Courses

Color Coded by institution:
Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore

RELG 011B. Religious Symbols and Islamic Experience

What are the basic symbols of Islam, and how are they understood and experienced by Muslims? This course will introduce students to the methodology of religious studies concentrating on symbols, myth, and ritual. We will apply these theoretical concepts to the Muslim experience of religion by exploring textual and historical sources, classical and contemporary, from Africa, Arabia, and Asia.

Primary distribution course. 1 credit.
Spring 2003. Kugle.

RELG 046. Justice and Conscience in Islam

Muslim intellectuals and religious leaders reacted to the political success of Islam with a strong emphasis on justice and conscience to critique this prosperity and power. "Classical Islam" was shaped by the varied movements of jurists, mystics, and philosophers (and revolutionaries) who upheld conflicting visions of justice and conscience.

1 credit.
Not offered 2002-2003.

RELG 047. Islamic Poetry and Prophecy

An investigation of inspiration, metaphor, and interpretation in Islamic discourses. Islam has been characterized as "religion of the word." Whether in scripture or poetry, song or calligraphic art, the word and its adornment are central features of the civilization created by Muslims.

1 credit.
RELG 053. Gender and Sexuality in Islamic Societies

This course explores the complexities of gender roles and sexuality norms in Islamic societies. It includes examples from the time of the prophet Muhammad through the medieval era and into the present. The course will focus on the roles of women in Islamic history, law, literature, and scripture. The goal is for students to understand the complex background to contemporary debates on the status of women and to assess movements of Islamic feminism.

1 credit.
Spring 2003. Kugle.

RELG 119. Sufism: Muslim Mystics, Saints and Poets

An exploration of mystical experience, sainthood, and literary expression among Muslims in South Asia. Islam is one of the most active and widespread religious traditions in Asia; Sufi mysticism is the religious practice of most Muslims in Asia. These two often-ignored facts act as the frame for this seminar that focuses on Sufi communities and saints in South Asia. The seminar will cover material from the medieval period through the present, primarily from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Poems, saint's biographies, guides to mystical contemplation, and parables will be presented in translation from Persian, Urdu (Hindi), Punjabi, and Bengali. The seminar is multidisciplinary, involving interpretive strategies from religious studies, history, literature, anthropology, ethnomusicology and gender studies.

2 credits.
Spring 2003. Kugle.

RELG 124. Africa/America/Islam

This seminar charts America's complex relationship with Islam, as mediated by Africa, Africans, and African-Americans. It will examine the beliefs and practices of many Muslim groups including Arab, Berber and African Muslims, African slaves in America, Maroon communities, the Moorish Science Temple, the Nation of Islam and its splinter groups, and the "Black" Muslims of the present.

2 credits.
Not offered 2002-2003.

RELG 125. Islamic Society in North Africa and Andalusia

This seminar focuses on what Arabs called "The West" (al-Maghrib: the Mediterranean region from North Africa to Spain). The seminar will trace the foundations of Islamic society in the region, focusing on the complex interplay between Islamic law, mysticism, and rational philosophy through primary Arabic sources (in translation) as well as secondary scholarly studies.

2 credits.
Not offered 2002-2003.

RELG 013. History, Religion, and Culture of India II: From Akbar to Gandhi and the Voices of Untouchable Liberation

The religious history of India from the advent of Islam to the present. From the Moghuls to the Hindu nationalist movements and Ambedkar's legacy to the present.

1 credit.
Not offered 2002-2003.

RELG 123. Special Topics in Religion: How Religion Reads Sexuality

At times, religion seems like the enemy of sexuality and at others the two seem to be strange bedfellows. This course examines issues of sexuality and the diversity of sexualities represented in the Western Religions of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Themes of inquiry include the force of female sexuality within religious contexts, the nature of homo-social relationships in Hellenistic and biblical literature, asceticism, and sexuality. We will also examine the chain of interpretation through which the biblical city of Sodom transformed into the concept of sodomy. Readings are drawn from Plato's "Symposium", Foucault's "History of Sexuality," "Carnal Israel" by Daniel Boyarin, "Love Between Woman" by Bernadette Brooten, "The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology" by Mark Jordan, and "Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality" by John Boswell.

2 credits.
Spring 2003. Havrelock.