long history—roughly from the introduction of Christianity (which Egyptian Coptic Christians hold as having occurred c. 33CE by the Apostle Mark)—to the present. Through an examination of the Arab expedition to Egypt, bringing Islam c. 634CE, we will examine the process of the slow conversion of Egypt from majority Christian to majority Muslim over several centuries. Within that time, Egypt experienced several Islamic dynasties—both sunni and shi’ī—including the Fatimids, the Ayyubids, the Mamluks (a slave class that took over Egypt), the Ottoman Empire, British colonial rule, and today’s modern republics, most recently punctuated by the Egyptian revolution in 2011. Today, Egypt has the largest population of Muslims in both the Arab world and Africa and enormous influence over its surrounding regions. Therefore, the study of Egypt will enable us to deeply explore larger theoretical questions concerning the interaction of religion and politics, the rise of “global” or “pan-Islam,” the process of religious reform, the formation of orthodoxy, and vernacular vs. authoritative religious practice and expressions. This course fulfills the History, Culture, & Society advanced seminar requirement for the THRS major and minor. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: GLBL, ISTP, MEST, THHC.

THEO 4400. Foundations of Contemporary Theology. (4 Credits)

This advanced seminar introduces students to foundational topics in Christian systematic theology, including doctrines of God, Trinity, Christology, soteriology, and ecclesiology, and explores challenges to and rearticulations of these traditional themes in the 20th and 21st centuries, including, for example, liberation theologies, black theologies, feminist and queer theologies, theologies of religious pluralism, and ecological theologies. The course will encompass both historical foundations and contemporary conversations in systematic and constructive theology, with attention to communities of Christian thought outside of the Western European and North American contexts. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

THEO 4411. Religion, Theology, and New Media. (4 Credits)

An interdisciplinary capstone course, this course examines the historical and theoretical significance of the intersection between communication, technologies and religious communities. Drawing on the disciplinary methods and assumptions of both communication and media studies and theology, the course will ask students to critically and theoretically explore the significance of religion as a cultural phenomenon as well as to take seriously the theological significance of media practices as articulated by religious subjects. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AMCS, AMST, APPI, ASRP, CCMS, CMST, DTEM, ICC, JOUR.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010.

THEO 4415. Filmmaking as Religious Expression. (4 Credits)

This course seeks to cultivate in students a "sacred look" at the world, themselves, and their fellow humans by means of filmmaking, informed by select texts of spirituality. Through close viewings of films, close readings of texts, small and large group discussions, this course seeks to develop an informed sense of wonder, a grasp of the spiritual aspects of filmmaking, and a broader sense of the kinship between art and faith. The course culminates in the production of a short film by each student on a topic relating to faith, spirituality, or religious expression. Prior filmmaking experience is not required. At the center of our engagement with filmmaking are three guiding theological questions: (1) how does filmmaking relate to the expression of the human spirit? (2) how does filmmaking make present the expression of the divine? and (3) how does filmmaking make manifest the relationship between the two? The course will weave together exploration of the processes involved in aesthetic thinking, the processes involved in a theological or spiritual imagination, and the nuts and bolts of filmmaking. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attribute: FITV.

THEO 4420. Early Christian Art in Context. (4 Credits)

This course surveys Christian art and artifacts from antiquity through the medieval period, situating them in multiple contexts: Christian theology; engagement with other forms of religious art; political developments; ritual settings; and the ethics of modern discovery and curation. The course includes several site visits to museums. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: EP3, MVAM, MVST, OCAH, OCST, THAM, THHC.

THEO 4430. Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Early Christianity. (4 Credits)

This course will explore theological ideas and practices related to the complexities of human life as sexed, gendered, and sexualized within the early Christian tradition. After a brief examination of the biblical foundations for later patristic reflection on these issues, it will focus primarily on the different Eastern traditions of thought and practice emerging out of Asia Minor, Egypt (both Alexandria and the desert), and Syria. Some attention will also be given to Western (i.e., Latin) sources for comparative purposes. The course is an upper-level elective in theology and also satisfies an elective requirement in the Orthodox Christian studies minor. As such, its goals are twofold: 1) to study carefully relevant primary texts of the early Christian tradition with an eye to improving skills in close reading and analysis of theological sources, and 2) to learn how to read, comprehend, and critically engage with scholarly arguments in the fields of theology and religious studies. Thus, assigned readings will include both primary texts and scholarly articles and chapters that argue for particular interpretations of the primary texts. These are different kinds of reading and require the cultivation of different sets of analytical and critical skills—we will work to develop both throughout the course of the semester. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: MVST, MVTH, OCST, REST, THAM, THHC.

THEO 4444. Anthropocene: Sciences, Fictions, and Ethical Futures. (4 Credits)

The “anthropocene” has been proposed as geochronological epoch in recognition of the destructive, disproportionate impacts that human activities have wrought upon earth systems. While the term has seeped into the popular lexicon, there is an important diversity of scientific, social scientific, and humanistic perspectives on the viability of the anthropocene epoch. Each approach comes with a set of values on human flourishing, ecosystemic well-being, and equity and justice. These values warrant fuller examination, as they bear implications for ethics and public policy in an era of climate crises and other forms of anthropogenic eco-social degradation. This course empowers students to identify different values that inform the production of various disciplinary knowledges, and to discern the practical and ethical impacts of those values at various scales of human decision-making. This course is structured as an EP4 core curriculum designation because it focuses intensively on the development of critical thought through development of writing and speaking skills within and beyond the classroom. The course draws on critical appraisals of the anthropocene concept with regard to race/racialized structures, ethnicity and indigeneity, gender, and other patterns of domination with respect to scientific, literary, and decolonial approaches. Students will be invited and encouraged to examine the presuppositions and positionality in the production of knowledge and values through critical engagement with the concept of the anthropocene. As a values seminar, the course enables students to identify values that inform the production of several disciplinary knowledges focused on the anthropocene idea. In particular, students will consider how scientific nomenclatures and notions of measurement-based objectivity function as values that frame the legitimacy of the geochronology of the anthropocene in the International Stratigraphic Commission; how political economic values impact standards and processes for evaluating climate change risks and impacts, and the implications for justice; how anthropocentric value and human exceptionalism based on models of white supremacy have been assumed and challenged in theology and philosophy; and how critical literatures in the social sciences, humanities, and literature now bring decolonial values to the fore of anthropocene conversations. Students will gain facility and expertise in identifying how explicit and implicit values function in eco-social discourse, policymaking, and individual choice. These are crucial skills for navigating a world of social and ecological change and empowering students to make their own values-based decisions beyond their Fordham experience. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ENST, EP4, ESEJ, ESEL, ESHC, PJEN, PJST, REST, VAL.

THEO 4455. Eucharist, Justice, and Life. (4 Credits)

This course explores the intrinsic relationship between celebrating the liturgy, especially the Eucharist, and living lives of justice, peace, and social responsibility. Such topics as world poverty, hunger, immigration, violence, global warming, and the care of the planet will be examined. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: EP4, REST, VAL.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010.

THEO 4500. Religion in NYC: Theory & Practice. (4 Credits)

This course, conceived as a capstone for the theology and religious studies major and minor, offers an advanced introduction to theories and methods in the academic study of religion and theology through a rigorous study of historically influential texts, contemporary challenges to and reconceptions of traditional scholarly categories, and productive partnership with communities of religious and spiritual practice in New York City. A major aim of the course will be the critical interrogation of the dichotomy of “theory” and “practice.” We will give attention throughout to the concrete communities, histories, and contexts out of which and for which the foundational theories of religion have been produced, and we will, in turn, attend closely to the theorizations and conceptualizations of religious practice developed within the communities of practice with whom we partner. Because this is a community engaged learning course, each member of the class, in consultation with the professor, will engage in a community-based research project as an integral part of the academic project we pursue in this course. In spring 2022, our theme is “Religious Experience in the ‘Secular’ City.” We will consider especially the heuristic and explanatory value of the category of “religion” to delimit a particular set of communities, practices, and orientations to the world, and will interrogate the meaningfulness of the distinction between “religious” and “secular” practices. Our particular lens will be the category of religious experience—its histories, semantic range, and the methodological problems involved in constituting experience, and specifically religious experience, as an object of inquiry. What do religious and spiritual practices “do” for individuals and communities? What, if anything, distinguishes a particular experience as “religious” or “spiritual”? How do conceptualizations of religious experience shape contemporary spiritual and religious practices, and how do the ongoing transformations and recontextualizations of these practices expand and challenge traditional conceptions of religious experience? Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attribute: SL.

THEO 4520. Animals, Angels, and Aliens: Beyond the Human in Christian Thought. (3 Credits)

Contemporary theologians focus almost exclusively on the human. Indeed, some prominent theologian’s explicitly claim that all theology can be understood as anthropology. But in this course we will use both new trends and ancient sources to push beyond the human into other areas of concern. The Christian (and Jewish) traditions have very interesting things to say, for instance, about non-human entities like animals, angels and even aliens. In addition to looking carefully at these sources, we will think about their implications for contemporary moral and political issues surrounding food production and consumption, lab experiments, ecological protection, and even cyborg technology and transhumanism.

Attributes: BEHR, ENST, ESEJ, ESEL, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010.

THEO 4545. Bath Cultures and Bathing Rituals From Antiquity to Brooklyn. (4 Credits)

This course draws on the two disciplines of history and anthropology to examine the culture of bathing in the Greco-Roman world and its reception in Byzantium, medieval Islam, and concludes with a look at its "Orientalized" fetishizing in the contemporary US. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: CLAS, ICC, ISAC, MEST, OCST, REST, THAM, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 4570. Orthodox Christian Ethics. (4 Credits)

This Course will explore the two-thousand year tradition or Orthodox Christian Ethics. Students will be asked to resolve modern moral dilemmas by reading ancient Orthodox texts and their modern commentators. As such, the purpose of the course is twofold: 1) to develop an understanding of Christian ethics within an Orthodox theological perspective; 2) to develop the ability to make ethical judgments and to reflect critically on those judgments on established Orthodox theological principles. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: EP4, OCST, VAL.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010.

THEO 4600. Religion and Public Life. (4 Credits)

The course explores the role of religion in public life, focusing primarily on American democracy and its separation of church and state. The course will focus on religion's voice in public debate over issues such as health, poverty, and biomedical and economic issues, whether specifically religious arguments and language should have place in public discourse, and the role of discourse in a pluralistic society. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, AMCS, AMST, APPI, ASHS, ASRP, EP4, MEST, THAC, VAL.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010.

THEO 4610. Malcolm, Martin, Baldwin, and the Church. (4 Credits)

This course will engage the social thought and religious faith of these persons, both individually and in relation to each other. We will examine the challenges each posed both to Christian faith and to U.S society - especially their critiques of American understandings of justice; the relevance of religious faith to the struggle for racial justice; and the response of the Catholic Church to these men, the movement they represented, and the enduring reality of racial injustice. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ADVD, AMST, ASRP, PLUR, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1010 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009.

THEO 4620. Oscar Romero: Faith and Politics in El Salvador. (4 Credits)

This course will investigate the life and ministry of Oscar Romero of El Salvador. Coming to office in a period of socio-political and religious upheaval, Romero functions as a lens through which students can explore important themes including: the nature and impact of liberation theology, the effects of US Cold War foreign policy, power in the Catholic Church and numerous issues involving the relationship between religion and politics. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: GLBL, INST, ISLA, LALS, PJRJ, PJSJ, PJST, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1010 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009.

THEO 4630. G.O. Deeper. Interdisciplinary Inquiries. (4 Credits)

This Interdisciplinary Capstone Course is designed to build on (1) what these students have learned by offering them an opportunity to consider their immersion experience in light of critical inquiries in sociology, anthropology, and critical social theory; associated with (2) conflict studies, cultural studies, and postcolonial theory, and (3) in theology. The course is designed above all to cultivate skills to describe, analyze, and evaluate critical issues in local practices pertaining to personal life, family life, social and political life, housing, work, and indigenous cultures, including faith cultures of practice and belief. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ICC, PJCP, PJCR, PJST, REST.

THEO 4840. Jesus and Salvation. (4 Credits)

This course explores Christian belief in Jesus Christ (Christology) with an emphasis on how this belief is intertwined with the understanding of salvation (soteriology). Reflecting on the biblical accounts of salvation in Jesus, along with examining the development of classic christological doctrine, students will inquire how this tradition relates to critical issues raised today. How is Christian belief in Jesus and salvation relevant to questions of identity, religious pluralism, global inequality, and environmental crises? Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1010 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1007.

THEO 4847. Theologies of Liberation. (4 Credits)

This course will explore the challenge of living Christian values in a global community marked by severe poverty, structural injustice and the threat of ecological devastation. The study of the values of Jesus, Catholic social teaching and various Christian theologies of liberation will inform the students' consciences on issues of economic justice, the distribution of wealthand power and the proper use of the earth's resources. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: BEVL, EP4, PJIN, PJRJ, PJSJ, PJST, VAL.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010.

THEO 4851. Death of Religion?. (4 Credits)

This seminar examines the major critiques of religion that have emerged in modernity from philosophy, social and political theory, literature, anthropology, and even theology. Readings may include engagement with seminal thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt, Franz Fanon, and others, and will engage topics such as atheism, skepticism, secularism, and evil, as well as consider some of the more creative responses, both inside and outside traditional religious thought. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: INST, ISIN.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1002 or THEO 1003 or THEO 1004 or THEO 1005 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 4852. Spirituality, Health, and Healing. (4 Credits)

Years ago, scientists looked upon spirituality as something at best irrelevant to human psychology and health, and at worst, harmful. But today, health psychologists, neuroscientists, and physicians are taking another look at the role spirituality plays in the health and well-being of human beings. This turn has opened up a set of vexing conversations: What does it mean to “be healthy” and “to heal” in different contexts? What sorts of medical, ritual, or religious expertise authorizes different sorts of healers and forms of healing? What are health scientists saying about the role spiritual practices like meditation and prayer have on things like neural circuitry and overall brain functioning? How are scientists trained in Western medicine learning from Eastern spiritual practices for well-being? How might cultural competency in diverse faith traditions enable health care workers, in psychology and beyond, to better understand and serve their patients? What role does spirituality play in palliative, end-of-life care? Overall, this course will enable students to see the wide-ranging effects of the human capacity to connect to something greater than ourselves, and see this not as an esoteric, private affair, but deeply connected to the issues of social and collective well-being in our own time. We’ll spend time reading peer-reviewed scientific findings from the field of psychology, and exploring spiritual texts from diverse religious traditions about practices connected to human well-being and health. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attribute: ICC.

Prerequisites: PSYC 1200 and (THEO 1000 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1010 or HPRH 1102 or HPLC 1401).

THEO 4853. Spirituality and Politics. (4 Credits)

This course will examine three twentieth-century Roman Catholic movements that espoused both a novel approach to spirituality/mysticism and embodied a distinctive politics on three different continents: the French Catholic revival, the Catholic Worker movement in the U.S and liberation theology in Latin America. The twentieth century witnessed a remarkable engagement of Catholics with the meaning of their faith and its role in social and political issues of their times, particularly around issues of war and poverty. From each of these three sites of renewal, the students will ask questions such as: How did these new movements come about? How are their views articulated in various texts and embodied in personal and communal practices? What is the legacy of these twentieth-century movements’ spirituality and politics for us today? As an interdisciplinary seminar, students will rely on the methodological approaches in the disciplines of history and systematic theology to pursue these questions. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AMCS, ICC, PJRJ, PJSJ, PJST, REST.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010.

THEO 4864. The Consistent Life Ethic: From Cardinal Bernardin to Pope Francis. (4 Credits)

The contemporary pro-life movement has been widely criticized for being too closely identified with the U.S. religious right. But as this course will make clear, the history of this movement—and the pro-life ethic advocated by figures like Cardinal Bernardin, St. John Paul II, and Pope Francis—is a very different kind of thing. This course will study the origins, development, and current place of the “Consistent Life Ethic” (CLE). Always concerned with more than abortion, the CLE had resistance to war and other kinds of violence at the very heart of what it was from its pre-Roe beginnings. The course will have a particular focus in the implications of the “growing edge” of the movement as articulated by Pope Francis—particularly his focus on resisting throwaway culture with a culture of encounter and hospitality. In addition to more traditional pro-life issues, this course will explore how Francis’ pro-life principles apply to topics like sexual violence and the #MeToo movement, welcoming and supporting migrants, mass incarceration, violence against LGBT persons, neocolonialism, the moral status and treatment of non-human animals, and even the violence and throwaway culture present in the practice of U.S. football. The course will also focus on challenges to the CLE, including the idea (espoused by both those who identify with left and those who identify with the right) that the Consistent Life Ethic collapses important moral and political distinctions between the issues in an unhelpful way. Especially as the U.S. enters a major phrase of political realignment—where the basic assumptions of our national secular politics over the past two generations no longer obtain—the “socially conservative and economically liberal” position (held disproportionately by African and Latinx U.S. Americans) toward which the CLE moves is getting increased attention. The course will conclude with discussion of possible viable alternatives to the right/left political binary. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: EP4, VAL.

THEO 4870. Economic Foundations of Catholic Social Teaching. (4 Credits)

This course explores the economic thought that has served as the basis of the Church's teaching on issues like capitalism, socialism, poverty, wages, unions, the environment, and economic responsibility from Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum to the present and current economic research that may guide future Church teaching. This will be done through lectures, readings from primarily 19th and 20th-century economic works, and discussion of how these works' ideas are evident in papal encyclicals and other Church documents. The course will include case studies of how Catholic social teaching has influenced national social and economic policies in Europe and the U.S. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AMCS, AMST, APPI, ASRP, BEHR, BIOE, ICC, REST.

Prerequisites: ECON 1100 or ECON 1200 or ECON 1150 or ECON 1250 or THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010 or HPLC 1401.

THEO 4888. Utopia, Dystopia, Realism, and Christian Ethics. (4 Credits)

This course examines the centuries-long tradition of utopian thought and places it in dialogue with the more recently articulated school of political realism. The juxtaposition of their starting points (the deep human yearning for a perfect social order versus the sobering constraints of real-world experience) sheds ample light on the possibilities and limits of ethical behavior today. Readings include 1) Thomas More’s “Utopia” and subsequent works of utopian literature; 2) Hannah Arendt’s postwar classic “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” with its warnings of dystopia; 3) essays by Reinhold Niebuhr and other Christian realists; and 4) contemporary Christian ethicists and secular writers exploring vital questions of morality, including human conflict, the common good, liberation, and hopeful visions of harmonious social order. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: EP4, VAL.

THEO 4950. Christianity and Gender/Sexual Diversity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. (4 Credits)

Employing perspectives from history, theological ethics, and LGBT studies, this course will investigate what it means to take queer perspectives on Christianity sexuality, and discipleship. Readings will include biblical, historical, and contemporary materials that seek to illuminate the ways in which Christians and Christian communities have responded to sexual and gender diversity. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: BEHR, ICC, THHC.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001 or HPLC 1401 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or THEO 1010.

THEO 4999. Tutorial. (4 Credits)

Independent research and reading with supervision from a faculty member.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or HPRH 1001.

THEO 5000. Biblical Hebrew Intro. (4 Credits)

This course is an intensive introduction to the grammar, syntax and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew. By the end of the course students will be able to read passages from the Hebrew Bible with the help of a dictionary, and will have learned sufficient vocabulary to ensure a rewarding reading experience. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

THEO 5015. Teaching Theology. (0 Credits)

Classical and contemporary discussions on the practice of teaching theology, particularly as understood in the Roman Catholic tradition, introducing the field of professional theology and its relationship to other disciplines, and engaging in careful, critical reflection on the vocation of the teaching theologian.

THEO 5017. Theology Dissertation Seminar. (0 Credits)

A colloquium for workshopping dissertation chapters in progress.

THEO 5025. Exodus in Hebrew. (3 Credits)

This course combines exegesis of Exodus in Hebrew with intermediate-level study of biblical Hebrew. We will read chapters 1-24 and 32-34 of Exodus in Hebrew. Our study of the Hebrew language will progress from a review of grammatical forms to a more advanced understanding of the syntax of biblical Hebrew.

Attributes: MTAM, MTRB.

THEO 5070. Elementary Coptic I. (3 Credits)

The course introduces students to Coptic, the latest stage of the Egyptian language, by acquainting them with the script, providing them with grammatical foundations, and exposing them from early on to the reading of texts.

Attribute: MTAM.

THEO 5071. Elementary Coptic II. (3 Credits)

Completion of Coptic grammar and reading of Biblical texts in Sahidic Coptic. Continuation of Elementary Coptic I. Other students welcome subject to instructor approval.

Attribute: MTAM.

THEO 5072. Christian Texts in Coptic. (3 Credits)

Intermediate and advanced readings in Coptic, which may include biblical, monartic, and Gnostic texts.

Attribute: MTAM.

THEO 5075. Syriac Language and Literature I. (3 Credits)

This course is the first of a two-semester introduction to Syriac, a dialect belonging to the Aramaic language branch. The first semester will introduce the Estrangela and the Serto scripts, cover grammatical foundations, and expose students from early on to the reading of texts. The second semester will be mostly spent reading Syriac literature, but some time will be devoted to select special topics in Syriac grammar.

Attributes: MTAM, MVSG, OCST, REST.

THEO 5076. Syriac Language and Literature II. (3 Credits)

This course is the second of a two-semester introduction to Syriac, a dialect belonging to the Aramaic language branch. The first semester introduced both the Estrangela and the Serto scripts, covered grammatical foundations, and exposed students from early on to the reading of texts. The second semester will be mostly spent reading Syriac literature, but some time will be devoted to select special topics in Syriac grammar.

Attributes: MTAM, MVSG.

THEO 5080. Introduction to Biblical Greek. (3 Credits)

This course an intensive introduction to the grammar and syntax of New Testament Greek. Sufficient attention will be devoted to vocabulary to enable rewarding experience in reading an exegesis.

Attribute: MTAM.

THEO 5090. Biblical Aramaic. (3 to 4 Credits)

An introduction to the language through comparison with Hebrew morphology and readings from the Aramaic sections of the Old Testament.

Attribute: MTAM.

THEO 5230. Advanced Greek. (3 Credits)

This course includes both a rapid review of Greek grammar and syntax, and also intermediate/advanced readings from Hellenistic and/or early Christian texts.

Attributes: MTAM, MVSG.

THEO 5300. History of Christianity I. (3 Credits)

This course covers the development of central concepts of Christianity from the Apostolic Fathers to the Reformation.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM.

THEO 5301. History of Christianity II. (3 Credits)

This course covers Catholic and Protestant theologies after the first century of the Reformation, from the 17th to the 20th centuries, including both European and U.S. theological developments.

Attributes: MTMC, MTMH.

THEO 5400. Topics in Islam: Texts and Traditions. (3 Credits)

This course explores major topics in Islam, including notions of revelation, God, law, thological speculation, gender issues, philosophy, mysticism and science. Comparisions with Jewish and Christian materials will be brought to bear on the topics for discussion when relevant.

Attributes: HHPA, HUST, MTAM, MTMC, MTMH, MTRB.

THEO 5401. Introduction to Islam. (3 Credits)

This course provides a basic introduction to Islam through close readings of the Qu'ran as well as theological, philosophical, legal, exegetical and literary writings. Special focus will be given to comparative themes, such as God, revelation, prophecy, reason, ritual, and ethics. Attention will be paid to sources and pedagogical concerns involved in the creation of undergraduate courses on Islamic topics and themes.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM, MTMC, MTRB, MVSG.

THEO 5405. Teaching Buddhism. (3 Credits)

This course will provide short units on Buddhist thought, Buddhist practice, and Buddhism in America, and it will emphasize strategies for incorporating elements of these units into undergraduate religion courses.

Attributes: MTAM, MTMC, MTMH, MTRB.

THEO 5500. Religion and American Public Life. (3 Credits)

This course introduces students to the intricate and delicate topic of how religious voices and institutions interact with the public life of the United States. Topics include church-state relations in the courts, voting according to religious conscience, the influence of civil religion, secularization, public theology, culture wars, faith-based lobbying, and religion in the media and popular culture.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, MTMC, MTMH, PSNM.

THEO 5550. New Methods: American Religion History. (3 Credits)

The past thirty years have produced significant changes in the ways historians, theologians, and ethnographers describe, explain, and theorize Americans' religious worlds. Problems include how to account for the experiences of women and racial and ethnic minorities, the relationship of doctrine to practice, the legacy of the enlightenment, the religious meanings of objects and places, the importance of borders and identity, and the significance of class in theological expression. This course investigates new answers to these and other questions, assessing them in light of their contributions and limitations in the effort to make sense of North America's past and present. The work of the semester involves close reading of contemporary historical and ethnographic texts, covering periods from the colonial era to the present. The emphasis rests both on American religious history and on new ways of making sense of religious lives, which may be applicable beyond the North American context.

Attributes: MTMC, MTMH.

THEO 5620. Introduction to Systematic Theology. (3 Credits)

An introduction to major schools and methods in contemporary systematic theology.

THEO 5630. Systematic Liberation Theology. (3 Credits)

The course will examine theologies of liberation originating among marginalized peoples of the Americas. In addition to studying their origins and major figures, the course will focus on how liberation theologies rethink a range of themes in systematic theology including: Christology, anthropology, soteriology , and ecclesiology.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, MTMC.

THEO 5640. Introduction to Theological Ethics. (3 Credits)

This introductory course will examine the sources and methods of Christian ethics, as well as contemporary questions in the discipline including gender and identity, racism, and bio-and environmental ethics.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, PSTG.

THEO 5690. Graduate Seminar: Church in Controversy. (3 Credits)

This master's level course traces the Catholic Church’s negotiations with the revolutionary challenges inaugurated by modernity. Topics will vary according to the instructor but may include the colonial missions, the Enlightenment, the Holocaust, the Second Vatican Council, the rise of feminism, changing notions of normative sexuality, and more recent developments, such as the unprecedented numbers of religiously “unaffiliated” or “nones,” the majority of which have come from the Catholic Church. How did the Catholic Church (its theologians, the millions of everyday faithful, and the Vatican) respond to—sometimes deepening, sometimes informing, and often critiquing—these challenges? Controversies forced the Church not only to make pronouncements on the crises of the moment, but to refine and sometimes revise some of its basic foundational beliefs about human nature, revelation, reason, truth, and God.

Attributes: MTMC, MTMH.

THEO 5820. Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Interpretation. (3 to 4 Credits)

Introduction to the multi-faceted project of interpreting the religious literature of ancient Israel and the sacred Scriptures of the church, in order to develop competence in a variety of exegetical approaches to the Old Testament. These include patterns of patristic and medieval interpretation, the classic modern methods of scholarly analysis, and selected contemporary approaches.

Attribute: MTAM.

THEO 5890. New Testament Interpretation. (3 to 4 Credits)

In this course we will study the origins of Christianity by analyzing its most important literature, now known as the New Testament, in historical context. Classic theological topics—such as Christology and soteriology—will often occupy our attention, but they are not our only concerns. We will also explore issues of social history, literary hermeneutics, religious identity formation, Jewish-Christian relations, gender and sexuality, and political power. Students will demonstrate their abilities as co-teachers through leading discussions, providing oral reports, and reviewing classic and recent works of scholarship. Required for Masters students, this course is also open to Ph.D. students, for whom there would be a more intensive research and writing requirement.

Attribute: MTAM.

THEO 5901. Context, Theory, and Theology. (3 Credits)

“Context, Theory, and Theology” creates a space for exploring the diverse ways that theology engages contemporary currents of thought. These currents include different approaches to the study of history, influential theories (both traditional and critical), assorted ways of carrying out the interpretive task, and contributions of various philosophical and theological schools of thought. The course encourages students to become aware of the multiple presuppositions and discourses at work in theological inquiry and to promote interdisciplinary collaboration. This course is not designed to settle debates about categories and methods, but to introduce and clarify some of the more important dimensions of these debates to equip students for advanced theological study. Taught by a team of faculty members drawn from different fields of theological study offered at Fordham, the course invites students to explore the creative and dynamic intersection of context, theory, and theology. This course is designed to introduce M.T.S. students to current theoretical approaches used across theological disciplines and areas of study. Each topic area will be introduced through assigned readings by primary theorists and classic or contemporary texts representing the various areas of study. This course will provide a pedagogical milieu for promoting interdisciplinary discussion, debate, and collaboration by faculty and students about current approaches to context and theory in theology.

THEO 6000. History, Theory, and the Study of Religion. (3 Credits)

This course provides a thorough introduction to recent developments in historiography and critical theory as they bear upon the discipline of religious studies and the critical study of theology.

Attributes: MTMC, MTMH.

THEO 6014. Ancient Theological Controversies. (3 Credits)

This course will aim at providing students with a historical understanding of the ancient development of Trinitarian and Christological doctrine while also reflecting on the ancient and modern historiographic constructions of the controversies that surrounded those topics through theoretical and methodological readings in intellectual history, the sociology of scientific knowledge, and discourse analysis. After a survey of some early understandings of Christ’s identity and of crucial early disputes, the seminar will focus on the Trinitarian, Christological, and anthropomorphic controversies. Emphasis will be placed on the philosophical underpinnings of the various theological postures, on the late ancient emergence of theological discourse as a field of knowledge sustained by a new set of intellectual practices, and on the link between theological debates and imperial power. Whenever possible, particular attention will be devoted to Syriac and Coptic sources for the controversies under examination.

Attribute: MTAH.

THEO 6026. Second Temple Judaism. (3 Credits)

This course provides a survey of the literature and history of both Palestinian and Diaspora Judaism, including late biblical texts, apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, the Qumran Scrolls, Philo, and Josephus.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM, MTRB, PSNM.

THEO 6031. The Psalms. (3 Credits)

This course is an introduction to the Psalms that examines their historical origins in ancient Israel, their distinctive poetics, and their continued theological interpretation and use in Jewish and Christian traditions.

Attributes: MTAM, MTRB.

THEO 6036. Otherness in the Hebrew Bible. (3 Credits)

How is otherness defined in the Hebrew Bible? When, how, and why did people in ancient Israel and its neighboring areas distinguish themselves from internal and external others? What are the roles of foreigners that play in the religious, social, and political life of ancient Israel and Judah as depicted in the Hebrew Bible? And what does the idea of otherness mean for today’s interpreters of the Bible? This course will attempt to answer these questions by examining select portions of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament that speak to the ideas of foreigners, other gods, non-human others, and otherworldly things/beings. We will also grapple with ontological varieties associated with the meanings, usages, and politics of the ideas of otherness in ancient and modern contexts.

Attribute: MTAM.

THEO 6039. Biblical Ethics. (3 Credits)

This course will explore a number of ways that the Bible has been used to inform ethical behavior. Special attention will be paid to the ethical implications of different interpretive approaches to the biblical text, as well as to the fact that the Christian Bible has two testaments, each of which contains a variety of approaches to ethics.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, MTAM.

THEO 6040. The Neighbor: Biblical Witness and Contemporary Ethics. (3 Credits)

With the rise of nationalism and xenophobia, "the neighbor" has reemerged as a category of thought among philosophers and theologians who are seeking a path beyond the polarization of "friend" vs. "enemy." The course will explore the biblical roots of the disclosure about "the neighbor" in the writings of Levinas, Derrida, Badiou, Santner, Reinhard, Zizek and others. Special attention will be devoted to biblical texts from Leviticus, Ruth, Jonah, the Gospels, and Paul.

Attribute: MTAM.

THEO 6042. The History of Jerusalem: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives. (3 Credits)

In this course, students will learn about the ancient and medieval history of Jerusalem, from its Jebusite inhabitants before the time of King David through Suleiman’s construction of the modern city walls in the 1540s and the later Ottoman years. Students will gain experience analyzing a variety of sources—biblical and qur’anic texts, exegetical materials, travel narratives, legal documents, maps, poetry, literature, art, archaeology, and architecture—and use a range of different (inter)disciplinary and theoretical lenses through which to study them.

Attributes: CEED, MTAH, MTAM, MTRB.

THEO 6048. Varieties of Biblical Reception. (3 Credits)

A select survey of privileged appropriations of the Bible and Christian ideologies.

THEO 6130. Matthew Mark and Method. (3 Credits)

This graduate seminar offers both detailed analysis of Gospels of Matthew and Mark and a survey of contemporary critical methods as applied to these Gospels. Sessions will examine the two texts through the lenses of Christology; Discipleship and Ethics; Feminist Criticism; Form Criticism; "Historical Jesus"; Literary Criticism; Political Theology; Postcolonial Criticism; Redaction Criticism; and Text Criticism.

Attribute: MTAM.

THEO 6192. The Greco-Roman Context of Early Christianity. (3 Credits)

This course creates a context for understanding the encounter of early Christianity with Greco-Roman culture by exploring Hellenistic and Roman history, politics, religion, social relations, economics, education, rhetoric, philosophy, literature, and the theatre.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM.

THEO 6193. Law and Theology in Antiquity. (3 Credits)

Human speech about the divine has often been intertwined with discourses about the normative organization of human life. This class will discuss how the link between normativity and belief in a divinity manifested itself in ancient Judaism and Christianity (with forays into Roman religion and Zoroastrianism). While the seminar has a strong historical and diachronic component, the relationship between theology and law will be tackled through readings drawing on diverse perspectives in Biblical studies, religious studies, religious and legal anthropology, historical theology, legal theory, continental philosophy, psychoanalysis, and discourse analysis.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM, MTRB.

THEO 6194. History, Theory, and Christianity. (3 Credits)

This course will provide a thorough introduction to recent developments in historiography and critical theory in light of the so-called “linguistic turn.” It will also explore the methodological relevance of these theoretical shifts from the study of pre-modern Christianity/historical theology.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM.

THEO 6195. Inventing Christianity: Apostolic Fathers, Apologists, and Martyrs. (3 Credits)

A seminar on the literature produced by Christ believers during the second and third centuries CE—the so-called “Apostolic Fathers,” defenses of Christian faith and life, and accounts of the deaths of martyrs. The course seeks to comprehend the diverse ways in which Christian identity was shaped and to reconstruct the social experience of the early Christians.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM.

THEO 6196. Early Christian Ritual. (3 Credits)

This graduate seminar surveys the evidence for ritual practices in the first few centuries of Christianity. Through engagement with theoretical literature on ritual and identity formation, we will explore what can be known about early Christian practices and interrogate our means of knowing it. Much of the course will focus on the rituals of initiation and their diverse interpretations in ancient sources, but other topics will be covered as time allows. Prior study of early Christian history and/or New Testament is recommended.

Attribute: MTAH.

THEO 6198. Self in Early Christianity. (3 Credits)

An examination of different notions of "the self" in early Christianity with particular attention to ancient ideas about status, gender, ethnicity, and cultural identity, as well as their implications for Christians in the pre-Constantinian era.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM.

THEO 6211. Paul, Prisoner and Martyr: Political Theology in Early Christianity. (3 Credits)

A close reading of the authentic letters of Paul from prison (Philippians and Philamon), supplemented by an investigation of the image of Paul as the "prisoner of Christ" in Calossians, 2 Timothy, 3 Corinthians, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Acts of Paul.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM, MVSG.

THEO 6214. Old Testament Theology. (3 Credits)

An examination of recent attempts to use the Old Testament as a resource for systematic theological thought. Among the topics to be considered are the nature of devine revelation in creation and history and the implications of the human response to that revelation.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6300. Apostolic Fathers. (3 Credits)

A seminar in the body of first and second century Christian literature known as the "Apostolic Fathers," so as to gain an understanding of this literature as an expression of the life and thought of its authors and the churces in which it arose and was preserved. A secondary concern of the course involves the use of the Apostolic Fathers as histoical sources for the reconstruction of the social experience of the early Christians.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM.

THEO 6305. Introduction to Rabbinic Literature. (3 Credits)

In this course, students will explore the vast corpus of rabbinic literature and the historical, intellectual, religious, social, legal and political circumstances in which rabbinic Judaism developed in Palestine and Babylonia between the first and seventh centuries C.E. Students will gain experience reading different genres of rabbinic texts; become familiar with cutting-edge scholarship in the field; experiement with various methodologies in the study of late antiquity; and learn about a formative period in Jewish history.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM, MTRB.

THEO 6360. Alexandrian Theology. (3 Credits)

Reading and interpretation of selected writings of Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, Didymus the Blind, and Cyril of Alexandria, against the background of the pagan and Jewish traditions of Alexandria.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM, MVSG.

THEO 6365. Cappadocian Fathers. (3 Credits)

This course is designed to provide a thorough introduction to the writings, interaction, and significance of the Cappadocian fathers. Although we will cover a number of theological, literary, and scholarly themes, we will pay special attention to (and have scholarly debates about) their promotion of asceticism, exegetical style, anthropological/gender constructions, and the promotion of the Nicene cause.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM, MVSG.

THEO 6367. Byzantine Christianity: History and Theology. (3 Credits)

The graduate-level survey course introduces students to the theological ideas and historical transitions that captivated the minds of Eastern Christians from the 8th to the 15th centuries. Through a careful reading of primary sources (in English translation) and the scholarly debates about those sources, we will explore the Iconoclastic controversies, the expansion of Christianity to the Slavs, the experience of Christians living under Islamic authority, and a host of issues related to rupture between Eastern and Western Christianity. In most circumstances, successful completion of this course authorizes doctoral studnts in Theology to teach the undergraduate cognate course.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM, MVSG.

THEO 6400. Theological Anthropology and Human Diversity. (3 Credits)

As the subdiscipline of "theological anthropology" speaks about the nature of our being human, how does it take into account the great variety in evidence among human beings? Particularities of race, religion, culture, disability, sexual orientation and gender iwll be placed in conversation with classic text.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, PSTG.

THEO 6425. St. Augustine in Context. (3 Credits)

This course investigates the life and writings of Augustine of Hippo in the context of late antiquity including philosophical and religious influences upon him as well as the controversies and archeological remains of his ministry.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM, MVSG.

THEO 6426. St. Augustine of Hippo. (3 Credits)

An introduction to the life and thought of St. Augustine that will include an examination of his principal theological controversies (e.g. against Manichaeism).

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM, MVSG.

THEO 6444. Medieval Modernists: Modern Appropiations of Medieval and Ancient Christianity. (3 Credits)

In twentieth century Europe, an astonishing range of intellectuals were animated and energized by the study of pre modern and early modern Christianity. For theologians, historians, philosophers, and literary figures, Christian medieval and patristic sources were galvanizing forces of transformation, and harbingers of ethical, theological, and political renewal. This course investigates the various appropriations of medieval and ancient Christianity from the Catholic nouvelle theologie movement (Henri de Lubac, M.D. Chenu, and Jean Danielou in particular), literature (Charles Peguy), philosophy, (Hannah Arendt and Luce Irigaray), and historiography (Michel de Certeau), along with secondary works by Amy Hollywood, Joan Wallach Scott, and others.

Attributes: MTMC, MTMH.

THEO 6445. Affect, Emotion, and Religious Experience. (3 Credits)

This course examines recent work in affect theory and the history of emotions (and their philosophical antecedents) as potential resources for historical and theological accounts of religious experience.

Attributes: MTAM, MVSG.

THEO 6461. Mystical Theology. (3 Credits)

Examines the influences of Neoplatonic philosophy and the writings of Pseudo-Dionvsius on medieval Latin Christianity, with attention to both "negative" theological language and reflection on the paths to and modes of union with God. Modern deconstructive, psychoanalytic, and feminist approaches to mysticism will also be considered.

Attributes: MTAM, MVSG.

THEO 6463. From Lollards to Luther. (3 Credits)

This course offers an introduction to the key themes, events, and thinkers of Christianity during the transition from what historians refer to as the late medieval to whtat they call the early modern period. Topics will include theological method; humanism; heresy and reform; gender; scripture; and the realtionship between the church and civil society.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM, MVSG.

THEO 6465. Asceticism and Monasticism. (3 Credits)

Early Christianity was an ascetic religion, but the practice of asceticism varied greatly. This course explores the ideas, practitioners, and controversies surrounding early Christian asceticism from the New Testament, through the introduction of organized monasticism in the fourth century, up to the advent of Islam. The course will also introduce students to the scholarly debates concerning various dimensions of early Christian asceticism and monasticism, including the impact of Jewish and Greco-Roman ascetic practices and how ascetic practices relate to questions of gender and sexuality in Early Christianity.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM, MVSG.

THEO 6466. Hagiography. (3 Credits)

Although the hagiography genre employs elements of biography, its purpose was to inspire the pursuit of holiness rather than convey the "facts" of a sainted person's life. This course examines the production, stylization, and reception of hagiographic texts in multiple linguistic and cultural settings (Coptic, Greek, Latin, Syriac) in the premodern period.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM, MVSG.

THEO 6467. Mysticism and Modernity. (3 Credits)

This graduate seminar will explore the global turn to the mystical or the spiritual by analyzing writings from 20th-century Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Islamic traditions.

Attributes: MTMH, PSNM.

THEO 6480. Christianizing the Barbarians. (3 Credits)

This course examines the "Christianizing" of pagan peoples (Roman, Germanic, Slavic) during the late ancient and medieval periods. We begin with two basic questions: What evidence is there for the "Christianization" of Europe? And how do we explain it?.

Attributes: HGOH, MTAH, MTAM, MVSG.

THEO 6485. Doing Theology with Gustavo Gutiérrez: 50 years (1971–2021). (3 Credits)

The years 2021 and 2023 mark, respectively, 50 years since the Spanish and English publication of Gutiérrez’ “A Theology of Liberation.” While the book is central for understanding Gutiérrez’ theological contributions, a fuller appreciation of his theology, its evolution, and the refinement of key ideas requires an examination of his theological thought across 50 years. This class will examine the roots and context (pastoral; ecclesial) that gave rise to Gutiérrez’ initial essays in the 1960s, the reception and impact (not only theological but also social and political) of “A Theology of Liberation” in the 1970s, the growing emphasis on spirituality and biblical theology in the 1980s (e.g. “On Job”; “God of Life”; “We Drink from our Own Wells”), the focus on the colonial context of Latin America and on Bartolome de Las Casas in the 1990s, and his ongoing reflections on the poor and insignificant in light of the challenges of the 21st century (e.g. “On the Side of the Poor”).

Attributes: MTMC, MTMH, PSJH.

THEO 6490. Christianity and Violence. (3 Credits)

This course explores the often ambivalent relationship between Christianity and violence in the pre-modern world. Readings include a broad range of primary sources including martyr acts, liturgical hymns, canon law, and Crusader chronicles as well as influential scholarly assessments of the history of Christianity and violence.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM.

THEO 6505. Histories of Colonialism, Empire, Theology. (3 Credits)

This interdisciplinary course traces the interconnected histories of colonialism, European empire, and Christian theology in the 15th-20th centuries, with focus on the 18th-20th centures. Special attention will be given to questions of historiography and theoretical method: the pairing of material history and philosophical/theological inquiry, the creation of "religion" as a discursive category, the role of Christian theology in funding, resisting, or augmenting imperial projects, and the diversity of Christian forms of like birthed in the circum-Atlantic world.

Attributes: MTMC, MTMH, PSJH.

THEO 6509. Theology and Religious Pluralism: Christian Tradition in a Religiously Plural World. (3 Credits)

This is a course on theological method in light of our contemporary context of religious diversity. The central question of the course is how Christian systematics is impacted by an awareness of religious difference. The investigation will explore Theologies of Religious Pluralism, Comparative Theology and Interreligious Dialogue, among other topics.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6510. Socially Engaged Theology. (3 Credits)

This course will examine the tradition of theology engaged with social concerns and emerging from within broader social movements. Students will be invited to participate in current social projects with local organizations as part of our exploration.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, MTMC.

THEO 6530. Modern Catholicism & Difference: Negotiating With Cultural & Religious Others (From 1534-Present). (3 Credits)

This course explores the ways in which Catholics -- laity, monks and nuns, theologians, Church officials -- have adapted to change, appropriated and resisted the presence of new neighbors, and built their own complex identities in negotiation with others. What difference does a deep, historical knowledge of modern Catholicism bring to the questions of difference in history we all ask today in the creation of social, political, and religious communities? Starting with the founding of the Jesuit order in 1534, themes will include efforts of the Dominicans in the Middle East, Jesuit missions, Catholic acquiescence and resistance to antisemitism during WWII, racism and racial justice, and more.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, MTMC, MTMH.

THEO 6535. The Theologies of Karl Rahner and Sergius Bulgakov. (4 Credits)

This course will critically compare the theologies of Karl Rahner and Sergius Bulgakov.

THEO 6543. Aesthetics, Religion, and Modernity. (3 Credits)

This course will explore the rise of "aesthetics" as a category to supplant, explain, enrich, and/or revive religious discourse within the philosophical and economic projects of Western modernity. Focus will be given to the historical conditions that made aesthetics a compelling rival or reviver of traditional religious belief and practice in the 18th-20th centuries.

Attributes: MTMC, MTMH.

THEO 6544. Belief and Unbelief, Tolerance, and Intolerance. (3 Credits)

This graduate seminar explores two related phenomena: the historical development of varieties of religious belief and unbelief; and the practice of religious tolerance and intolerance in modern Europe and North America. Since course readings focus on major historical transitions in theological, social, cultural, political, and intellectual life, students will encounter a range of methodological approaches and source materials and will develop a broad interpretive framework for understanding Western religious history since the sixteenth century.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6551. U.S. Religious History. (3 Credits)

This course consists of two parts: a survey of classic works in American religious history, followed by student immersion in archival work at manuscript collections in the New York City area. Students will conduct original historical research on sites of religious significance located in Metropolitan New York.

Attributes: MTMC, MTMH.

THEO 6553. Readings in American Religion. (3 Credits)

This course offers an historical study of theology in America that is attentive to contemporary discussions of theory, method, and historiography. Readings include primary and secondary sources in American theology and religious history from the coming of the Europeans to the 1980s. Topics may include: Colonialism and Borderlands Theologies, Puritanism, the American Enlightenment, Slave Religion, Evangelicalism, Transcendentalism, the Black Church, Immigrant Catholicism, New Thought, Mormonism, Social Gospel, Fundamentalism, U.S. Catholic Counterculture, Neo-Orthodoxy, U.S. Buddhism, Civil Rights, Liberation Theology, the Nation of Islam, and Eco-Theology.

Attributes: MTMC, MTMH.

THEO 6560. Writing Religion. (3 Credits)

This graduate seminar invites students to consider the distinctive challenges associated with translating religious worlds, lives, and experiences into textual forms. In this course students will read the accounts of historians, anthropologists, and theologians as they explain their writing processes and methodological orientations in their studies of religion. Students will compare different approaches, assessing their benefits and limitations. They will reflect on their own methods and test their writerly voices with various sources of evidence, including evidence gleaned from fieldwork in a New York religious community of their choosing. They will consider questions of audience and experiment with different ways of representing religion. How do one’s own commitments come into conversation with the orientations and attitudes of those we seek to understand or from whom we hope to learn? How can scholars take encounters with the excesses of religion—transcendence, ecstasy, self-abnegation, visions, etc.—and mold them into so many words on a page? Throughout the semester and in a culminating symposium, we will share our writing with one another, reflecting together on what makes for effective and meaningful communication about religious worlds.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6600. Modern Orthodox Theology. (4 Credits)

Examination of Twentieth-Century Orthodox Theological Texts. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6606. Theological Anthropology. (3 Credits)

This course will examine Christian understandings of the nature of the human person. In conversation with diverse anthropological, philosophical, cultural, and religious frameworks, a range of theological anthropologies in the modern and contemporary periods will be considered.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6607. Christian Theologies of Salvation. (3 Credits)

The course will examine the Christian doctrine of salvation including themes such as atonement, grace, redemptive suffering, and the hope for liberation. The course will focus on how contemporary theologians critically and creatively dialog with traditional soteriologies to articulate salvation in light of the challenges of our times.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6612. New Methods in Constructive Theology. (3 Credits)

This course explores current approaches that distinguish the field of constructive theology. Possible topics include: ethnographic research, theopoetics, interreligious theology, techniques for new media and public theology, activism and advocacy, critical theories, and interdisciplinary approaches.

Attributes: MTMC, PSTG.

THEO 6615. Rahner, Lonergan, and Transcendental Method. (3 Credits)

Lonergan and Rahner represent two distinctive approaches to what is frequently called "transcendental method" (although Lonergan had reservations about the term as applied to him). This course will examine Lonergan's often neglected but crucial philosophical work insight, along with Rahner's more specifically theological writings. The two will be compared with each other as well as with contemporary and post-modern critics.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6616. Contemporary Theology of the Trinity. (3 Credits)

An introductory survey of the historical development of the doctrine and an exploration of contemporary interpretations of the Trinitarian mystery in Lonergan, Rahner, and Muhlen.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6620. God in Contemporary Theology. (3 Credits)

This course will offer a contemporary rethinking of the doctrine of God in the context of modern atheism, secularism, and the encounter of world religions, seen in the light of the history of theology. Topics covered will include the doctrine of the Trinity, human knowledge of God, and God and the world.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6621. Encountering the Divine in Interreligious Perspective. (3 Credits)

This course is an investigation of diverse conceptions of the human encounter with the divine. Approaching the task through systematic Christian theology, this will include explorations of the doctrine of God and Christology. Thinking interreligiously, the investigation will explore diverse perspectives that emerge from varied wisdom traditions and religious practices.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6630. Church in Contemporary Theology. (3 Credits)

Some contemporary ecclesiologies from the point of view of the Church's relationship with the world.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6631. Missiology: Mission of Church in Age of Turmoil and Strife. (3 Credits)

The theology of the Church's Mission and its practice will be explored from global perspectives.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6634. Black Theologies and the Decolonial Option. (3 Credits)

This course examines how black American constructive theologians engage with people’s struggles for decolonization and racial freedom. Special attention will be given to recent insights in decolononial theories and the analysis of epistemology, race, gender, being, and economics.

Attributes: MTMC, PSRR.

THEO 6642. Political Theology. (3 Credits)

This course will discuss and critically analyze contemporary theologies of the political, with attention being given to the recent debate over political liberalism. Texts from a variety of theologians and theological perspectives will be examined, as well as recent attempts at political theology by non-theologians.

Attributes: MTMC, PSJH.

THEO 6651. The Liturgy: How Christians Worship. (3 Credits)

This course will focus on the Roman Catholic liturgy – leitourgia – the people’s work for God. We will draw a list of topics concerning three areas: the theory of liturgical reform, the history of the “Mass,” and related concerns for the liturgy, e.g., the role of justice, inculturation, feminist worship, music, and architecture.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6652. The Liturgy: A Work of Praise and Justice. (3 Credits)

This course focuses on the Christian liturgy as the work of the people in praise of God. The fruit of this work is for the faithful to stand in right relationship with God and with one another, creating a just community.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6653. Church as Sacrament: A Study in Christian Sacraments and Ecclesiology. (3 Credits)

This course is a study of the life of the contemporary church through the sacraments, the liturgy, and ecclesiology—its structural organization and ritual celebration. In light of the recent Amazon Synod (cf. Pope Francis, Querida Amazonia, Feb. 2020), special emphasis will be given to: 1) ecumenical issues, i.e., developing points of contact between churches while not diminishing doctrine; 2) inculturation, facing the current challenge of how we might “sing our song in a foreign land”; 3) promoting the liturgy that does justice so that the Eucharist becomes a true sign of Christian unity.

Attributes: MTMC, PSNM.

THEO 6657. Eucharist and the World Today. (3 Credits)

This course will put Eucharistic theology and practice in dialogue with concerns regarding hunger, violence, and exploitation in our contemporary world.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6659. Latinx Theology. (3 Credits)

This class will analyze the diverse ways in which Latina and Latino communities in the United States have sought to speak of God and God’s relationship to their marginal existence. The course will examine the origins of Latinx theology, the particular questions that have guided theologians working with Latinx communities, and the critiques and growing edges of the field.

Attributes: MTMC, PSRR.

THEO 6661. Ritual Contexts of the New Testament. (3 Credits)

This graduate seminar explores the diverse rituals of the ancient Mediterranean world, which help to illuminate the emerging ritual practices of early Christianity. Topics may include rites of initiation into communities, meals, marriage, prayer, song, exorcism, bathing, “magic,” sacrificial worship, bodily markings, processions, epigraphic conventions, and more. As appropriate, theoretical approaches and scholarly works from the fields of ritual studies and liturgical studies will be integrated.

Attributes: MTAH, MTAM.

THEO 6671. Contemporary Christology. (3 Credits)

Current trends in Christological theology, including those of the post-Vatican II era (e.g., Rahner, Schillebeeckx, et. al.)

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6674. Ecological Theology. (3 Credits)

In the light of contemporary scientific understandings of the cosmos and attendant ecological concerns, this course will study reinterpretations of Christian doctrine and ethics of the last 40 years that have been in dialouge with these developments.

Attributes: MTMC, PSEV.

THEO 6676. Sexual Ethics. (3 Credits)

An in-depth examination and critical appraisal of current discussions in Christian theological reflection relating to human sexuality. Specific attention will be given to emerging paradigms for the ethical evaluation of sexual behaviors, identities, and relationships being advanced in light of developments in social mores and ecclesial consciousness.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, MTMC, PSTG.

THEO 6710. Issues in Fundamental Moral Theology. (3 Credits)

Fundamental moral theology has undergone dramatic shifts in understanding since the moral manuals. It is now characterized by a pluralism in method and perspective that would have been inconceivable. This advanced seminar will examine several issues in the field of fundamental moral theology that have received recent critical attention. Among these will be topics such as conscience and its formation, culturally entrenched social evil, change in magisterial teaching, the concept of natural law, the influence of cultural pluralism on moral formation and reasoning, and the role of the “sensus fidelium” in moral doctrine.

Attributes: CEED, CETH, MTMC.

THEO 6721. African American Theological Ethics. (3 Credits)

This course, which surveys African American theological and social ethics, is open to both M.A. and Ph.D. students.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, MTMC, PSRR.

THEO 6731. Christian Ecological Ethics. (3 Credits)

This course examines distinctly Christian approaches to ecological ethics, including comparative historical perspectives, methods, and key topics.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, MTMC, PSEV.

THEO 6732. Ethics and Economics. (3 Credits)

An examination of contemporary economic social issues with the aid of Catholic social teaching, and with a critical use of economic science. The social issues examined include-but are not limited to-poverty, pollution control, protectionism, unemployment, and inflation.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, HULI, MTMC.

THEO 6733. Theology and Science. (3 Credits)

This graduate-level course attends to the history, methodologies, content of conflict, and major questions that have occured at the intersections of scientific and theological inquiry.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, HECH, MTMC.

THEO 6735. Ecological Ethics. (3 Credits)

This course considers the rise of ecological consciousness, environmental history, and ethical reflection in light of western philosophical and theological traditions. It aims to provide students with substantial, foundational knowledge in twentieth and twenty-first century environmental thought as well as emerging approaches to global environmental problems.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, HECH, HULI, MTMC, PSEV.

THEO 6736. Feminist Theological Ethics. (3 Credits)

This course introduces students to womanist, mujerista, and feminist religious ethics in Protestant and Catholic traditions since 1970. The syllabus will contain texts on many topics, including sexuality, reproduction, ecology, violence, methodology, and others. Students are invited to bring their own topical and methodological questions to their research and to make suggestions about auxiliary readings.

Attributes: CEED, MTMC.

THEO 6737. God and the Mystery of Suffering. (3 Credits)

David Hume has articulated what many consider to be the problem of evil for Western theistic traditions. Indeed, for nearly 300 years, philosophers of religion and philosophical theologians have attempted to resolve the problem of the alleged inconsistency of God's infinite goodness, power, knowledge, and the reality of human suffering—especially the suffering of innocents. The presumption of the present seminar is simple. Hume's pithy rendering does not articulate the problem—or at least not the whole problem. In light of this presumption, this seminar shall critically examine the ways Christians have responded to suffering. The goal of this seminar will be to survey the history of responses to the problem of evil in Christian traditions and to evaluate those responses.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6738. The Mystical-Prophetic Turn in Modern Catholic Theology. (3 Credits)

The course analyzes the thought of Johann Metz, Gustavo Gutierrez, and David Tracy as responses to the challenges of late modernity. By identifying the authors' contexts and influences, investigating their central ideas, and engaging their critics, the course explores the philosophical and theological implications of the mystical and prophetic traditions of Christianity retrieved by political, liberation, and public theologies for contemporary thought. Other thinkers to be considered include: Rahner, Lindbeck, Ratzinger, Balthasar, Gadamer, Adorno, Ellacuria, Johnson, Goizueta, Dionysius, John of the Cross, and various biblical authors.

Attributes: MTMC, MTMH.

THEO 6740. Catholic Social Thought and Praxis. (3 Credits)

This course will examine Catholic social thought as found in the social encyclicals, emphasizing their theological contexts, social scientific constructs, historical background, and philosophical presuppositions.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, MTMC, MTMH, PSJH, SOIN.

THEO 6743. On Race and Coloniality: Decolonial Methods in Theological Reflection. (3 Credits)

This course is a thematic transdisciplinary survey of philosophical, theoretical, and theological approaches to the constructs of race, the secular, the colony, the plantation, and racial slavery. The primary aim is to place insights from black studies, religious studies, decolonial theory, and philosophies of race into productive conversation with fundamental theological reflection. This primary aim accordingly is an invitation for students to reflect upon the constructs above and how they are built out of incongruous contacts and exchanges amid European, Amerindian, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and African worldviews that precede and follow what is often referred to as “the long 16th century.” Particular attention will be given to how the history and critical study of racial slavery and colonization challenge Christian theological imaginings of personhood, mission, liberation, theosis, and salvation history.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 6745. Sociology of Religion. (3 Credits)

In this advanced seminar, students will analyze original texts of the classic theorists of religion—including Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Clifford Geertz, Peter Berger, Mircea Eliade, Mary Douglas, and Robert Bellah. Topics will include secularization theory, theodicy, ritual, symbolism, religious evolution, and the religious roots of social change. Our investigation of religion in the contemporary world will lead us to investigate religious congregations and phenomena, including civil religion, generational change, popular religiosity, and spirituality.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, CETH, MTMC.

THEO 6757. The Interplay of Ethnography and Scripture in Religion/Theology. (3 Credits)

When theologians conduct ethnography, do they become anthropologists? This course takes it as a starting point that the answer is “not exactly,” and explores the differing theoretical and practical insights that emerge when theology and religious studies scholars try to understand what it really means to animate sacred, over-determined texts in contemporary contexts.

Attributes: MTMH, MTRB.

THEO 6760. Islam, Christianity, Liberalism. (3 Credits)

“The Clash of Civilizations,” a theory that has gained some currency in the last two decades, broadly holds that the fault line of conflict in the world today is between “Islam” and some conception of “Christendom.” Several recent debates, however, around, for example, women’s proper role in society, LGBTQ+ issues, and the rights and responsibilities of free speech, suggest that insofar as the world is ideologically bifurcated, it is between “the traditional values of Islam/Christianity/Judaism'' and “liberalism,” broadly defined. This class probes questions like: Is it fair to identify liberalism with Christianity, or Christian-majority countries and societies, as many Islamic traditionalists do? Is it fair to assume that traditional Islam does not hold any of the values we would associate with liberalism? What is liberalism, exactly? Is it an unambiguous social good? What are the complaints of its opponents? And what does all of this mean for religious traditions in the 21st century? These questions will be of interest to students of both the ancient and modern world.

Attributes: MTMC, MTMH, MTRB.

THEO 7222. New Perspectives on Paul. (3 Credits)

This course will examine contemporary interpretations of Paul from the post-World War II period to the present. Topics will include the so-called "New Perspective" and recent engagements with Paul in continental philosophy.

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 7731. Religion and Revolution. (3 Credits)

Using El Salavador (1975-1995) as a case study, the course will examine theological and socio-political questions that emerge when believers engage in revolutions. Primary focus on theological figures and themes such as Oscar Romero, Jean Donovan, Ignacio Ellacuria, comunidades de base, the preferential option for the poor, and Christology, will be supplemented with interdisciplinary reflection on critical theory (Marx et al.), postidealist epistemology (Zubiri), and postcolonial identity (Bhabha).

Attribute: MTMC.

THEO 7736. Bioethics. (3 Credits)

This course attempts to put the Roman Catholic and broadly Christian bioethical traditions in conversation with their secular interlocutors -- toward the end of examining whether or not these traditions have a place in public bioethical discourse and what that contribution might look like. Among the issues to be examined are distribution of healthcare resources, reproductive and other biotechnologies, the moral status of 'the other' in bioethics, and withdrawal/ refusal of medical treatment.

Attributes: CEED, CEMT, HECH, MTMC, PSEV.

THEO 7738. Animal Theology and Ethics. (3 Credits)

A study of the theological, philosophical, and moral status of non-human animals—particularly in the context of a Western throwaway culture.

THEO 7742. Shari'ah: Islamic Law. (3 Credits)

This course is a comprehensive introduction to shari'ah—commonly translated into English as “Islamic law.” We will cover the history of the development of Islamic law (particularly in the Sunni tradition, with some attention to the Shi'i); understand usūl al-fiqh—the principles of jurisprudence, or the rules that govern how to derive legal rulings; the spread of Islamic legal jurisdictions via the spread of Islamic empires; and the state of shari’ah today in post-modernity/post-coloniality, including debates around shari’ah in the United States.

Attributes: MTMC, MTRB.

THEO 8998. IUDC Consortium Tutorial: Advanced Syriac Readings. (3 Credits)

This course is an independent study/tutorial for IUDC Consortium students from member schools, and offers an exploration of linguistic and theological aspects of Syriac writings from Late Antiquity.

THEO 8999. Independent Study. (0 to 4 Credits)

Independent Study.

THEO 9000. Professional Development Seminar. (0 Credits)

The seminar introduces advanced doctoral students to the job search process, provides help in compiling a strong application dossier, prepares students for interviews and job talks, advises students about negotiating offers, and assists students in strategizing their career paths within and beyond the academy. In addition to a number of seminar meetings, students will receive individualized attention, help editing their application materials, and practice with interviews and job talks.

THEO 9999. Dissertation Direction. (1 Credit)

THEO MTNC. Maintenance-Theology. (0 Credits)