Previous Years' Course Catalogues

This course explores the role of emotion in biblical texts both within passages and within the reader. We integrate several elements: theories of emotion and the fuzzier category of affect, the cultural specificity of emotions, the expression of emotion beyond vocabulary, specific emotions (especially those that are often identified with religiosity), and the interplay between feeling and meaning. The overall aim of the course is to facilitate richer readings of biblical texts through attention to their affective valences.

Some students will write as part oftheir congregational or ecclesial ministry (newsletters, columns, blogs, sermons); other students will write about religion within non-profit or non-government agencies (programs, news releases, bulletins); others will write about religion for magazines, newspapers or journals. This course will focus on creative non-fiction ("true stories, well told") in which the writer uses literary devices to freshen and enliven religion-while telling and interpreting a "true" story. Students will write in a modality oftheir choice; read and analyze writing that bears religious themes, overtly or covertly; and debate the various ethical issues about themselves and other people.

Some students will write as part oftheir congregational or ecclesial ministry (newsletters, columns, blogs, sermons); other students will write about religion within non-profit or non-government agencies (programs, news releases, bulletins); others will write about religion for magazines, newspapers or journals. This course will focus on creative non-fiction ("true stories, well told") in which the writer uses literary devices to freshen and enliven religion-while telling and interpreting a "true" story. Students will write in a modality oftheir choice; read and analyze writing that bears religious themes, overtly or covertly; and debate the various ethical issues about themselves and other people.

Interfaith dialogue has many avenues, of which reading each other's sacred texts is one of the most conducive to building understanding. The scriptures of Islam, Judaism and Christianity are particularly suited to this venture, because of the shared narratives, which demonstrate both commonalities and profound differences. This course focuses on narratives shared between the Bible and the Quran and how major Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars have approached the relationship between the texts across the ages. The course examines scholars such as Tabari (d. 923), Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), Abraham Geiger (d. 1874), W. St. Clair Tisdall (d.1929), Angelika Neuwirth and others. Students will learn the difference between author- and reader-oriented approaches, influence theory and intertextuality, and how different presuppositions can impact how the texts and their relationship are read. Students will also have the opportunity to engage in scripture-based interfaith dialogue and to experience first-hand how some of the established and developing approaches are practiced.

Interfaith dialogue has many avenues, of which reading each other's sacred texts is one of the most conducive to building understanding. The scriptures of Islam, Judaism and Christianity are particularly suited to this venture, because of the shared narratives, which demonstrate both commonalities and profound differences. This course focuses on narratives shared between the Bible and the Quran and how major Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars have approached the relationship between the texts across the ages. The course examines scholars such as Tabari (d. 923), Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), Abraham Geiger (d. 1874), W. St. Clair Tisdall (d.1929), Angelika Neuwirth and others. Students will learn the difference between author- and reader-oriented approaches, influence theory and intertextuality, and how different presuppositions can impact how the texts and their relationship are read. Students will also have the opportunity to engage in scripture-based interfaith dialogue and to experience first-hand how some of the established and developing approaches are practiced.

Interfaith dialogue has many avenues, of which reading each other's sacred texts is one of the most conducive to building understanding. The scriptures of Islam, Judaism and Christianity are particularly suited to this venture, because of the shared narratives, which demonstrate both commonalities and profound differences. This course focuses on narratives shared between the Bible and the Quran and how major Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars have approached the relationship between the texts across the ages. The course examines scholars such as Tabari (d. 923), Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), Abraham Geiger (d. 1874), W. St. Clair Tisdall (d.1929), Angelika Neuwirth and others. Students will learn the difference between author- and reader-oriented approaches, influence theory and intertextuality, and how different presuppositions can impact how the texts and their relationship are read. Students will also have the opportunity to engage in scripture-based interfaith dialogue and to experience first-hand how some of the established and developing approaches are practiced.

Interfaith dialogue has many avenues, of which reading each other's sacred texts is one of the most conducive to building understanding. The scriptures of Islam, Judaism and Christianity are particularly suited to this venture, because of the shared narratives, which demonstrate both commonalities and profound differences. This course focuses on narratives shared between the Bible and the Quran and how major Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars have approached the relationship between the texts across the ages. The course examines scholars such as Tabari (d. 923), Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), Abraham Geiger (d. 1874), W. St. Clair Tisdall (d.1929), Angelika Neuwirth and others. Students will learn the difference between author- and reader-oriented approaches, influence theory and intertextuality, and how different presuppositions can impact how the texts and their relationship are read. Students will also have the opportunity to engage in scripture-based interfaith dialogue and to experience first-hand how some of the established and developing approaches are practiced.

Interfaith dialogue has many avenues, of which reading each other's sacred texts is one of the most conducive to building understanding. The scriptures of Islam, Judaism and Christianity are particularly suited to this venture, because of the shared narratives, which demonstrate both commonalities and profound differences. This course focuses on narratives shared between the Bible and the Quran and how major Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars have approached the relationship between the texts across the ages. The course examines scholars such as Tabari (d. 923), Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), Abraham Geiger (d. 1874), W. St. Clair Tisdall (d.1929), Angelika Neuwirth and others. Students will learn the difference between author- and reader-oriented approaches, influence theory and intertextuality, and how different presuppositions can impact how the texts and their relationship are read. Students will also have the opportunity to engage in scripture-based interfaith dialogue and to experience first-hand how some of the established and developing approaches are practiced.

Interfaith dialogue has many avenues, of which reading each other's sacred texts is one of the most conducive to building understanding. The scriptures of Islam, Judaism and Christianity are particularly suited to this venture, because of the shared narratives, which demonstrate both commonalities and profound differences. This course focuses on narratives shared between the Bible and the Quran and how major Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars have approached the relationship between the texts across the ages. The course examines scholars such as Tabari (d. 923), Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), Abraham Geiger (d. 1874), W. St. Clair Tisdall (d.1929), Angelika Neuwirth and others. Students will learn the difference between author- and reader-oriented approaches, influence theory and intertextuality, and how different presuppositions can impact how the texts and their relationship are read. Students will also have the opportunity to engage in scripture-based interfaith dialogue and to experience first-hand how some of the established and developing approaches are practiced.

Interfaith dialogue has many avenues, of which reading each other’s sacred texts is one of the most conducive to building understanding.  The scriptures of Islam, Judaism and Christianity are particularly suited to this venture, because of the shared narratives, which demonstrate both commonalities and profound differences.   This course focuses on narratives shared between the Bible and the Quran and how major Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars have approached the relationship between the texts across the ages. The course examines scholars such as Tabari (d. 923), Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), Abraham Geiger (d. 1874), W. St. Clair Tisdall (d.1929), Angelika Neuwirth and others.  Students will learn the difference between author- and reader-oriented approaches, influence theory and intertextuality, and how different presuppositions can impact how the texts and their relationship are read.  Students will also have the opportunity to engage in scripture-based interfaith dialogue and to experience first-hand how some of the established and developing approaches are practiced.

This seminar-style course examines the history and development of the papacy ca. 1500 to today, i.e., from Julius II and Michelangelo, to the French Revolution, to encyclicals and Catholic Social Teaching, to the Second Vatican Council, and to the itinerant, global papacy from Paul VI to Francis. Emphasis on changing expectations of what popes do and how they do it. Reading and discussion of primary sources, as well as key examples of recent work on these topics.

The fifty years between the Council of Nicaea in 325 and the Council of Constantinople in 381 were times of extraordinary theological change leading to understandings of God and Christ both continuous with and sharply different from earlier teaching, a true revolution. This course explores the process of doctrinal change during that period, both in its own right and as a paradigm for doctrinal change in later periods, including the present. Lectures, reading of original sources in translation, group discussion, research essay.