Graduate Division of Religion Course Atlas

Spring 2026 Course Atlas
 
(Please check back for changes and updates - last update 10.16.2025)

ICIVS 710/RLR 700 - Historiography of Islam
Wednesday, 2:30-5:15
Vince Cornell

This course is an advanced graduate-level introduction to historiography as applied to Islamic Civilizations Studies. It is premised on the conviction that grounding in the theories and practices of historiography is crucial for graduate and post-graduate work in the study of Islam. Despite the stubborn belief of some historians to the contrary (especially in the U.S.), ignorance or rejection of theory in historiography is nothing more than theory by default. Graduate students in Islamic Civilizations Studies may choose one or even more than one historiographical approach to the study of Islam and Islamic civilizations, but they must be conscious of their choice and the theoretical consequences that it implies. This course is divided into two parts. The first part of the course is an introduction to major contemporary approaches to historiography, particularly as they can be applied to MENA region and South Asian Muslim societies. This section of the course will focus in particular on what Hayden White has called the “New Historicism” or what has also been called the “linguistic turn” in contemporary historiography. Students will be introduced to some of the most important historiographical theorists of the second half of the twentieth century. These include Marc Bloch and the Annales school of historians; Marshall G. S. Hodgson and global civilization history; Jan Vansina and the historiography of oral tradition; theorists of subaltern studies and “area histories” such as Dipesh Chakrabarty; and history-as-narrative theorists such as Hayden White, Michel de Certeau, and Elizabeth Clark. The second part of the course will be a critical examination of an important topic in the historical study of Islam and/or Islamic civilizations. In this part of the course, students will become familiar with current approaches to the historiography of Islam by Western historians. Special attention will be given to major historiographical problems in the field of Islamic Studies taken broadly. This half of the course may also examine historiographical methods used by Muslim historians to study their own history. Selected studies of major Muslim historians of the premodern period may also be examined as case studies in historiographical methodology.

PHIL 541/RLR 700 - Murdoch and Cavell
Monday, 1:00-4:00
John Lysaker

What might ethics entail if it refuses both voluntarism and the full externalization of conscience into patterns and plays of social scripts? What concepts and operations or, more generally, what resources does moral philosophy need if it is to work through this refusal in a generative manner? In different ways, the work of Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) and Stanley Cavell (1926-2018) provide live replies to these questions. Moreover, their replies consider philosophy’s relation to the arts and meet in the idea of moral perfection, and in a manner that might generate a more comprehensive perfectionism.

The first half of the course explores Murdoch’s work, beginning with early essays such as "Vision and Choice in Morality," moving into The Sovereignty of the Good and her novel The Bell, and concluding with targeted explorations of Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. The path through Cavell, which constitutes the second half of the course, is less linear in its progressions and focuses on several essays, including “The Wittgensteinian Event,” “Knowing and Acknowledging,” “Aversive Thinking,” "Music Discomposed," and “Performative and Passionate Utterance,” as well as his reading of The Awful Truth (1937), a film we will watch as class. The course will close with one or two sessions of open discussion on points of intersection between Murdoch and Cavell.

Students may write two short papers (one on each author) or one longer paper that either compares the two or focuses on one. Students also must write weekly, developing over 2-3 double spaced pages, a thought in response to the reading.

RLR 700 – Postcolonial interpretations of the Bible
Monday, 2:30-5:30
Musa Dube

How is the New Testament read within postcolonial histories and through postcolonial theories? This course will explore postcolonial theories and methods of reading the New Testament, by focusing on key theorists, imperial histories, New Testament readers, and applications to New Testament interpretations and translations. It will first explore selected key postcolonial theorists such as Edward Said, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, among others. Second, it will examine the histories of some selected empires and their entanglement with New Testament texts. The third stage will explore key exponents of postcolonial interpretations of the New Testament and the strategies they employ for reading. These will include, among others, R.S. Sugirtharajah, Fernando F. Segovia, Benny Liew Tat Siong, and Musa W. Dube. The course will proceed to sample postcolonial interpretations of the main genres of the New Testament (Gospels, History, Epistles and Apocalypse). Lastly, the course will explore Bible translation and postcoloniality in New Testament studies.

RLR 700 – World Christianity Approaches to the Study of Religion
Wednesday, 1:00-4:00
Jehu Hanciles

This seminar studies major texts, theories, models, and approaches central to the study of religion from non-Western perspectives with world Christianity as a major focus. The reshaping of global Christianity in the last half century or so has prompted searching questions about the near hegemonic dominance of Western models and perspectives in theological discourse and the study of religion. Western- or Euro-centric paradigms are generally marked by fixed geographical focus, implicit cultural bias (including a tendency to universalize Western views or experiences), and an outlook that privileges the intellectual heritage and initiatives of Western peoples. Renewed focus on non-Western realities or dimensions, and critical appraisal of the wealth of data or sources from contexts around the world, has produced alternative theoretical models and frames of reference—including postcolonial, decolonial and intercultural approaches. The world Christianity discourse provides a useful framework for exploring these concepts and assessing the methodological implications for the study of religion more broadly.

RLR 700 – Critical Hindu Studies
Monday, 10:00-1:00
Harshita Kamath

This course traces the construction of the field of Hindu studies with a focus on themes of identity, caste, race, and Hindu nationalism. We begin by considering how Hinduism is taught today through the “world religions” model. We then raise the critical question—was Hinduism invented? We examine a range of scholarship that considers whether Hinduism was a colonial invention or whether the idea of Hinduism was in place prior to the colonial context. Next, we shift to the critical question—who speaks for Hinduism? We examine this question from the perspective of religious studies scholars featured in the special issue from the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (2000), in juxtaposition with the work of Hindu-centered perspectives. The course then turns to the growing body of scholarship by critical Hindu studies scholars highlighting themes of caste, race, and Hindu nationalism.

RLR 700 – Judah’s Prophetic Traditions
Wednesday, 10:00-1:00
Joel Kemp

This course surveys the prophetic traditions preserved in the Hebrew Bible. We will focus primarily on prophetic activity during the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, with some attention given to antecedent material in the so-called "ancient Near East," Israelite prophetic traditions, and Pentateuchal materials that contributed to Judah's prophets. The course will also introduce students to a range of methods (e.g., reception history) scholars use to study prophetic material.

RLR 700 – Bhakti: South Asia’s Heart Religion
Wednesday, 10:00-1:00
Shiv Subramaniam

At a basic level, bhakti is intense love directed toward the divine. It is, to use the words of one leading scholar, South Asia’s “heart religion.” But it is also a concept charged with broader cultural and political significance. Many grand claims have been advanced in the name bhakti—for example, that it sparked a movement contesting religious orthodoxy; that it holds out the promise of democracy in South Asia; or that it is a credible unifying principle for the region’s diverse cultures. In this course, we will explore bhakti and investigate the various claims made about it by studying relevant works of poetry, music, theology, and scholarship. The course welcomes not only researchers of South Asian religion, culture, and history, but also those more generally interested in religious emotions and their relevance to collective life.

RLR 700 – The Devil in Early Christian Thought
Wednesday, 10:00-1:00
Gabrielle Thomas

 “Those inquiring whence Evil enters into beings… would be making the best beginning if they established, first of all, what precisely Evil is.” Plotinus, Enneads, I, 8, 1. This seminar will analyze the construal of the Devil in Early Christian thought. We will focus on the third through fifth centuries, long before the Devil was depicted as a red, horned figure, carrying a trident. The seminar explores themes such as the Devil’s role in salvation history (including his ultimate end), his ontological status, theodicy, exorcism, and practices of resistance. Modern scholars have adopted a breadth of methods, theories, and approaches as they interpret early Christian accounts of the Devil and his works. Scholars have utilized, for example, theories from disability, gender, narrative, and Africana studies, and have applied frameworks from philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and even from quantum gravity research. The scholarship presents a wide range of perspectives which include absolute demythologization through radical re-enchantment. In light of this melting-pot of methods, theories, and approaches, the seminar pursues two distinct but related aims, reflected in the structure of our weekly meetings. Each week, the first half focuses on a dense reading of the primary sources. The second half will analyze methods and approaches adopted by modern interpreters. Overall, the seminar aims to engage closely with the primary sources, while also analyzing how the secondary sources reckon with the Devil in early Christian thought.

Core Bibliography
Participants should acquire the following primary sources. Further primary sources are available through Canvas. Secondary sources will be on Canvas with the exception of those marked with *.

Primary Sources - Origen, On First Principles: A Reader's Edition, Oxford University Press, 2019, edited and translated by John Behr.

- Basil of Caesarea, St Basil The Great: On the Human Condition. Translated by Nonna Verna Harrison. PPS 30. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005.

- Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit: St Basil the Great. Translated by Stephen M. Hildebrand. PPS 42. St. Vladimir’s Press, 2011.

 - Gregory of Nazianzus, Festal Orations: Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, translated by Nonna Verna Harrison. PPS 36. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2008.

- Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Discourse, translated by Ignatius Green. PPS 60. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2019.

 - Augustine, The City of God, Cambridge University Press, 1998, edited and translated by R.W. Dyson. Secondary Sources

- Acolatse, Esther. Powers, Principalities, and the Spirit: Biblical Realism in Africa and the West. Eerdmans, 2018.

- Bell, Richard H. Deliver Us from Evil. Mohr Siebeck, 2007.

- Bonino O.P., Serge-Thomas. Angels and Demons: A Catholic Introduction, translated by Michael J. Miller. The Catholic University of America Press, 2016.

- Bradnick, David. Evil, Spirits, and Possession: An Emergentist Theology of the Demonic. Brill, 2017.

- Frankfurter, David. Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History. Princeton University Press, 2006.

 - Henning, Megan. Hell Hath No Fury: Gender, Disability and the Invention of Damned Bodies in Early Christianity. Yale University Press, 2021.

- Kelly, Henry A. Satan: A Biography. Cambridge University Press, 2006.

- McCraw, Benjamin W. and Robert Arp, eds. Philosophical Approaches to Demonology. Routledge, 2017.

- Muehlberger, Ellen. Angels in Late Ancient Christianity. Oxford University Press, 2013.

- *Russell, Jeffrey B. Satan: The Early Christian Tradition. Cornell University Press, 1987.

- Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Harvard University Press, 2007.

- Wiebe, Gregory D. Fallen Angels in the Theology of Saint Augustine. Oxford University Press, 2023.

- Ziegler, Philip G. God’s Adversary and Ours: A Brief Theology of the Devil. Baylor University Press, 2025.