REL 9001a, Modern Faith  Christian Wiman

This course addresses issues of faith using the work of various modern artists and thinkers. Some of the questions raised include: Is there such a thing as a “modern” faith? What does the language we use have to do with what and how we believe, and is that language amenable to change? What is the role of art with regard to personal and collective belief? What is devotional doubt? And how does one change one’s life? Students become familiar with various modern artists and thinkers who have engaged issues of faith; gain a clearer sense of what art has to do with faith and how they might use this knowledge in their own lives; learn to analyze the readings theologically and to explain how they relate to and differ from each other; and achieve a clearer sense of what they mean when they use words like faith, belief, prayer, devotion, and God. Consequently, they learn to better articulate their own faiths. Area V.  3 Course cr
Th 1:30pm-3:20pm

REL 9102a, Figuring Power: Representations of Rarity and Rumor in Latin American Literary Narrative  Adrian Emmanuel Hernandez-Acosta

This course surveys Latin American literary narrative from the beginning of the Cold War to the present, with a focus on figurations of power in which the category of the religious and its others (e.g., the mythical, the demonic, and the occult) are entangled. Selected readings offer a shared set of alternatives to “magical realism”—presumed the region’s signature genre and, by extension, privileged mode of self-representation—that reckon with ongoing histories of political promise, violence, and disillusion. This course aims to study how Latin American narrative interrogates the limits of realism and its antonyms when repeatedly confronted with the (dis)figuring effects of power. The course asks how recourse to rarity and rumor through the religious and its others renders the representability of both spectacular and quotidian workings of power. All assigned materials are read in English translation. Students who can read in Spanish are encouraged to do so. Previous practice in literary studies helpful but not required. Reading proficiency in Spanish helpful but not required.  3 Course cr
T 1:30pm-3:20pm

REL 9104a, Mysticisms in Black Studies  Adrian Emmanuel Hernandez-Acosta

Mysticisms circulate in Black studies today—the contemplative turn to interiority; the ecstatic break into an otherwise; attunement, relation, oneness; the ineffability of both the abyss and the world that lies beyond. This course aims to study how practices and discourses associated with predominantly though not exclusively Christian mysticisms have come to play a central role in a set of Black studies conversations on the historical, the speculative, the body, flesh, and spirit. Drawing on a range of distinctly stylized texts and artistic media from the 1970s to the present, the course first meditates on a gendered history of the present, which then illuminates its plunge into the contemporary. Throughout, this course asks what continues to be at stake for Black studies in both its reach for and retreat into the mystical. A playlist featuring musicians from the Coltranes and Sun Ra to Solange and Cory Henry accompanies the course. Previous coursework in Black studies or theological studies is encouraged but not required.  3 Course cr
W 1:30pm-3:20pm

REL 9900a, Sacred Sounds: Key Issues in the Ethnomusicology of Religion  Bo kyung Im

How and why do religious practitioners around the world engage in the sonic dimensions of lived experience? What local, regional, and global histories impinge upon meanings that obtain in sacred music practices? This course examines the intersections between modern sonic and religious practice. First, we consider why, indeed, the whole world doesn’t love chamber music and interrogate the ways in which various ontological and epistemic claims are forwarded in the planning, experience, and interpretation of sonic-religious practice. Thereafter, by addressing case studies that span both northern and southern hemispheres, the course engages key themes in the ethnomusicological and anthropological study of music and religion. Through topics such as music and postcolonialism, modernity, gender and sexuality, history, ritual, postsecularism, communication and technology, timbre, and diaspora, discussions center the role of power in shaping the conditions under which truth is experienced on two interconnected levels: in “the field” where events themselves happen, and “at home” where events are interpreted and rendered into academic prose. Throughout the term, our learning community carves out intellectual space to consider the faith claims to which ethnomusicological interlocutors bear witness. Area V.  3 Course cr
T 1:30pm-3:20pm

REL 9910a, Philosophy of Religion  John Pittard

This course is a general introduction to the philosophy of religion, including such topics as classical and contemporary arguments for the existence of God, the problem of evil, the significance of religious experience, the relationship between faith and reason, possible tensions between science and religion, whether God is important to morality, and the possibility of life after death. Area V.  3 Course cr
TTh 1:30pm-3:20pm

REL 9924a, Foundations of Islam: Understanding Muslim Tradition, Practice, and Encounter  Abdul-Rehman Malik

What is Islam? This course provides a comprehensive introduction to understanding and engaging with Islamic tradition, practice, and culture that will enable students to offer answers to this far-from-straightforward question. In particular, the course engages with Islam as a living tradition—a vibrant faith that is constantly and dynamically being developed, challenged, practiced, and lived. Three core themes run through the course: tradition, practice, and encounter. The course is especially designed to provide M.Div. and M.A.R. students with the language, vocabulary, terminology, foundational knowledge, and perspectives to begin—or further—their study and engagement with Islamic theology, texts, and ideas in particular, and with Muslim life in general. Special attention is paid to how Islam has developed—and is developing—in the United States, particularly through the lenses of liberation theologies, gender, and race. Area V.  3 Course cr
W 3:30pm-5:20pm

REL 9927a, Black Religious and Political Thought  Clifton Granby

This course offers an overview of important sources, voices, and themes in African American religious and political thought. It highlights the ways in which this tradition has inspired practices of freedom, critics of domination, and visions of self and social care. Our task involves analyzing strands of Black nationalism and separatism on the one hand, and liberal and democratic calls for egalitarianism and inclusion on the other. Special attention is given to sermons and spirituals, the role of autobiography, quests for education and respectability, vernacular and folk traditions, socialism, the civil rights movement, the Nation of Islam, Black power and Black theology, womanist and feminist voices, and post-civil rights politics. Various political and rhetorical strategies of African American preaching, organizing, and public appeal also receive attention. Area V.  3 Course cr
T 9:20am-11:10am

REL 9947a, Contemporary Worship Music: Commerce, Style, and Ethics  Bo kyung Im

What is “contemporary worship music”? Why do twenty-first-century Christians sing it? What ethical debates inform church communities’ adoption or rejection of contemporary worship music practices? This graduate seminar interrogates the relationship between commerce, style, and ethics in contemporary worship music. We address case studies from early twenty-first-century North America, Oceania, and the United Kingdom from a transnational framework that highlights the asymmetrical circulation of musico-religious ideas, practices, capital, and people in the global political-economy. Reading across scholarly fields such as music studies, liturgical studies, and ritual studies, we critically examine this subgenre of global popular music from both historical and ethnographic perspectives. The first part of the course historicizes contemporary worship music and introduces critical themes. The second part of the course focuses on influential contemporary worship groups including Hillsong, Passion, Bethel, Elevation Worship, and Maverick City. We consider the roles that competing definitions of “the good,” sacred and secular constructs, race and ethnicity, imperialism, commerce, embodiment, and aesthetics play in power-inflected processes of self-making and community-building in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century global Christianity. Area V.  3 Course cr
W 1:30pm-3:20pm

REL 9952a, Style and Religious Writing and Speech  Peter Grund

When we talk about the “style” of an author, speaker, text, or genre, what do we mean? How do we identify, define, and analyze elements that make up a style? How does exploring aspects of style and stylistic choice help us appreciate the nature, function, and intention of religious text and speech? These are questions that are explored in this course. The focus is on providing students with a number of frameworks from language study and linguistics that can be used to analyze, interpret, and discuss choices and strategies in speech and writing in a religious context. Focusing on English and text/speech in Christian traditions, the course covers (among many other topics) how metaphors clarify religious messages and create community, how variation and repetition in word choice create structure but also subvert expectation in religious poetry, and how formulations of speech and writing (e.g., phrases such as “I believe” or “I promise”) accomplish religious acts with real-world consequences. Texts and speech from a number of different genres and periods feature in discussions, hands-on exercises, and creative experimentations, including religious poems and literary works, prayers, sermons, church websites, and creeds. The smaller assignments in the class give students training in exploring aspects of style, and the final project, which can take a number of different shapes, can be adapted to the student's particular commitments, whether religious/congregational, non-profit, educational, creative, literary, linguistic, or others. No previous experience with or knowledge of language study is necessary. Area V.  3 Course cr
M 3:30pm-5:20pm

REL 9971a, Creative Nonfiction  Christian Wiman

Students work on different forms of prose, leading toward a longer final project. This final essay may take the form of spiritual autobiography, but it might also be more outward-focused, employing criticism, biography, or some other method that I haven’t even thought of. We read several hybrid works that verge on poetry, and poets are most welcome in the class (though I want to stress that the assignments are for prose). This course is part seminar and part workshop. About a third of our time is devoted to the reading and analysis of published essays. The rest of our class time is devoted to discussing work done by students in the class. We come at a student’s work in many different ways, our methods evolving with the class. There may be some meetings outside of class. I am not present for these. They are small workshops (three to four people) for students to discuss the pieces that we do not have time to discuss in class. Students will also have individual meetings with me. Please note: On some days that we are workshopping essays, class will run three hours. Students must be able to stay the full time. Enrollment limited to twelve. Admission is at the discretion of the instructor. Area V.  3 Course cr
F 1:30pm-4:30pm

REL 9994a, Moral Issues in Public Policy: Poverty, Health Care, and Voting Rights  William Barber

This seminar introduces students to contemporary public policy debates about poverty, health care, and voting rights by examining the moral issues at stake in each debate from a theological and constitutional perspective. With the best data and evidence-based research available, students are challenged to ask not only what is possible, but also what justice, love, and mercy demand of society and how this moral mandate can be leveraged to effect positive policy change. Area V.  3 Course cr
T 1:30pm-3:20pm