Religion: Comparing Religions

Comparison of diverse practices and beliefs from selected religious traditions and cultures. Credit not awarded for both REL 1605 and versions of the course offered as REL 1010 to 1029.

Open to degree and PACE students

This course uses three “case study” religions to explore the questions of “What is religion?” and how can we begin to compare religions? We’ll look at stories, rituals, beliefs, and social roles from Buddhism, Islam, and Native American religions, using the theories of scholars of religion. We’ll explore how religion can be intensely personal, involving visions and experiences that change a person, and change the course of history. We’ll grapple with the ways religions shape our understanding of what it means to be good or evil, and what it means to be a human, or a god, or an animal, and what happens to us after we die. We will work together to explore the diversity we find within religious traditions, reflecting complicated relationships between religion and culture, demonstrating that religion, far from being a fixed object that we can pin down, is fluid over time and across the globe.

Classes combine lectures, discussions, and free writing. Students are expected to do between three and six hours per week of reading or other course activities outside of the class meetings (as per the University guidelines).

The grades will be determined by a combination of in-class tests or quizzes, online and in-class participation including occasional homework journals, and group work in class to apply course concepts to examples from media (music, narrative media, and journalism).