Sep 27, 2024  
2018-2019 Scripps Catalog 
    
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2018-2019 Scripps Catalog THIS IS AN ARCHIVED CATALOG. LINKS MAY NO LONGER BE ACTIVE AND CONTENT MAY BE OUT OF DATE!

Course Descriptions

Course descriptions are provided for course offerings at Scripps College and courses available as part of joint or cooperative programs in which Scripps participates. For those courses that may appear under more than one discipline or department, the full course description appears under the discipline or department sponsoring the course and cross-reference is made under the associated discipline or department. Numbers followed by, for example, “AA,” “AF,” or “CH,” indicate courses sponsored by The Claremont Colleges as part of joint programs, i.e., Asian American Studies, Africana Studies, and Chicanx-Latinx Studies.

Please refer to the Schedule of Courses on the Scripps Portal published each semester by the Registrar’s Office for real-time information on course offerings.

All courses are 1.0 credit unless otherwise stated.
 

Psychology
  

  • PSYC 190 PZ - History and Systems in Psychology

    See the Pitzer College Catalog for a description of this course.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • PSYC 191 SC - Senior Thesis

    Prerequisite(s): PSYC 103 , PSYC 104 , PSYC 104L .
    Course Credit: 1.0
    Offered: Fall


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • PSYC 193 PZ - Health Disparities Seminar

    See the Pitzer College Catalog for a description of this course.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • PSYC 193 SC - Senior Thesis: Spring

    Open to students who are approved by the faculty to complete a thesis project requiring 2 semesters.  Generally reserved for students whose projects require independent data collection and/or quantitative analysis.  Students must successfully complete  PSYC 191 SC - Senior Thesis  in the fall term to be eligible for PSYC193 SC.

    Course Credit: 1.0
    Offered: Annually


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • PSYC 194 PZ - Seminar in Social Psychology

    See the Pitzer College Catalog for a description of this course.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • PSYC 195 SC - Internship in Psychology

    This course will provide the student with supervised experience in psychology via placement in clinical or educational settings in the community. Enrollment by application only. 

    Prerequisite(s): PSYC 052 .
    Course Credit: 1.0
    Offered: Annually


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • PSYC 197C SC - Developmental Psychology Practicum

    The study of human development has become increasingly central to a wide range of important issues affecting infants, young children and adolescents, as well as the changing structure of the American family and public policy on children and education. This combined lecture and laboratory course will examine the role of language, culture, technology, and education in development. Students will participate in a supervised afterschool setting at a field site involving children in the local community.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • PSYC 199 SC - Independent Study in Psychology: Reading and Research

    Course Credit: 1.0 or .50
    Offered: Annually


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • PSYC 199 PZ - Seminar in Developmental Psychology: Mating: Perspectives from Developmental, Genetic, and Evolutionary Psychology

    See the Pitzer College Catalog for a description of this course.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.

Public Policy Analysis
  

  • PPA 001 PO - Introduction to Public Policy Analysis

    See the Pomona College Catalog for a description of this course.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.

Religion
  

  • REL 444IS CG - Environmental Ethics and Mystical Traditions in Islam

    See Claremont Graduate University catalog for details.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • REL 450IS CG - Introduction to Islamic Studies

    See Claremont Graduate University catalog for details.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • REL 458IS CG - Feminism and Qur’anic Studies

    See Claremont Graduate University catalog for details.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • REL 465IS CG - Classical Arabic Literature and the Quar’an

    See Claremont Graduate University catalog for details.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.

Religious Studies
  

  • REL 310 CG - Introduction to the History of Judaism and Jewish Thought

    See Claremont Graduate University catalog for details.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • REL 321 CG - Old Testament Theology

    See Claremont Graduate University catalog for details.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • REL 410 CG - The Qur’an and Its Interpreters

    See Claremont Graduate University catalog for details.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • REL 436 CG - Islamic Law and Legal Theory

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • REL 448 CG - Archaeology of the Bible

    See Claremont Graduate University catalog for details.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • REL 453 CG - Women in Genesis

    See Claremont Graduate University catalog for details.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 002 PO - Ideas of Love

    We read texts from the Western canon and compare their presentations of love.  Questions that might be raised include:  How is love presented differently in different eras, and why?  Does love mean something different in philosophical texts and theological texts?  And how have ideas of love supported conceptions of virtue, ethics, power, and meaning?  Course texts include works by Plato, Augustine, Shakespeare, and Orwell.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 010 CM - Introduction to South Asian Religious Traditions

    Historical study of major South Asian religious traditions, including Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Islam, and Sikhism. Comparative methodology used to examine significant themes in each religious tradition. HRT I.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 012 CM - Devotional Worlds of South Asia

    This course introduces three major South Asian religious traditions-Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism-focusing on devotional movements and practices within each. We will consider medieval-to-modern South Asia as a site of rich literary and religious dialogue and exchange, and devotional expressions and practices (poetic, musical, visual, performative, meditative) as products of both the distinct traditions that claim them and the diverse religious landscapes in which they take place. Topics include the esoteric or “mystical”; place and community; saints and gurus; and reform, debate and dissent.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 015 CM - Myth and Religion

    Interrogates the category of myth, and how it has been understood in ancient and contemporary societies. Offers a historical survey of various types of myths and the academic understandings of them. Models of understanding applied to myths from ancient Babylonian, Greek, Australian, Indian, and Native American traditions.HRT II.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 016 PO - The Life Story of the Buddha

    Studies the making of religious biography through the example of the historical Buddha Sakyamuni. Critically examines an array of textual and visual genres consisting of canonical and non-canonical Buddhist texts, visual manifestations, ritual enactments, and film representations. These multiple perspectives will reveal the significance of the life/lives of the Buddha in the daily religious life of Buddhist communities. HRT I.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 020 PO - Introduction to the Hebrew Bible

    This course introduces the diverse texts that make up the Hebrew Bible/Christian Old Testament. Students will explore the texts through careful reading and critical analysis, using a variety of interpretive strategies, including historical, literary, and ideological critical analyses. Students will be asked to engage critically with the biblical text, with their own interpretations of the texts, as well as with scholarly works about the Hebrew Bible.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  
  

  • RLST 022 CM - Introduction to Western Religious Traditions

    Drawing on historical and contemporary sources, this course is a study of major Western traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Comparative methodology used to examine significant themes and issues in each religious tradition.HRT II, MES.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 037 CM - History of World Christianity

    This course explores the history of Christianity from Jesus to the present in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Focus on key debates and conflicts over the canon of Scripture, orthodoxy vs. heresy, the papacy, church-state conflicts, the crusades, Christian-Muslim conflicts, Christian-Muslim-Jewish debates, the Protestant Reformation, feminism, liberalism, fundamentalism, evangelicalism and Pentecostalism, liberation theology, and key struggles over missions, colonialism, and indigenization.HRT II.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 040 PO - Religious Ethics

    What is ethics? Is it the study of the best way to live, or of how best to serve others? Are these things the same or different? To whom and for whom am I responsible? Where do these responsibilities come from? What do the various religious traditions of the world have to say about these questions? To what extent do they lay claim to the question of ethics, a question on which the philosophical traditions also have a lot to say? Are such claims legitimate? Do religious traditions generally say the same thing about morality, or do they differ on ethical fundamentals? In this course we begin to think about these difficult questions, through a careful study of selected texts. PRT.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 041 CM - Morality and Religion

    Introduction to moral theory, i.e., reasoning about moral obligation and the possibility of its justification, in which the arguments of selected Jewish and Christian religious ethicists are emphasized. Attention given to the questions of whether and how moral obligation is religious. PRT.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 042 PO - The Art of Living

    Considers the possibility of a human life itself as a religious practice of aesthetic creativity. By tracking exemplars in the within the Western tradition in both literature and theory, investigates the potential for living such a life successfully, the discipline required to do so and the hazards that it faces. PRT.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 043 CM - Introduction to Religious Thought

    A study of such concepts as creation, evil, and the nature of God in recent and contemporary monotheistic traditions. HRT II, PRT.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 045 CM - Sikhism

    Sikhism arose in North India in the 15th century, and has since become a global religion with approximately 30 million adherents. This course will consider the historical context of Sikhism’s emergence and development in the Punjabi homeland; Sikh theology, ritual, and practice; and the Sikh diaspora in the U.S. and elsewhere. Within these areas of inquiry we will also engage with key themes from the tradition, including scripture and authority; martyrdom and violence; identity (from gender and sexuality to caste, class, and the turban); and politics (including Partition, the Khalistan movement, 1984, and Sikhs in post-9/11 America). We will watch several films and will visit a local Gurudwara (a Sikh place of worship).

     

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 048 PO - Nourishing Life

    “Nourishing Life” translates yangshen, a phrase early Chinese thinkers coined in their debates on how to best care for oneself. The techniques, spanning from dietary and hygiene observances, physical exercises, alchemy, to moral conduct and mental training, often seek to harmonize body and mind, as well as the cosmos. The arts of nourishing life are also elaborated in later Buddhist, Confucian, and Daoist literature, as well as in East Asian writings. Through close readings of selected primary sources in English translation (e.g. Mencius, Zhuangzi, Dogen’s “Instruction to the Cook,” and a Tibetan tantric meditation manual), we will analyze the different recipes proposed by East Asian thinkers for prolonging life and attaining health, and the different biological, ethical, philosophical, psychological, and at times spiritual assumptions undergirding their concepts of health and wellbeing. HRT I.

     

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 049 PO - Buddhist Meditation Techniques and Cultures Across Asia

    This course offers an in-depth introduction to cross-cultural practices of Buddhist meditation in Asia. It will look at calm-insight and mindfulness practices in Southeast Asia, contemplative and visualization techniques in China, Zen communities of East Asia, mandala visualization in Tibet, and finally, the global “mindfulness” of socially engaged Buddhists. The course will include one weekly lab practicum where students meditate under the instructor’s supervision. HRT I.

     

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 055 CM - Jewish Art and Identity

    The course examines history of Judaism through the lens of its visual culture, particularly art and architecture. Media such as Jewish sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, ceremonial objects, synagogues, and monuments have often been employed to express central beliefs and to affirm Jewish identity, particularly as minorities interacting with and confronting dominant societies. HRT II.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 057 CM - Islamic Empire and Political Philosophy

    This course is an introduction to Islamic political thought, with special attention paid to the contributions of the Fatimid Empire (909-1171).  The Fatimids, who controlled a large portion of the Mediterranean, brought about a number of remarkable achievements under their rule:  the founding of Cairo; unprecedented ritual pageantry surrounding the leader, the caliph-imam; and major advancements in theology, arts, and sciences.  In this course we will think through major issues in the way political philosophy helped to guide the empire—issues such as the role of apocalypticism as a revolutionary theology; the place of secrecy in governing; and how religious symbolism could explain declines in political power.  As the Fatimids were Shia, we will also cover various similarities and differences between Sunni and Shia political philosophies.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 058 CM - The End of the World As We Know It

    Apocalypticism remains one of the most potent and enduring dimensions of human religiosity. Apocalyptic symbolism has been implicated in the rise and renewal of major religious traditions, revolutions (of both “secular” and “religious” varieties), and major historical events. The events of the apocalypse have also provided material for some of the most creative expressions of artistic, literary, and cultural phenomena throughout human history. This course explores some of the ways in which the apocalyptic is expressed across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and beyond while also addressing key theoretical concerns in apocalyptic studies.
     

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 059 CM - Dreams, Visions, and the Afterworld in Islamic Traditions

    Belief in the unseen and belief in the afterworld became accepted widely as two major tenets of Islamic theology. How Muslims envisioned and continue to envision the hidden is the subject of this course. We will examine a broad range of materials from a wide range of geographic areas and time periods—from artistic depictions to Sufi manuals, from messianic movements to Egyptian interpretations of Freud—to address paradigms of ‘seeing’ in these traditions. In our explorations, we will, too, trace how these visions relate to events on the plane of history. HRT II.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 060 SC - Feminist Interpretations of the Bible

    Sampling from various literary families of the Bible, this course will carry out feminist analysis of biblical texts and explore their feminist interpretations and their political motivations. Through the exploration of different feminist perspectives, methods, contexts and social locations, the course will underline how these various factors shape feminist interpretations of the Bible. CWS, HRT II.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 061 SC - New Testament and Christian Origins

    Students will examine the New Testament and other Christian literature of the first and second centuries in the context of the history, culture, religion, and politics of the late ancient Mediterranean. The course will emphasize analytical reading, the varieties of early Christian expression and experience, and key scholarly and theoretical issues. HRT II, MES. 

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 064 CM - Religion in Motion

    How does religion change across time and space? This course examines the ways in which Islamic concepts, symbols, and discourses change across different geographies and time periods. In our explorations, we are particularly interested in (1) cataloging the vast diversity of Islamic expressions in different times and places, particularly in South and Southeast Asia; (2) exploring how actors in these different regions and eras may make claims about ‘authentic’ Islam; and (3) exploring how language associated with these authoritative claims often presents Islam as unchanging. This course assumes no previous knowledge of Islam.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 065 CM - Contemporary Issues in the Study of Islam

    Many contemporary scholars of Islamic Studies lament that the objective study of Islam has been and continues to be hampered by both religious and political forces. Through an examination of the history of the study of Islam in the European and North American academies this course will assess the merit of this claim while isolating what those forces might be. We will then turn to three specific areas of contemporary scholarship—violence, gender, and modernity—to situate scholarly arguments, ascertain how these scholars are making their arguments, and think through what they might be arguing against. We will also examine materials advocating for a reform of Islamic Studies, envisioning what such a shift in disciplinary boundaries might look like. 


     

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 076 SC - The History and Anthropology of Witchcraft

    A cross-cultural and trans-historical exploration of the phenomenon of witchcraft (the use of magical means to harm or help others) with a special focus on indigenous religions, folk religions, and contemporary Wicca. Topics covered will include theories of how magic works and fits into larger religions and cultural systems; the role that witchcraft accusations have played historically, especially in 16th and 17th century Europe; and why some contemporary practitioners of magic identify themselves as “witches.”

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 078 SC - Matriarchal and Gynocratic Societies

    An exploration of matriarchal, woman-centered, and/or goddess-worshipping societies historically and cross-culturally, both real and imagined, and an extended discussion of what is at stake in exploring, studying, or inventing such societies. This course will include readings from historians, philosophers, theologians, novelists, economists, archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians of religion, among others

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 080 PO - The Holy Fool: The Comic, the Ugly, and Divine Madness

    Themes surrounding the ridiculous, the repulsive, and the revolutionary will be considered in the light of conceptual hallmarks of divine madness. As socio-political strategies that signal and figure forms of decay and death, both comedy and ugliness are the skilled means we will examine through which holy fool constantly reintroduces us to the contingencies and discrepancies of the world. PRT.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 081 SC - Precolonial African Christian Spiritualities

    There is a widespread and unfortunate perception that African Christianity is a relatively modern phenomenon, that African literature began largely in the twentieth century and only as a response to European colonization, and that African cultures of the last two millenia have had little appreciable impact on the flow of human history. This course will upset these perceptions by drawing on an immense corpus of African Christian writings penned between the second and seventeenth centuries on spirituality, the body, and ritual traditions that were written as much in native African languages (e.g., Coptic, Ge’ez, Old Nubian, Amharic)as they were in foreign lanugages (e.g., Greek and Latin), and that transformed the contours of Christianity in ways still evident today. This course is designed to be appropriate for first-year students and will offer a basic introduction to critical methods in religious studies, including post-/decolonial studies, queer theory, and discourse analysis.

    Course Credit: 1.0
    Offered: Occasionally


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 082 CM - African-American Religions

    This course offers an introduction to African American religions.  The course moves chronologically, examining African religions in the Americas, cultural continuities between African and African American religions, slave religion, and the development of independent African American churches.  We will examine the rise of African-American new religious movements such as Father Divine and the Nation of Islam, and the religious dimensions of the Civil Rights Movement.  Moving through African-American religious history, we will consider topics such as slave resistance, gender and race, and emigration to Africa.  HRT II,

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 084 CM - Religion, Race, and the Civil Rights Movement

    This course examines the influence of religion on white supremacy and the civil rights movement in the United States from the 1950s through the 1970s. In particular it explores how religious ideologies, symbols, texts, and narratives were incorporated and employed as strategies and mechanisms for social change in the African American, Mexican American/Chicano, and American Indian (AIM) civil rights struggles. It will focus on how key leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, César Chávez, Ralph Abernathy, Reies López Tijerina, Dolores Huerta, Dennis Banks, and others drew on their religious ideologies, symbols, texts, and counter-narratives in their struggles against white supremacy, segregation, political disenfranchisement, and for civil rights, and social justics. HRT II, PRT.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 085 SC - Conquered Colonized Christianity

    This course explores the history of conquered and colonized Christianities in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and America between the first and twentieth century through approaches that draw on gender, cultural, and post-/decolonial theory. The course engages Christian identity formation when articulated from political, ethno-racial, religious, or ideological vulnerability and raises the recurrent question: is Christianity in power authentic Christianity? Suitable for first-years.

    Course Credit: 1.0
    Offered: Occasionally


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 087 CM - Israel: Zionism and the Jewish State

    The course surveys the history of the state of Israel, from its ideological beginnings in Jewish tradition and the modern Zionist movement to contemporary religious, political, and social issues.  Two areas receive focused attention.  The first examines the contrasting and sometimes conflicting Zionist ideologies and the legacy of these ideas as they express themselves in Israel from 1948 to the present.  The second focus comes in understanding the ways in which Israel has defined itself as a Jewish state, the role of religion in Israeli politics, law, and society, and the challenges to this identity, including the multiple forms of Jewish identity represented in Israel (e.g., secular, Haredi, Mizrahi), and the presence of large numbers of non-Jewish, Arab/Palestinian, citizens.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 088 PO - Prophets, Kings, and Politics in the Hebrew Bible

    This course will focus upon the narrative portrayal of the Israelite monarchy and its critics in the Hebrew Bible. We will ask how these narratives comment on the development, institutionalization and critique of political formations and social relations in the time of their writing. The course will address biblical texts in dialogue with modern political thought, psychoanalysis, feminism, and social psychology. (HRT II, MES)

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 089 CM - Religion, Race, and Economic Inequality

    Legend tells us that the blues were born at a Southern Crossroads when a young black American sold his soul to the Devil to play the guitar. In fact, the “Crossroads” have represented opportunity, danger, and spiritual power across a variety of religious traditions in the Americas. And it is no coincidence that, as a physical space, crossroads have served as a natural locus for human exchange, both economic and cultural. This course explores the Crossroads as an entrée into the field of comparative religion and economy in the Americas. It examines contact points between European Christian and African diasporic religion in the U.S. and Brazil, while critically assessing how capitalism has shaped religious life across the hemisphere.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 090 SC - Early Christian Bodies

    In this course we will explore physical religious behavior, understandings of the human body, and interpretations of bodily experience among early Christian men and women. The course will emphasize critical analysis of primary sources, secondary scholarship, and contemporary theoretical approaches concerning gender, sexuality, martyrdom, pilgrimage, asceticism, virginity, fasting, and monasticism. HRT II, MES.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 091 SC - Heretics, Deviants, and “Others” in Early Christianity

    How did the concepts of “correct” belief and behavior, as well as “heresy” and “deviance,” develop and exert authority out of the diversity in early Christianity? This course will examine the evidence for several debates and notorious dissenters. Topics include traditional and revisionist views of the nature of “orthodoxy” and “heresy,” social theory as a tool for interpreting ancient sources, the rhetorical “construction” of otherness, and the use of violence by ecclesiastical and civil authorities.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 092 SC - Introductioin to Early Christianity

    Through study of ancient texts and monuments, this course explores the diverse forms of Christianity that arose in the first six centuries CE. We will pay particular attention to political, cultural, and social expressions of early Christianity, including: martyrdom, asceticism, religious conflict (with Jews, pagans, and heretics), and political ideology. HRT II.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 093 SC - Early Christianity and/as Theory

    Why do scholars of early Christianity so often turn to theories developed in modern contexts, and why do modern theorists so often use ancient Christianity as a testing ground? We will examine this cross-fascination in the realms of sociology, anthropology, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism, postcolonialism and queer theory. HRT II.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 094 SC - Feminist Histories of Early Christianity

    Since the 1960s, feminist critical theory has challenged dominant narratives of Western history. This course explores feminist studies of early Christianity (ca. 100-700) as one historical arena that continues to be transformed by new theoretical modes: from recovery/”Herstory” to queer theory, feminist histories illuminate our ancient pasts and our modern desires.

    Course Credit: 1.0
    Offered: Every other year


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 095 SC - Jesus, Paul, and Early Christian Sexualities

    Jesus, Paul, and Early Christian Sexualities. This course investigates a constellation of early Christian sexualities and their relation to Jesus and Paul, arguably the most influential figures in the trajectory of the religion. We will examine a range of texts, beginning with early Christian writings about Jesus and Paul’s own writings, up to the tenth century and written in an impressive array of languages (available in English translation), including Greek, Latin, Coptic, Arabic, and Syriac. Our outlook will be primarily driven by critical-theoretical methods for the study of religion, including feminism, queer theory, post-/decolonial critique, disability studies, and discourse analysis and will have one eye firmly fixed on how Jesus and Paul as figures and/or writers continue to influence society and sexuality today.

    Course Credit: 1.0
    Offered: Occasionally


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 096 SC - Eros & Sex Antiquity & Byzantium

    This course traces the relationship between eros and human sexuality from Greek antiquity (ca.600 BCE) through the middle Byzantine era (ca. CE 1100) primarily through a feminist and queer theoretical lens. The course will draw on material and visual culture and will include readings from philosophical, literary, and mystical sources that express queer divine-human and human-human relations and transgender identities.

    Course Credit: 1.0
    Offered: Occasionally


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 100 PO - Worlds of Buddhism

    An introduction to Buddhism as a critical element in the formation of South, Central, Southeast, and East Asian cultures. Thematic investigation emphasizing the public and objective dimensions of the Buddhist religion. Topics include hagiography, gender issues, soulcraft, statecraft, and the construction of sacred geography. HRT I.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 101A CM - Sanskrit and the Indian Epics

    The course will introduce the basics of Sanskrit grammar that will allow for translation of the classical language and an understanding the importance of Sanskrit as a sacred sound system. Students will apply their study of the language to a reading of the Māhabhārata, including extended sections of the Bhagavad Gita, and Rāmāyana. HRT I.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 101B CM - Sanskrit and the Indian Epics

    The course will introduce the basics of Sanskrit grammar that will allow for translation of the classical language and an understanding the importance of Sanskrit as a sacred sound system. Students will apply their study of the language to a reading of the Māhabhārata, including extended sections of the Bhagavad Gita, and Rāmāyana. HRT I.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 102 CM - Hinduism and South Asian Culture

    Explores the main ideas, practices and cultural facets of Hinduism and Indian culture. Emphasis on the development of the major strands of Hinduism from the Vedas to the modern era. HRT I.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 103 PO - Religious Traditions of China

    Surveys vast range of religious beliefs and practices in Chinese historical context. Examines the myriad worlds of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism, and meets with ghosts, ancestors, ancient oracle bones, gods, demons, Buddhas, imperial politics, social customs, and more, all entwined in what became the traditions of China. HRT I.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 104 PO - Religious Traditions of Japan

    Surveys the vast range of religious beliefs and practices in the Japanese historical context. Examines the myriad worlds of Buddhism, Confucianism, Shinto, and the so-called New Age Japanese religions, and meets with kami, demons, amulets, charms, mountain worship, the tea ceremony, imperial politics, the social customs, and more, all entwined in what became the traditions of Japan. HRT I.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 105 HM - Religions in American Culture (3)

    An exploration of American religious history from pre-colonial indigenous civilizations through the present, focusing on three related issues: diversity, toleration and pluralism. The course asks how religions have shaped or been shaped by encounters between immigrants, citizens, indigenous peoples, tourists, and, occasionally, government agents. In relation to these encounters, the course considers how groups and individuals have claimed territory, negotiated meaning, understood each other and created institutions as they met one another in the American landscape. Attention is also given to questions of power, translation and the changing definitions of religion itself. HRT II.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 106 PZ - Zen Buddhism

    An examination of Zen Buddhism, not as a mystical cult, but as a mainstream intellectual and cultural movement in China, Japan, and in the modern West. HRT I.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 107 PO - Tradition or Innovation? The Making of Modern Chinese Buddhism

    During China’s transition from imperial rule to modern state, traditional religions were challenged with the seemingly inevitable fate of being erased by modernizing and secularizing forces. To meet intellectual, social, and political challenges that included state persecution, Buddhist leaders poured their efforts into rearticulating Buddhism through a spectrum of approaches defined by two polarities: (1) conservatives who emphasized restoring Tradition and (2) progressives who favored modernization. We will look at the Buddhist adaptations to modernity, particularly the modern state, from the perspective of religious history, exploring how metaphors of “Tradition” and “Innovation” can be used toward the preservation and revitalization of religion. HRT I.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 108 PO - Buddhism and Society in Southeast Asia

    Buddhism and Society in Southeast Asia is a multidisciplinary study of Theravada Buddhism against the historical, political, social, and cultural backdrop of Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia with particular attention to Thailand and Sri Lanka. The course focuses around three themes: Buddhism as a factor in state building, political legitimation, and national integration; the inclusive and syncretic nature of popular Buddhist thought and practice; and representations of Buddhist modernism and reformism. The course includes material from the formative period of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia to contemporary times. HRT I.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 109 CM - Readings in the Hindu Tradition

    This is an advanced, seminar-style course designed for students who already have a background in the Hindu Tradition. Reading and discussion topics are changeable and selected in line with the students’ interests. The course aims to develop the students’ ability to read both primary Hindu texts and academic interpretations of such texts. Emphasis is also placed on writing critical essays.

    Prerequisite(s): RLST010 CM ,  RLST101A CM ,  RLST101B CM , or by permission.
    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 110 PO - Death, Dying, and the Afterlife in East Asian Religions

    This course will explore various ways East Asian religious traditions deal with death and the dead. We will examine how the Daoist, Buddhist, and folk traditions of East Asia historically and currently address the question of “What happens when we die?” We will look at different ritual practices surrounding death, dying, and the dead in their ongoing relationships with the living. We will also explore various descriptions of the terrain of the afterlife or postmortem world by critically engaging a variety of textual and visual records of China, Korea, and Japan. Some of the topics that will be discussed in the course include the nature of the self, the function of funerary rites, the geography of the afterlife, communication with the dead, and religious notions of salvation/liberation. By exploring a variety of narratives and practices regarding death and the afterlife, students will develop a rich and detailed picture of the relationship between the living and the dead in the East Asian religious landscape. HRT I.


     

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 111 CM - Rebels, Radicals, and Religions on the Margins

    Students will learn about religions on the margins and how religion served to differentiate some communities from the dominant culture. By examining religious radicals, this course demonstrates various responses from narrating a critical stance against the mainstream to more subtle ways of elevating radical elements as exemplary and positive contributions to larger society. This course will select several case studies from a variety of radicals in the early modern to the modern periods, such as the Anabaptists, Mormons, Davidians, Amish, Al-Qaeda, Sufis, Hasidic Jews, Aum Shinrikyo, Moonies, and Hare Krishna. CWS, HRT II.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 112 HM - Engaging Religion

    This advanced-level seminar uses case studies to explore what counts as religion in a variety of contexts: media, law, academia, economics, politics, etc. How do people recognize religion? What consequences are there for recognizing or denying the legitimacy of religious practices or beliefs? How is that legitimacy judged? How is it narrated? By approaching a few cases studies from multiple perspectives, students gain insight into how the lenses used to assess religion can enable, deepen or limit understanding. HRT II, PRT.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 113 HM - God, Darwin, Design in America: A Historical Survey of Religion and Science (3)

    An exploration of the relationship between scientific and religious ideas in the United States from the early 19th century to the present. Starting with the Natural Theologians, who made science the “handmaid of theology” in the early Republic, we will move forward in time through the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and Andrew Dickson White’s subsequent declaration of a war between science and religion, into the 20th century with the Scopes trial and the rise of Creationism, the evolutionary synthesis, and finally the recent debates over the teaching of Intelligent Design in public schools. HRT II.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 114 HM - 2038: Prophecy, Apocalypse

    This course looks at American configurations of the End Times, including, but not limited to, the ending of the Mayan calendar in 2012, Ghost Dance religions, Y2K predictions, The Church Universal and Triumphant, Heaven’s Gate, the Left Behind books and movies, and varied interpretations of book of Revelation in the Christian Bible. Students taking this course will become familiar with various forms of American apocalyptic thinking as well as literature from “new religious movement” or “cult” scholarship, in order to explore the enduring appeal of End Time scenarios and to question what makes these scenarios persuasive to individuals at varied points in American history. HRT II.


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 115 CM - Asian American Religions

    This course explores the role that religion has played in shaping Asian American identity and community through processes of immigration, discrimination, settlement, and generational change. It will analyze how Asian Americans make sense of their Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Protestant, and Catholic identities, and how their faith communities have been sites of unity and division in the struggle for social change. This interdisciplinary course will draw from historical, sociological, cultural studies, and religious studies sources and examine how race and religion shape discussions of gender, sexuality, violence, trans-nationalism, and popular culture in Asian America. HRT I, HRT II.


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 116 PO - The Lotus Sutra in East Asia

    The Lotus Sutra is undoubtedly the most popular Buddhist scripture in East Asia. Following the text’s trajectory from its emergence in India to its broad dissemination across East Asia, up to the present day, we will critically analyze its many (re) imaginings in doctrinal schools, popular literature, ritual practices, art and architecture and, in modern times, even social activities. Letter grade only. HRT I.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 117 PO - The World of Mahayana Scriptures: Art, Doctrine and Practice

    Examines Mahayana Buddhist scriptures in written texts and through their visual representations and the spiritual practices (e.g., ritual, meditation, pilgrimage) they inspired. Doctrinal implications will be discussed, but emphasis will be on the material culture surrounding Mahayana scriptures. HRT I.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 118 CM - Hindu Goddess Worship

    This upper division course is a historical and comparative treatment of devotion to Hindu goddesses from prehistory to the modern era. Topics will include: concepts of gender in the divine; continuations and divergences between textual and popular goddess worship; Shaktism; Tantra; spirit possession; female saints and renunciants; and the relation of human men and women to Hindu goddesses.  HRT I, CWS.

    Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor.
    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 119 PZ - Religion in Medieval East Asia

    Survey of shamanism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Neo- Confucianism of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam during the 10th to 15th centuries. Examines religious texts and institutions in context of socio-historical transformations and also emphasizes religious dimensions of medieval East Asian culture, including landscape painting and poetry, theatre, and artistic and literary theory.  HRT I.

    Prerequisite(s): RLST 010 , RLST 100 , RLST 103 , RLST 104  or RLST 117 .
    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 120 CM - The Life of Jesus

    A survey of the issues surrounding scholarly study of the life of Jesus. Readings from the gospels and from ancient, modern, and contemporary constructions of the life of Jesus. The gospels will be studied with emphasis on understanding the historical Jesus in his religious and cultural context. HRT II.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 121 SC - The Pauline Tradition

    Examination of letters of Paul in social, cultural, and religious settings and later writings, both biblical and non-biblical, from early Christian literature claiming to represent the thought of Paul. Special attention given to women’s role in Pauline communities and impact of Pauline theology on women’s lives and spiritual experiences.  HRT II.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 122 CM - Biblical Interpretation

    The first section of the course surveys various forms of Jewish and Christian biblical interpretation, examining reading strategies and hermeneutical theories employed by ancient and medieval Jewish and Christian writers. In the second section, students will engage in a focused study of the book of Genesis and how interpretations of this fundamental text have shaped Jewish thought and practice.  HRT II.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 128 CM - The Religion of Islam

    Introduction to Islamic tradition: its scripture, beliefs, and practices, and the development of Islamic law, theology, philosophy and mysticism. Special attention paid to the emergence of Sunnism, Shi’ism, and Sufism as three diverse expressions of Muslim interpretation and practice, as well as to gender issues and Islam in the modern world.  HRT II, MES.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 129 CM - Ancient Jewish Experience

    A survey of Jewish history, literature, thought, and practice from the early Second Temple period to the early Middle Ages. Particular attention will be given to the formation of classical Jewish ideas and institutions, such as modes of biblical interpretation, the role and authority of rabbis, halakha (Jewish law), synagogue, philosophy, and mysticism. HRT II, MES.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 131 CM - Synagogue and Church

    Survey early synagogues and churches, along with related examples of Greco-Roman temples and shrines, through their architecture and artwork. The course will explore the contributions archaeological data make to the understanding of Judaism and Christianity and how each religious tradition physically and ideologically constructs sacred space. HRT I, MES.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 132 PO - Messiahs and the Millennium

    Course traces the origins and development of apocalyptic thought, examines those who have espoused apocalyptic ideas and lead millennial communities, and surveys contemporary responses to the “end of time.” Special attention is paid to the way that apocalyptic thought has particular aspects of U.S. culture. HRT II, MES.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 133 PO - Modern Judaism

    A survey of Jewish history, literature, thought, and practice from 1000 C.E. to the present, exploring the changing self-understanding of Jews against the background of the birth and development of the modern world, and focusing on the European ghetto, Haskalah, Hasidism, denominational schisms, early Zionism, and the events that heralded the development of modern antisemitism. HRT II, MES.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 135 CM - Jerusalem: The Holy City

    An examination of the city of Jerusalem, through its history, architecture, the literature written about it, and the ideas associated with it. As a city sacred to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the image and meaning of Jerusalem has had an impact on world politics and history and on the consciousness of millions of people far beyond that of most other cities.  The analysis of various and often conflicting interpretations of Jerusalem will make use of ancient religious texts, poetry, novels, short stories, memoirs, art, architecture, film, and contemporary political debates. HRT II, MES

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 136 CM - Religion in Contemporary America

    This course explores the religious, spiritual, and sociological trends and developments in American religions since the 1960s with particular attention to race, ethnicity, gender, church-state debates, moral issues, and politics. HRT II, CWS.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 137 CM - Jewish-Christian Relations

    The course will examine the relations between Jews and Christians from antiquity to the present. It will trace the origins of Christian and anti-Judaism, and explore the ways in which Jews and Christians have thought about the other. We shall attempt to understand what issues divided the two communities, how theological, social, political, and racial concepts contributed to the development of anti-Semitism, how Jews have understood Christians and responded to Christian religious and social claims about Jews, and what attempts have been made throughout history, but particularly since the Holocaust, to establish more constructive relations. HRT II.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 138 CM - American Religious History

    Examines the role that religion has played in the history of the United States and asks students to explore critically how peoples and communities in various places and times have drawn upon religion to give meaning to self, group, and nation. Covers a wide range of religious traditions, including Protestant Christianity, Roman Catholicism, and Judaism, as well as regional, denominational, and racial-ethnic dimensions within these groups. CWS.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 139 PO - Benjamin, Blanchot, Levinas, Derrida: Contemporary Continental Jewish Philosophy

    These philosophers all object to the totalizing nature of the philosophy of history, which, as they see it, has dominated modern thought. We examine the way they critique or replace it with a philosophy of language-translation, dialogue, writing in which theorizing arises from the relation of same and other. PRT, CWS.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 140 PO - The Stories We Tell: Narrative and the Moral Imagination

    Focusing primarily, though not exclusively, on religious narratives from several major traditions, we explore the following questions:  What do we mean by narrative, and how is it distinguished from doctrine or theology?  What is at stake in this distinction?  How do narratives evolve, and how are they at play in the way decisions are made?  What are the stories we tell, and how do they restrict or enhance our moral imaginations as we engage prejudice, exercise power, and interact with the other? 

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 141 PO - The Experience of God: Contemporary Theologies of Transformation

    An exploration and assessment of African American, Asian, ecological, feminist, liberation, and process theologies. What do these theologies have in common? How do they differ? Do they speak from our experience? What insights do they have for our pluralistic, multicultural society? PRT.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 142 AF - The Problem of Evil: African-American Engagements with(in) Western Thought

    Thematically explores the many ways African-Americans have encountered and responded to evils (pain, wickedness and undeserved suffering) both as a part of and apart from the broader Western tradition. We will examine how such encounters trouble the distinction made between natural and moral evil, and how they highlight the tensions between theodicies and ethical concerns. CWS, PRT.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 143 CM - Philosophy of Religion

    Can God’s existence be proved? Is religious faith ever rationally warranted? Are religious propositions cognitively meaningful? Can one believe in a good, omnipotent God in a world containing evil? Readings from historical and contemporary sources. PRT.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
  

  • RLST 144 CM - Life, Death and Survival of Death

    A study of philosophical and theological answers to questions about death, the meaning of life, and survival of death. PRT.

    Course Credit: 1.0


    Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.
 

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