* RLST 0035a / HIST 0623a / HUMS 0360a / JDST 0035a, Jerusalem: Judaism, Christianity, Islam  Sarit Kattan Gribetz

The Old City of Jerusalem is just 0.35 square miles large, about half the size of Yale’s campus. Have you ever wondered what makes this tiny city so beloved to—and the object of continual strife for—Jews, Christians, and Muslims? Through engagement with a wide range of sources—including biblical lamentations, archeological excavations, qur’anic passages, exegetical materials, medieval pilgrim itineraries, legal documents, maps, poetry, art, architecture, and international political resolutions—students develop the historiographical tools and theoretical frameworks to study the history of one of the world’s most enduringly important and bitterly contested cities.  Students encounter persistent themes central to the identity of Jerusalem: geography and topography; exile, diaspora, and return; destruction and trauma; religious violence and war; practices of pilgrimage; social diversity; missionizing; the rise of nationalism; peace efforts; the ethics of storytelling; and the stakes of studying the past. Enrollment limited to first-year students.   HU  RP
MW 2:35pm-3:50pm

* RLST 0045a / EALL 0350a / HUMS 0275a / PHIL 0060a, Six Global Perspectives on Reality  Lucas Bender and Sonam Kachru

What is the structure of reality? What makes up the world? This class introduces the questions of metaphysics from the perspective of different traditions from around the globe. Readings are drawn from Indian, East Asian, and Western contexts, ranging from the earliest sources to contemporary philosophy of science. The first-year seminars of the “Six Global Perspectives” series provide an introduction to the humanities at Yale. These seminars aim to build confidence for students who have little experience with the humanities while remaining challenging for students with more background. Participants in the program receive dedicated writing support and introductions to Yale’s collections and libraries.  HU
MW 9am-10:15am

RLST 1030a / HEBR 1170a, Elementary Biblical Hebrew I  Dina Roginsky

An introduction to biblical Hebrew. Intensive instruction in grammar and vocabulary, supplemented by readings from the Bible. No prior knowledge of Hebrew required.  L1
TTh 2:35pm-3:50pm

* RLST 1140a, What's the Matter (with Religion)?  Stephen Davis

We (and everything around us) matter and are made of matter. When it comes to common cultural conceptions, however, religion is all too often conceived of as a purely spiritual, transcendent, and supernatural domain. This course challenges those assumptions by drawing on recent approaches that emphasize and also interrogate the power and agency of things, whether human or non-human, organic or inorganic, tangible or intangible. Part one of the course equips students with key theoretical frameworks, including thing theory, vital materialism, animacies, entanglements, symmetrical archaeology, and affect and emotion. Part two consists of deep dives into selected case studies, organized under the following thematic headings: aniconism and the immaterial, materializations of ritual practice (oracles, magic, and fetishes), apparitions and hauntings, movements and migrations, consumption and consumerism, illness and contagion, and ecology and the environment. As we traverse these topics, we encounter materialities ranging from ancient Greek rock art, Roman oracle shrines, and recipes for magical spells and visions of saints in Egypt, to devotional items confiscated from undocumented immigrants, the marketing of religion by Goldman Sachs and Kanye West, viral epidemics, and “natural” disasters. Students come away from this seminar better able to recognize and act upon what matters in the world.  HU
T 9:25am-11:20am

* RLST 1210a / EALL 2960a / EAST 3621a, Religion and Culture in Korea  Hwansoo Kim

Introduction to Shamanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Christianity, and new religions in Korea from ancient times to the present. Examination of religious traditions in close relationships with social, economic, political, and cultural environments in Korean society. Examination of religious tensions, philosophical arguments, and ethical issues that indigenous and foreign religions in Korea have engaged throughout history to maximize their influence in Korean society.   HU
Th 1:30pm-3:25pm

RLST 1480a / ER&M 2519a / HIST 1219a / JDST 2000a / MMES 1149a, Jews and the World: From the Bible through Early Modern Times  Ivan Marcus

A broad introduction to the history of the Jews from biblical beginnings until the European Reformation and the Ottoman Empire. Focus on the formative period of classical rabbinic Judaism and on the symbiotic relationships among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Jewish society and culture in its biblical, rabbinic, and medieval settings. Counts toward either European or non-Western distributional credit within the History major, upon application to the director of undergraduate studies.  HU  RP  0 Course cr
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

RLST 1490b / HIST 1220b / JDST 2001b, Modern Jewish Politics: The Last Four Centuries  David Sorkin

A broad introduction to the history of Jewish culture from the late Middle Ages until the present. Emphasis on the changing interaction of Jews with the larger society as well as the transformation of Judaism in its encounter with modernity.  WR, HU  0 Course cr
MW 2:35pm-3:25pm

RLST 1710b / EALL 2190b / EAST 2201b / HUMS 2140b / PHIL 1119b, Introduction to Chinese Philosophy  Lucas Bender

This course represents an introduction to the most important philosophical thinkers and texts in Chinese history, ranging from roughly 500 BC–1500 AD. Topics include ethics, political philosophy, epistemology, and ontology. We discuss the basic works of Confucian and Daoist philosophers during the Warring States and early imperial eras, the continuation of these traditions in early medieval “dark learning,” Buddhist philosophy (in its original Indian context, the early period of its spread to China, and in mature Chinese Buddhist schools such as Chan/Zen), and Neo-Confucian philosophy. The course emphasizes readings in the original texts of the thinkers and traditions in question (all in English translation). No knowledge of Chinese or previous contact with Chinese philosophy required.  HU  0 Course cr
MW 10:30am-11:20am

* RLST 1930a / HIST 2216a / JDST 3432a / MMES 1197a, Zionism and Anti-Zionism and its Opponents  Elli Stern

Introduction to the core ideas of the Zionist movement from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth. Focus on internal Jewish debates and criticism of the movement by European and Middle Eastern intellectuals. Social, political, cultural, and messianic ideological strands within the movement and their interpretations of various historical experiences and ideas located in the Jewish tradition.  HU
M 4pm-5:55pm

* RLST 2010a / HIST 3232a / HUMS 4430a / JDST 3270a / MMES 3342a, Medieval Jews, Christians, and Muslims In Conversation  Ivan Marcus

How members of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities thought of and interacted with members of the other two cultures during the Middle Ages. Cultural grids and expectations each imposed on the other; the rhetoric of otherness—humans or devils, purity or impurity, and animal imagery; and models of religious community and power in dealing with the other when confronted with cultural differences. Counts toward either European or Middle Eastern distributional credit within the History major, upon application to the director of undergraduate studies.  WR, HU  RP
T 1:30pm-3:25pm

RLST 2020b / HIST 1645b / JDST 3265b / MMES 1148b, Jews in Muslim Lands from the Seventh to the Sixteenth Centuries  Ivan Marcus

Jewish culture and society in Muslim lands from the time of the Prophet Muhammad to that of Suleiman the Magnificent. Topics include Islam and Judaism; Jerusalem as a holy site; rabbinic leadership and literature in Baghdad; Jewish courtiers, poets, and philosophers in Muslim Spain; and the Jews in the Ottoman Empire.  HU  0 Course cr
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

* RLST 2290a / EAST 4602a, Good Life, Care, and Ethics in Buddhism  Marta Sanvido

In this course, we will explore ethical issues in Buddhism across a wide range of contexts and time periods. Together, we will examine how Buddhism addresses fundamental moral and ethical questions, such as: How should I behave? What are the implications of my actions? What is good and bad? How can we bridge the gap between knowing what is right and acting accordingly? The course is divided into two parts. In the first part, we will explore foundational topics in Buddhist ethics, focusing on themes such as retribution, precepts, the Bodhisattva’s path, meditation, and the role of feelings. The second part centers on Buddhism’s responses to contemporary ethical issues, including abortion, gender, race, and environmental ethics. This course integrates both the theory and practice of ethics. The structure and assignments are designed to help you engage with theoretical systems that may differ from those you are familiar with, while also applying these abstract ideas to reflect on the relationship between theory and practice.  HU
Th 9:25am-11:20am

* RLST 2310b / HIST 3226b / JDST 3470b, How the West Became Antisemitic: Jews and the Formation of Europe 800-1500  Ivan Marcus

Students study how Jews and Christians interacted on a daily basis as medieval Europe became more restrictive and antisemitic, a contributing factor to the Holocaust. In this writing seminar, students discuss a variety of primary sources in class–laws, stories, chronicles, images–while researching and writing their own seminar paper structured by sessions on topics, bibliographies, and outlines.   WR, HU
T 1:30pm-3:25pm

RLST 2680a / HIST 1281a, Christian Mysticism, 1200–1700  Staff

An introductory survey of the mystical literature of the Christian West, focusing on the late medieval and early modern periods. Close reading of primary texts, analyzed in their historical context.  HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

* RLST 2770a / PHIL 2202a, Existentialism  Noreen Khawaja

Introduction to key problems in European existentialism. Existentialism considered not as a unified movement, but as a tradition of interlocking ideas about human freedom woven through the philosophy, religious thought, art, and political theory of late modern Europe. Readings from Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heti, Lukács, Gide, Heidegger, Fanon, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Cesaire.  HU
Th 4pm-5:55pm

RLST 2815b / EALL 2807b / HUMS 4515b / PHIL 2815b, Mind-Sculpting 101: World Meditation Traditions  Sonam Kachru and Mick Hunter

Interest in meditation has surged in recent years, partly as a therapeutic response to stress, pain, and depression, and partly due to growing attentional challenges associated with our era of distraction (smart phones, social media, the internet, etc.). Available meditation techniques range from practices rooted in ancient contemplative traditions to secularized clinical protocols and app-based mindfulness exercises—but what is meditation, at once ancient and timely? This course brings a cosmopolitan perspective to the global history of meditation, treating it both as a humanistic object of study—normative, contested, and interpretively rich—and as a versatile suite of practices that might contribute to the humanities. In addition to experimenting with and developing their own attention practices, students encounter and reflect on contemplative genres of art, literature, and music.  HU
HTBA

* RLST 3104a / CGSC 3141a / PHIL 3141a / PSYC 3141a, The Good Mind: Buddhist Philosophy for Psychologists  Sonam Kachru and Xihan Zhang

Buddhist practices of attention (meditation) have influenced contemporary therapeutic interventions in clinical psychology, such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Cognitive and Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Even though the clinical evidence for the effectiveness of these therapies is strong, the mechanisms underlying therapeutic success remain largely unknown. Buddhist philosophical models of mental architecture and action relevant to meditation are not sufficiently drawn on in empirical work; at the same time, many of the explanatory models developed by Buddhist philosophy remain empirically untested. This course fills the gap by providing students with the resources to engage Buddhist philosophy and experimental psychology in dialogue. Students develop expertise in the epistemic paradigms of analysis and explanation involved in both traditions, with an emphasis on the prospects for first-personal observation in both theoretical paradigms. Given the multidisciplinary nature of this course and its topical focus on well-being, we imagine this class suitable for a broad range of students from Psychology, Cognitive Science, Humanities, Religious Studies, and Philosophy, among other disciplines.  HU, SO
Th 9:25am-11:20am

* RLST 3150a / EAST 4625a, Liberation by Hearing: Sound and Listening to the Liminal  Staff

What does dying sound like? How do we listen to dreams? How can hearing itself become a spiritual practice, or even a path to liberation? With roots grounded in Tibetan Buddhism and branches extending across fields, disciplines, and areas, this course explores sound as a medium of religious experiences of transition and intermediacy. Life-death. Lucidity-dreaming. Desire-renunciation. We look at these instances not as moments of passage, but borderlands to be dwelled in, where sound and listening become charged with the work of guiding, unsettling, or transforming consciousness. Act I begins with a broad foundation in studies of sound, listening, and religion before introducing Buddhist frameworks and the role of mantra in tantric practice. Act II examines how sonic practices accompany dying and afterlife transitions, along with how sensory experiences can be catalysts for awakening. Act III considers the liminal space between dreams and wakefulness where Tibetan visionary practices meet comparative perspectives on dreaming, consciousness, and history. Act IV investigates the relationship between sound and longing, sexuality, and renunciation through Tibetan songs of realization. Finally, Act V turns to avant-garde appropriations of Tibetan Buddhist theories of transition, exploring how technologies of listening transform religious experience.  HU
HTBA

* RLST 3210b / HIST 2440b / SAST 3620b, Hindus and Muslims in South Asia  Supriya Gandhi

Study of engagements between Hindu and Muslim traditions in South Asia from medieval to modern times. Exploration of historical case studies of Hindu-Muslim relations and the formation of religious identities, as well as how memories of the past intersect with modern discourses on religion and politics.   HU
T 9:25am-11:20am

* RLST 3240b / HIST 3768b / JDST 3451b / PLSC 3464b, The Global Right: From the French Revolution to the American Insurrection  Elli Stern

This seminar explores the history of right-wing political thought from the late eighteenth century to the present, with an emphasis on the role played by religious and pagan traditions. This course seeks to answer the question, what constitutes the right? What are the central philosophical, religious, and pagan, principles of those groups associated with this designation? How have the core ideas of the right changed over time? We do this by examining primary tracts written by theologians, political philosophers, and social theorists as well as secondary literature written by scholars interrogating movements associated with the right in America, Europe, Middle East and Asia. Though touching on specific national political parties, institutions, and think tanks, its focus is on mapping the intellectual overlap and differences between various right-wing ideologies. While the course is limited to the modern period, it adopts a global perspective to better understand the full scope of right-wing politics.  HU, SO
M 1:30pm-3:25pm

* RLST 3265a / EAST 3603a, Buddhism Through Storytelling and Narratives  Marta Sanvido

This seminar explores how stories have shaped Buddhist traditions from India to Japan, while also engaging contemporary examples from North American Buddhism. Together, we will examine how narratives function as vehicles for teaching, ethical reflection, and religious practice. Students will develop tools for interpreting a wide range of genres—including hagiographies, miracle tales, visual narratives, women’s stories, autobiographies, and autofiction—across diverse Buddhist traditions and historical periods. Students interested in working with Japanese-language materials are encouraged to contact the instructor directly.  HU
Th 1:30pm-3:25pm

* RLST 3300a / ANTH 2252a / SAST 3760a, Religion, Place, and Space  Staff

This seminar explores why ‘placemaking’ is significant for practitioners of various religions worldwide. From the holy city of Mecca to the sacred landscape of Banaras in India, religious traditions are tethered to sacred geographies. These locations are often physical sites imbued with sacred energies and social meaning. Religious activities can occur in churches or mosques, forests or mountains, community centers, public squares, or homes. The course materials consider specific religious sites and contexts (including those on the Yale campus), examining how these places simultaneously become sites of worship, articulations of identity and heritage, claims of political significance, and hubs of social and emotional life. Special attention is given to how space and place are gendered, racialized, and shaped by emotions, senses, and memories.  HU, SO
MW 11:35am-12:50pm

* RLST 3310a / ER&M 2661a / HUMS 2715a / SAST 2710a / TDPS 2034a, Hindu Worlds Through Narratives  Shiva Sai Ram Urella

This course introduces students to the vast and varied world of the Purāṇas, a genre that has shaped Hindu thought, practice, and imagination for over a millennium. Encompassing cosmology, genealogy, theology, ritual performances, and narrative art, the Purāṇas defy easy classification. They have been written, recited, performed, painted, danced, engraved, sung, and translated across languages, regions, and centuries—and they continue to be living texts in contemporary South Asia. Through a combination of primary sources in translation and scholarly analyses, we examine how Purāṇic narratives construct worlds: how they organize time and space, articulate notions of power, imagine the nature of the divine, conceptualize distinct devotional theologies, advertise pilgrimages, and negotiate questions of gender, caste, and regional belonging. We move between Sanskrit, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Kannada, and Marathi contexts and attend to the material and performative lives of these texts as scroll paintings, temple myths, oral performances, manuscripts, and ritual repertoires that informed lived religious contexts. The course asks not only what the Purāṇas are but also how they have been used, by whom, and to what ends they have been mobilized in both pre-modern and modern times.  HU
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

* RLST 3470b / HIST 2787b / SOCY 3331b / WGSS 2291b, Sexual Minorities from Plato to the Enlightenment  Igor De Souza

This interdisciplinary course surveys the history of homosexuality from a cross-cultural, comparative  perspective. Students study contexts where homosexuality and sodomy were categorized, regulated, and persecuted and examine ancient and medieval constructions of same-sex desire in light of post-modern developments, challenging ideas around what is considered normal and/or natural. Ultimately, we ask: what has changed, and what has remained the same, in the history of homosexuality? What do gays and lesbians today have in common with pre-modern sodomites? Can this history help us ground or rethink our sexual selves and identities? Primary and secondary historical sources, some legal and religious sources, and texts in intellectual history are studied. Among the case studies for the course are ancient attitudes among Jews, early Christians, and Greeks; Christian theologians of the Middle Ages; Renaissance Florence; the Inquisition in Iberia; colonial Latin America; and the Enlightenment’s condemnation of sodomy by Montesquieu and Voltaire, and its defense by Bentham.  HU
HTBA

* RLST 3760a, Enchantment  Travis Zadeh

This seminar interrogates the role of enchantment in the history of religion, science, and magic. A key foil in the constitution of secular modernity, enchantment has long served as a way to critique other societies and people as mired in primitive superstitions. Yet throughout the course of modern era, enchantment has also offered a fount for constituting the past, critiquing the present, and imagining the future. Inversely, the process of disenchantment has played a vital role in the definition of what it means to be modern. Throughout the semester, we interrogate the interconnections that have both bound together and separated religion, science, and magic. One primary concern for our seminar is the categorical logic that has structured the study of religion and the history of science through such antonyms as Eastern and Western, superstitious and rational, savage and civilized, primitive and modern, religious and secular, etc. Themes include: language, epistemology, authority, comparison, classification, origins, history, mythology, ideology, colonialism, Orientalism, polemic, secularism, liberalism, sympathy, theories of race, and group formation.  HU
Th 9:25am-11:20am

RLST 4020a / PHIL 2256a, The Philosophy of Religion  Staff

The relation between religion and ethics, traditional arguments for the existence of God, religious experience, the problem of evil, miracles, immortality, science and religion, and faith and reason.  HU  0 Course cr
HTBA

* RLST 4220a / EGYP 147 / EGYP 1470a, Egyptian Monastic Literature in Coptic  Stephen Davis

Readings in the early Egyptian classics of Christian asceticism in Sahidic Coptic, including the desert Fathers and Shenute. Prerequisite: EGYP 1270 or equivalent. Counts as L4 if taken after EGYP 1370 or equivalent.  L3
MW 9am-10:15am

* RLST 4370a / HIST 3728a / HSHM 4770a / HUMS 3463a, Critical Theories of Science and Religion  Noreen Khawaja and Joanna Radin

This course is an introduction to new thinking about the relationship of science and religion in global modernities. This semester, we study how frameworks of secularization and enchantment affect our theoretical and lived approaches to matter, media, and meaning. In particular, we explore the Catholicism of key thinkers shaping the field of contemporary science and technology studies, including Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Marshall MacLuhan, and their many critics. Social science since Weber has abounded in models to think about the interplay of secular culture and Protestant spirituality. What tools might we need to think about the kind of world Catholic science has made? What is a world, and who gets to define it?   HU
M 9:25am-11:20am

* RLST 4500a / JDST 3619a / PHIL 4403a, Spinoza and the God of the Bible  Nancy Levene

An exploration of Spinoza’s writings on God, nature, and person; human law, divine law, and political life; and the interpretation of the Bible. Prerequisite: coursework in philosophical texts.  HU
T 1:30pm-3:25pm

* RLST 4880a and RLST 4890b, Individual Tutorial  Maria Doerfler

For students who wish, under faculty supervision, to investigate an area in religious studies not covered by regular departmental offerings. The course may be used for research or for directed reading. A long essay or several short ones are required. To apply, students should present a prospectus with bibliography of work they propose to undertake to the director of undergraduate studies together with a letter of support from the faculty member who will direct the work.
HTBA

* RLST 4900b, Religion and Society  Eric Greene

Seminar on religion and society. Topics covered vary by year, but may include one or more of the following: ritual and its social functions, different concepts of social life, the operation of violence in social relationships, religion as both champion and critic of society, and theoretical models of religion and society.
HTBA

* RLST 4910a and RLST 4920a or b, The Senior Essay  Maria Doerfler

Students writing their senior essays meet periodically in the fall and weekly in the spring for a colloquium directed by the director of undergraduate studies. The essay, written under the supervision of a member of the department, should be a substantial paper between 12,500 and 15,000 words.
W 1:30pm-3:25pm