Theology

The discipline of theology explores the big questions: What does it mean to be human? How shall we live? What does it mean to believe in (or reject) the existence of God? Why are there so many religions? Christian theology tackles these questions by engaging a variety of disciplines, including history, philosophy, and literary studies. It works critically and appreciatively to discover, interpret, and understand the evolving beliefs and practices of Christianity. In light of Fordham’s Jesuit heritage and Catholic identity, the department focuses on the rich diversity within the Catholic tradition. Coursework emphasizes the mutual influence of faith and culture historically and in the present. New York City provides a valuable resource, especially for engaging in dialogue with other faith traditions of the world. Located in the poorest U.S. congressional district (Fordham’s Bronx campus) and bordering census tracts of both the highest and lowest income levels in Manhattan (at Lincoln Center), our locations in New York City invite faculty and students to repeatedly make the connections between the world’s religious and moral teachings and the realities of social injustice.

Majoring in theology provides an excellent liberal arts education. Theology majors learn the crucial skills of thinking critically and analytically, writing persuasively, communicating effectively, and working with others cooperatively. They learn how to interpret classic and contemporary texts, to understand ritual, to analyze and evaluate moral norms, and to explore patterns of authority in the tradition and in the cultures it inhabits. Electives allow students to shape the major in light of their own interests.

The department offers a variety of activities each semester, including guest speakers, a movie series, musical events, study trips, informal gatherings with faculty, retreats, and museum visits. All theology majors and minors are invited to attend regular seminars at which faculty and graduate students present their current work

The department also has a chapter of Theta Alpha Kappa, the national honor society for religious studies and theology.

Accelerated Master’s Program

The accelerated M.A. program in theology allows theology majors presently enrolled in Fordham College at Rose Hill and Fordham College at Lincoln Center to attain both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in theology in five years. Graduate courses begin in the student’s senior year, providing them with advanced training and enriching the undergraduate experience. An additional year of study permits the student to complete all of the theology department’s requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. For further information, contact an associate chair.

Program Activities

The department offers a variety of activities each semester, including guest speakers, a movie series, musical events, study trips, informal gatherings with faculty, retreats, and museum visits. All theology majors and minors are invited to attend the monthly faculty seminar at which faculty present their current work.

For more information

Visit the Theology department web page 

The study of theology at Fordham provides an intellectually sophisticated engagement with the Christian tradition. All first years in Fordham College and the Gabelli School of Business take THEO 1000 Faith and Critical Reason, which introduces students to the academic study of religion as well as the intellectual foundations of theological questions past and present. All sophomores and juniors take one core theology course numbered THEO 3000-3799 with the attribute “Sacred Texts and Traditions,” which introduces students to the historical-critical study of the scriptures or the classical texts of one or more religious traditions. The theology department offers courses that fulfill American Pluralism, Global Studies, Eloquentia Perfecta 3, Interdisciplinary Capstone, and Values Seminar (Eloquentia Perfecta 4) requirements.

Our Courses

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)

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.

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.

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 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 as migration literature, exploring its engagement with the themes of immigration, emigration, exile, multilingualism, diaspora, alien, lawful belonging and un-belonging, refugee, empire, return migration, generational conflict, and identity negotiation. In addition to pluralistic ancient Mediterranean contexts that produced the Bible and ancient Jewish and Christian experiences of migration, this course will explore modern responses to and engagements with the Bible by migrant communities across the globe in the formation and reformation of global Christianity. Special attention will be given to topics in racial and ethnic minority migrant communities in America—such as receptions of the Bible in contesting immigration and building and maintaining contemporary migrant faith communities. 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, 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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

Attribute: 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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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

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.

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 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)

A course to study the earth as a matter of ethical and religious concern. Starting with biblical texts and classical doctrines, students will analyze the resources of the Jewish/Christian traditions that value the natural world. 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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 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 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.

Textual Traditions: Hebrew Bible/Old Testament or New Testament Courses

Courses in this group have the STCJ attribute.

Course Title Credits
THEO 3100Introduction to Old Testament / Tanakh3
THEO 3102Book of Genesis3
THEO 3105The Torah3
THEO 3120The Prophets3
THEO 3130Bible as Migration Literature: Then and Now4
THEO 3200Introduction to New Testament3
THEO 3207The First Three Gospels3
THEO 3212Gospel of John3
THEO 3345The Book of Revelation3
THEO 3826Women in the Bible4

Textual Traditions other Than Christianity Courses

Courses in this group have the STSN attribute.

Course Title Credits
THEO 3711Sacred Texts of the Middle East3
THEO 3713Classic Jewish Texts3
THEO 3715Classic Islamic Texts3
THEO 3720Hindu Literature and Ethics3
THEO 3723Tibetan Religion: Visionary Experience3
THEO 3724Classic Buddhist Texts3
THEO 3725Buddhism in America: A Multimedia Investigation3
THEO 3728Buddhist Meditation3
THEO 3731Japanese Religions: Texts and Arts3
THEO 3733Chinese Religions3
THEO 3876Muslims in America4
THEO 3883Medicine and Healing in Islam4
THEO 3884Sufism: Islam's Mystical Tradition3
THEO 3885Women, Gender, and Islam3

History, Culture, and Society Courses

Courses in this group have the THHC attribute.

Course Title Credits
AFAM 4148Race, Religion, and Politics: Catholic and Civil Rights4
AFAM 4192Race and Religion in the Transatlantic World4
AMCS 4950Christianity and Gender/Sexual Diversity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives4
CLAS 4051Ancient Greece: Classical Study Tour4
HIST 3817Technology and the Changing Papacy4
HIST 5460Jesuits and Globalization4
MEST 3620Islam in America4
MVST 4301Jews and Christians in Antiquity4
POSC 4036Human Nature After Darwin4
THEO 3310Early Christian Writings3
THEO 3314St. Augustine of Hippo3
THEO 3316Byzantine Christianity3
THEO 3317Women of the Christian East3
THEO 3320Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther3
THEO 3330Medieval Theology Texts3
THEO 3332Christians, Muslims, Jews in the Medieval Period3
THEO 3340Christian Mystical Texts3
THEO 3350Apocalyptic Literature: Ancient & Modern3
THEO 3360Reformation Texts3
THEO 3361Protestant Texts3
THEO 3371The American Transcendentalists: Spirituality Without Religion3
THEO 3375American Religious Texts and Traditions3
THEO 3376Spirituals, the Blues, and African-American Christianity3
THEO 3380US Latinx Spiritualities3
THEO 3383Latin American Liberation Theologies3
THEO 3390Church in Controversy3
THEO 3542Catholic Social Teaching3
THEO 3546The Bible and Social Justice3
THEO 3610Christ in World Cultures3
THEO 3611Scripture and the Struggle for Racial Justice3
THEO 3620Great Christian Hymns3
THEO 3655The Journey of Faith: Autobiography as Sacred Text3
THEO 3670Theology and Contemporary Science4
THEO 3711Sacred Texts of the Middle East3
THEO 3713Classic Jewish Texts3
THEO 3715Classic Islamic Texts3
THEO 3720Hindu Literature and Ethics3
THEO 3723Tibetan Religion: Visionary Experience3
THEO 3724Classic Buddhist Texts3
THEO 3725Buddhism in America: A Multimedia Investigation3
THEO 3728Buddhist Meditation3
THEO 3731Japanese Religions: Texts and Arts3
THEO 3733Chinese Religions3
THEO 3785Spiritual Exercises and Culture3
THEO 3822The Bible in Cultural Conflict4
THEO 3827Bible and Human Sexuality4
THEO 3832Christian Thought and Practice I4
THEO 3833Christian Thought and Practice II4
THEO 3839Theologies of America4
THEO 3852LGBTQ Arts and Spirituality4
THEO 3854Ignatian Spirituality3
THEO 3874Religion in America4
THEO 3876Muslims in America4
THEO 3882Comparative Mysticism3
THEO 3883Medicine and Healing in Islam4
THEO 3884Sufism: Islam's Mystical Tradition3
THEO 3885Women, Gender, and Islam3
THEO 3960Religion and Race in America4
THEO 3961Religion, Sex, and Culture in America Since 17004
THEO 3970Catholics in America4
THEO 3993Wartime Religion in U.S. History4
THEO 4008Religion and Ecology4
THEO 4009Medieval Jerusalem4
THEO 4010Death and Dying4
THEO 4027The Ethics of Life4
THEO 4028Religion & Bioethics4
THEO 4036Human Nature After Darwin4
THEO 4037Nature in Historical and Ethical Perspective4
THEO 4040Home, Away, and In-Between4
THEO 4050On Time and Its Value4
THEO 4105Religion, Gender, and Sexuality4
THEO 4110Muslim, Jewish, and Christian Feminist Theologies: Discourses of Difference4
THEO 4301Jews and Christians in Antiquity4
THEO 4334Envisioning Enlightenment: Buddhist Theories of Liberation4
THEO 4351Modern Christian Thought & Practice4
THEO 4355Histories and Cultures of American Evangelicalism4
THEO 4371Islam in Modern Egypt4
THEO 4420Early Christian Art in Context4
THEO 4430Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Early Christianity4
THEO 4520Animals, Angels, and Aliens: Beyond the Human in Christian Thought3
THEO 4545Bath Cultures and Bathing Rituals From Antiquity to Brooklyn4
THEO 4610Malcolm, Martin, Baldwin, and the Church4
THEO 4620Oscar Romero: Faith and Politics in El Salvador4
THEO 4950Christianity and Gender/Sexual Diversity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives4

Ancient/Medieval Historical Period Courses

Courses in this group have the THAM attribute.

Course Title Credits
CLAS 4051Ancient Greece: Classical Study Tour4
MVST 4301Jews and Christians in Antiquity4
THEO 3250Jesus in History and Faith3
THEO 3310Early Christian Writings3
THEO 3314St. Augustine of Hippo3
THEO 3316Byzantine Christianity3
THEO 3317Women of the Christian East3
THEO 3320Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther3
THEO 3330Medieval Theology Texts3
THEO 3332Christians, Muslims, Jews in the Medieval Period3
THEO 3340Christian Mystical Texts3
THEO 3350Apocalyptic Literature: Ancient & Modern3
THEO 3546The Bible and Social Justice3
THEO 3827Bible and Human Sexuality4
THEO 3849Eschatology4
THEO 3882Comparative Mysticism3
THEO 4009Medieval Jerusalem4
THEO 4011The New Testament and Moral Choices4
THEO 4037Nature in Historical and Ethical Perspective4
THEO 4050On Time and Its Value4
THEO 4301Jews and Christians in Antiquity4
THEO 4420Early Christian Art in Context4
THEO 4430Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Early Christianity4
THEO 4545Bath Cultures and Bathing Rituals From Antiquity to Brooklyn4

Courses in Other Areas

The following courses offered outside the department have the THEO attribute and count as electives toward the Theology Religious Studies major and minor:

Course Title Credits
AFAM 3115Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X4
AFAM 3120Black Religion and Black Politics4
AFAM 4148Race, Religion, and Politics: Catholic and Civil Rights4
AFAM 4192Race and Religion in the Transatlantic World4
AMCS 3160American Music and Catholic Imagination4
ANTH 3110Ancient Cultures of the Bible4
CEED 3856Introduction to Bioethics4
CLAS 4051Ancient Greece: Classical Study Tour4
COMC 4348Religion, Theology, and New Media4
ENGL 3002Queer Iconoclasts: Sexuality, Religion, Race4
GREK 1501Intermediate Greek I3
HIST 5952Research Seminar: African American Urban History4
HPLC 2811Honors Sacred Texts3
MEST 3620Islam in America4
MLAL 3085The Russian Icon in Literature, Theology, Avant Garde Art, Film, Music, Museums and Politics4
MVST 4010Medieval Franciscans and the Dream of a Just Economy4
PHIL 3425Philosophy and the Jesuit Tradition4
PHIL 3664Contemporary Thomism4
SOCI 4052An Ethics of Modern Selfhood: The Pursuit of Authenticity4