Philosophy and Religious Studies Courses: Fall 2022
Philosophy
PHI 102: Medicine, Culture and the Self: Introduction to Medical Humanities
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency Contextual Integration; Affective Awareness; The course explores crucial questions about health, well-being, medicine, environment, and social inequality in the twenty-first century. Through a philosophical study of historical texts, scientific and clinical data, and first person narratives on illness and wellbeing, students will examine definitions of health and well-being; the strengths and limitations of science and medicine in making sense of illness; disparities in global burdens of disease; the relationship among health, illness, and narrative; and gendered, racialized, and cultural differences in the experiences of illness and the practices of healthcare and medicine (UG)
PHI 110: Philosophical Thinking
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving. An exploration of the nature and content of philosophical inquiry. (UG)
PHI 113: Critical Thinking with Google
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Critical Thinking In this course critical thinking will be presented as a set of skills that has been long established and well defined in our philosophical tradition. (UG)
PHI 209: Science and Values
3 Credit Hour(s)
This course will explore the standards, values, and goals of science by examining issues related to bioethics and health care, technology, the environment, and animal rights. Rather than viewing science merely as a cold impersonal way of arriving at the objective truth about natural phenomena, this course is premised on the idea that science is intimately involved in questions of values; it is committed to standards of right and wrong, and in doing so it moves toward larger social aims. (UG)
PHI 211: African American Thought
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Moral and Ethical Discernment. Cross-listed as REL 211. This course explores the tradition of African-American response to slavery and legalized racism. After some brief historical background, this course will focus on three particularly important moments in this tradition of resistance: the slave narratives (especially Frederick Douglass and Linda Brent), the turn of the century debates over education (especially Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey), and the civil rights movement (especially the student movement, Martin Luther King, Malcom X, and the Black Power movement.) (UG)
PHI 213: Ethics of Sex, Drugs and Sports
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Moral and Ethical Discernment. Cross-listed as REL 213. Designed to be offered in learning community format with BIO 200 Science and Contemporary Social Issues. The course introduces students to moral issues and questions with regard to such matters as human cloning, genetic engineering, stem cell research, euthanasia, the environment and sustainability, and the emergence of life (e.g., fetal development). (UG)
PHI 216: Ethics
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competencies: Critical Thinking, Moral and Ethical Discernment. This course is an introduction to contemporary moral issues. In addition to examining arguments for both sides of different ethical topics, students will learn how to evaluate the soundness of moral arguments and strengthen their analytic skills by criticizing particular arguments. (UG)
PHI 225: Readings in World Culture
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Affective Awareness. Cross-listed as REL 225. This course is part of a learning community exploring the relationship among texts, historical contexts, and cultural conflicts. Students will study crucial moments in the modern era (i.e. slavery, the Holocaust, the Native American experience, the Cold War, and the immigrant experience) and will examine a variety of different texts (film, memoirs, novels, speeches, etc.) that reflect and comment upon these seminal historical moments and conflicts. (UG)
PHI 231: Moments of Vision
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Affective Awareness. Cross-listed as REL 231. Co-sponsored by the Jewish Chautauqua Society and the National Federation of Temple Brotherhoods. The objective of this course is to consider the human imagination as it gives rise to certain visions which speak to dimensions of human experience with respect to a depth otherwise lost and hidden in the everyday world. The course explores the predicaments of evil and suffering, joy and silence, to gain an understanding of the need for visions about the boundaries and depths which open within human experience. (UG)
PHI 234: Scientific and Religious Views of the World
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Affective Awareness. Cross-listed as REL 234. The focus of this interdisciplinary course is to engage in healthy dialogue with respect to problems and possibilities, conflicts and complementarities, differences and/or similarities of religious and scientific perspectives. (UG)
PHI 248: Selected Periods in the History of Philosophy
3 Credit Hour(s)
Selected periods in the History of Philosophy, e.g. ancient philosophy, medieval philosophy, modern philosophy, etc. (UG)
PHI 306: Eastern Philosophies
3 Credit Hour(s)
This course will explore various philosophical and religious concepts in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. Some cultural and historical background will be provided from which students can understand better how these various concepts, with their associated symbols and myths, arose. A methodology will be provided by which these concepts might be related to the spectacle of our age. (UG)
PHI 309: The Holocaust
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Moral and Ethical Discernment. Cross-listed as REL 309. This course analyzes the variety of historical, religious, philosophical and political issues posed by the Nazi policy of systematic genocide. We will explore religious and racial anti-Semitism, the philosophy of fascism, the logic of genocide and the development and implementation of the final solution. Attention will also be paid to concentration camp life and to its effect upon the perpetrators and the survivors. (UG)
PHI 310: Nature in Human Experience
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Moral and Ethical Discernment. This course will examine the philosophical foundations of our relations with nature. It will explore the values humans find in nature, and the responsibility humans have to the natural environment. It will discuss the ethical dimensions of our relation with animals. Finally, it will study a number of contemporary environmental issues. (UG)
PHI 311: Philosophy of Mind
3 Credit Hour(s)
This course looks to an array of texts that address fundamental questions about the nature of the mind: . Can physical beings like us have free will? . How does the human mind relate to the brain? In this course, we will examine some of the ideas and answers that have been provided by some of the great philosophers, both ancient and contemporary, and we will critically evaluate the adequacy of those answers. These difficult questions and others like them will be the focus of our study in this course. (UG)
PHI 314: Philosophy of Art
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Affective Awareness; Critical Thinking; In this course we will read many of the classic works on the nature and value of the arts (including visual art, literature, and music), from the Ancients up to the mid twentieth century. We will address such questions as: What is art? How has the evolution of art forms over the course of time influenced philosophical conceptions of art? What is beauty? What distinguishes judgments of taste from purely factual judgments? Can such judgments be objective, or are they solely a matter of personal feelings? What makes a person beautiful? Are our judgments of human beauty solely the product of our evolutionary past, or do these judgments reflect cultural standards? This is a required course for Art programs. Signed off from Art and Theater. As well as PHI department. (UG)
PHI 315: Social Philosophy
3 Credit Hour(s)
An examination of some of the philosophical concepts and moral principles employed in the rational appraisal of social life. (UG)
PHI 321: Medical Ethics
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Moral and Ethical Discernment. Topics to be discussed include general introduction to ethical theory, health as a value, death and dying, euthanasia, behavior control, medical care and distributive justice. (UG)
PHI 322: Philosophy of Law
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Moral and Ethical Discernment. An exploration of some of the fundamental issues in the philosophy of law. Topics discussed include: the nature of law, law and morality, issues involving freedom of speech and constitutional interpretation, equality and the law, responsibility, crime and punishment, issues in tort law. (UG)
PHI 326: Meaning of Care in a Technological Society
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Contextual Integration. Cross-listed as REL 326. This course will probe the complexity of the issue of human values as these relate to a humane and meaningful future for society. It is a course committed to discovering the interrelations of religious and ethical thinking with the social issues of economics, politics, science and technology. (UG)
PHI 328: Comparative Genocide
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Moral and Ethical Discernment. Writing Intensive. Cross-listed as REL 328. This course will examine phenomenon of modern genocide, with particular attention to the ideological motivation of the perpetrators and to the effect upon families and individuals. After some opening theoretical reflections on the connection between modernity and genocide, the course will focus on four particular examples: American slavery, the Nazi final solution, the Khmer Rouge revolution, and the Rwanda genocide. (UG)
PHI 329: Magic and Science: Principles of Scientific Reasoning
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving. Writing Intensive. Scientific reasoning applies the principles of critical reasoning to the pursuit of scientific activity, which consists of description, explanation, prediction, and control of empirical real world-phenomena. This course will examine the answers to a set of philosophical questions concerning the structure and the limits of scientific explanations, the principles of research design, and research methodology (e.g., quantitative or qualitative) in natural sciences, and social sciences, the differences and similarities between natural sciences and human sciences, discrimination of science from pseudoscience, objectivity of scientific knowledge, and the place for values in science. Students will learn to identify and apply the forms of critical reasoning (e.g., inductive or deductive) to evaluate these philosophical problems pertaining to scientific activity. Prerequisite: One 100/200/300 level Philosophy course or a writing intensive course. (UG)
PHI 330: Witches, Cripples & Other Monsters
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills Core Competency: Moral and Ethical Discernment; Cross-listed as REL 330. This course examines the construction of disability as a historical concept with real live consequences. We will learn about the different theoretical approaches to disability (moral, medical, social, cultural, limits models), and explore issues regarding sexuality, relationships, civil rights, cultural representation, and advocacy. We will also keep in mind the intersections with other bodily and social markers, such as gender, race, sexuality, class, and nationality.Special focus will be given to the role religion, particularly Christianity (its doctrines and practices), has played in how we understand disability as a concept, and persons with disability as members (or not) of our communities. We will analyze historical and contemporary sources like art, literature, religious and medical discourses to explore how images of the normal, healthy, and beautiful are generated and contested by embodied differences. For the purposes of this course, disability will include various ways in which bodies/minds can be seen as abnormal, including physical and cognitive disabilities as well as chronic illness and emotional/mental difference. (UG)
PHI 333: Religions in the World Sequence 1: Asian Traditions
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Contextual Integration. Cross-listed as REL 333. This course provides an introduction to select major religious traditions originating in what is today called India and China: Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Confucianism (if time allows, Daoism). We will consider basic components (teachings, practices) and historical developments in each tradition, including changes brought about by cultural interactions such as colonization and contemporary manifestations and issues. Offered regularly, in sequence with other Religions in the World courses. (UG)
PHI 334: Religions in the World Sequence 2: Monotheistic Traditions
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Contextual Integration. Cross-listed as REL 334. This course will help the student distinguish between and appreciate the specific select religious and spiritual approaches covered in this course. This sequence will cover monotheistic religions with an emphasis on the so-called Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), as well as Mormonism. Origins, historical developments, rituals and practices, and modern lived expression (globally and in the US context) will be discussed. Offered regularly, in sequence with other Religions in the World courses. (UG)
PHI 335: Religions in the World Sequence 3: Indigenous and New Age Traditions
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Contextual Integration. Cross-listed as REL 335.This course will help the student distinguish between and appreciate the specific select religious and spiritual approaches covered in this course. This sequence will cover indigenous and so-called New Age traditions: North American traditions, African traditions, Paganism, and select others (e.g. Aboriginal Australian tradition) as time allows. Origins, historical developments, rituals and practices, the religious situation of indigenous people in the postcolonial world, and issues/conflicts arising out of contemporary socio-political contexts will be discussed. (UG)
PHI 336: Sex, Love and God
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Contextual Integration. Cross-listed as REL 336 or WST 336. This course is about human sexuality and religion, specifically, how religious people have read and interpreted biblical texts and traditions in relation to sex, human sexuality, and expressions of love. Students are encouraged to investigate how their own religious beliefs inform their bodily lives and attitudes regarding sexual, romantic, and erotic expressions. The main focus of this course is concerned with Christianity, though depending on student interest, Jewish and Muslim interpretations may be covered briefly as well. Students will learn about concepts of the human body and related concerns of sexuality in ancient and medieval times, and investigate religious perspectives and prescriptions as they relate to specific understandings. Students will distinguish between historical ideas of erotic love and the modern construction of heterosexuality and homosexuality. The politicization of sexuality by religious groups and the use of religious ideas about sexuality by secular groups will be discussed. (UG)
Religious Studies
REL 105: God and Violence
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Contextual Integration. This course explores the nature of the three Western monotheistic religions of the Book (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and seeks to understand the way that these religions both encourage and discourage inter-communal violence. The course focuses upon the way that holiness and holy spaces function within the foundational texts and practices of each religion. Includes exploration of the role that the holy places in Jerusalem and Saudi Arabia have played in conflicts between Jews and Christians, between Muslims and Jews, and between Islam and the United States. (UG)
REL 109: Contemporary Religious Thought
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Moral and Ethical Discernment. An examination of the different approaches to religious thinking. The content and methodological assumptions of various schools of religious inquiry. (UG)
REL 114: Culture and Story
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Contextual Integration. This course, which compliments and will be in continued dialogue with THA 119 Theatre, Madness and Power, examines the role that ancient religious belief plays in establishing and maintaining categories that have been essential to modern life: purity, holiness, morality, sexuality, and honor. We will then look at how modern life maintains, redefines and transgresses these fundamental categories. For the first part of the course, which deals with antiquity, we will primarily employ the Bible, which will be put in dialogue with the plays of Sophocles and Shakespeare. The modern part of the course will explore the relevant issues with the help of both historical events and secular and religious writers. (UG)
REL 203: The Question of the Human
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Affective Awareness Cross-listed as PHI 203. In order to explore the dignity and worth of the human, the course examines the relationship between the individual and community. Through a series of readings and reflections, the attempt is made to expose the inter-relatedness of various thinkers from the liberal arts tradition. (UG)
REL 211: African American Thought
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core requirement: Moral and Ethical Discernment. Cross-listed as PHI 211. This course explores the tradition of African-American response to slavery and legalized racism. After some brief historical background, this course will focus on three particularly important moments in this tradition of resistance: the slave narratives (especially Frederick Douglass and Linda Brent), the turn of the century debates over education (especially Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey), and the civil rights movement (especially the student movement, Martin Luther King, Malcom X, and the Black Power movement). (UG)
REL 213: Ethics of Sex, Drugs and Sports
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Moral and Ethical Discernment. Cross-listed as PHI 213. Designed to be offered in learning community format with BIO 200 Science and Contemporary Social Issues. The course introduces students to moral issues and questions with regard to such matters as human cloning, genetic engineering, stem cell research, euthanasia, the environment and sustainability, and the emergence of life (e.g., fetal development). (UG)
REL 225: Readings in World Culture
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Affective Awareness. Cross-listed as PHI 225. This course is part of a learning community exploring the relationship among texts, historical contexts, and cultural conflicts. Students will study crucial moments in the modern era (i.e. slavery, the Holocaust, the Native American experience, the Cold War, and the immigrant experience) and will examine a variety of different texts (film, memoirs, novels, speeches, etc.) that reflect and comment upon these seminal historical moments and conflicts. (UG)
REL 234: Scientific & Religious Views of the World
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Affective Awareness. Cross-listed as PHI 234. The focus of this interdisciplinary course is to engage in healthy dialogue with respect to problems and possibilities, conflicts and complementarities, differences and/or similarities of religious and scientific perspectives. (UG)
REL 241: Introduction to Islam
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Contextual Integration. With 1.5 billion adherents, Islam is the second largest religion in the world and in the United States today. It is also the fastest growing religion of our time. One out of every five people is a Muslim. As we study Islam, we will be examining a religion that dominated and shaped world history for many centuries. This course will provide an outline of the history of Islam and the impact of Islamic belief and culture on the world's social and political development, as well as an introductory survey of the fundamental tenets and practices of the last religion in the Semitic tradition. Attention will also be given to contemporary Islam and to the modern interpretation of the Islamic tradition. The course will be divided into three parts: the first will focus upon the history of Islam; the second will examine Islamic faith, sources of authority, and practice; and the third will explore contemporary Islam. No prior knowledge is assumed. (UG)
REL 309: The Holocaust
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Moral and Ethical Discernment. Cross-listed as PHI 309. This course analyzes the variety of historical, religious, philosophical and political issues posed by the Nazi policy of systematic genocide. We will explore religious and racial anti-Semitism, the philosophy of fascism, the logic of genocide and the development and implementation of the final solution. Attention will also be paid to concentration camp life and to its effect upon the perpetrators and the survivors. (UG)
REL 313: Religious Values and Contemporary Moral Problems
3 Credit Hour(s)
The interaction between religious values and contemporary moral concerns. A discussion of selected ethical topics and perspective, nature of religious ethics and the meaning of religious values for modern society. (UG)
REL 316: Gospels Scholarship: Assessing the Field
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving. Writing Intensive. This course will examine recent trends within New Testament scholarship, with particular attention to recent scholarship on the Gospels. The course will focus on three large sets of topics: methodological questions (what is the best approach to reading the Gospels?), ideological questions (what is the place of gender and social status in the analysis of the Gospels?), and historical questions (what is the relationship between the Gospels and their historical environment?). In particular, the course will focus on the following topics: historical reconstructions of the situation in Palestine during and immediately following the life of Jesus; feminist readings of the Gospel; Christian conflicts with Judaism; the relationship between early Christianity and the Roman empire; and the interrelationship between the Gospels. Students will be asked to read and evaluate the recent forms of criticism and to draw their own conclusions on how best to approach the text. (UG)
REL 322: The Gospels
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Affective Awareness. After locating the Gospels in the complex and diverse world of first century Judaism, we will examine the four New Testament Gospels as well as other, non-canonical Gospels (The Coptic Gospel of Thomas, The Sayings Source). Particular attention will be paid to the distinctive structure, characterization, themes, rhetoric and theology of each Gospel. (UG)
REL 328: Comparative Genocide
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Moral and Ethical Discernment. Writing Intensive. Cross-listed as PHI 328. This course will examine phenomenon of modern genocide, with particular attention to the ideological motivation of the perpetrators and to the effect upon families and individuals. After some opening theoretical reflections on the connection between modernity and genocide, the course will focus on four particular examples: American slavery, the Nazi final solution, the Khmer Rouge revolution, and the Rwanda genocide. (UG)
REL 330: Witches, Cripples & Other Monsters
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills Core Competency: Moran and Ethical Discernment; Cross-listed as PHI 330. This course examines the construction of disability as a historical concept with real live consequences. We will learn about the different theoretical approaches to disability (moral, medical, social, cultural, limits models), and explore issues regarding sexuality, relationships, civil rights, cultura representation, and advocacy. We will also keep in mind the intersections with other bodily and social markers, such as gender, race, sexuality, class, and nationality.Special focus will be given to the role religion, particularly Christianity (its doctrines and practices), has played in how we understand disability as a concept, and person with disability as members (or not) of our communities. We will analyze historical and contemporary sources like art, literature, religious and medical discourses to explore how images of the normal, healthy, and beautiful are generated and contested by embodied differences. For the purposes of this course, disability will include various ways in whichbodies/minds can be seen as abnormal, including physical and cognitive disabilities as well as chronic illness and emotional/mental difference. (UG)
REL 331: Reading List
2 Credit Hour(s)
Seminar provides a discussion of literature in the discipline. (UG)
REL 332: Reading List
2 Credit Hour(s)
Seminar provides a discussion of literature in the discipline. (UG)
REL 333: Religions in the World Sequence 1: Asian Traditions
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Contextual Integration. Cross-listed as PHI 333. This course provides an introduction to select major religious traditions originating in what is today called India and China: Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Confucianism (if time allows, Daoism). We will consider basic components (teachings, practices) and historical developments in each tradition, including changes brought about by cultural interactions such as colonization and contemporary manifestations and issues. Offered regularly, in sequence with other Religions in the World courses. (UG)
REL 334: Religiions in the World Sequence 2: MonotheisticTraditions
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Contextual Integration. Cross-listed as PHI 334. This course will help the student distinguish between and appreciate the specific select religious and spiritual approaches covered in this course. This sequence will cover monotheistic religions with an emphasis on the so-called Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), as well as Mormonism. Origins, historical developments, rituals and practices, and modern lived expression (globally and in the US context) will be discussed. Offered regularly, in sequence with other Religions in the World courses. (UG)
REL 335: Religions in the World Sequence 3: Indigenous and New Age Traditions
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Contextual Integration. Cross-listed as PHI 335. This course will help the student distinguish between and appreciate the specific select religious and spiritual approaches covered in this course. This sequence will cover indigenous and so-called New Age traditions: North American traditions, African traditions, Paganism, and select others (e.g. Aboriginal Australian tradition) as time allows. Origins, historical developments, rituals and practices, the religious situation of indigenous people in the postcolonial world, and issues/conflicts arising out of contemporary socio-political contexts will be discussed (UG)
REL 336: Sex, Love and God
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competency: Contextual Integration. Cross-listed as PHI 336 or WST 336. This course is about human sexuality and religion, specifically, how religious people have read and interpreted biblical texts and traditions in relation to sex, human sexuality, and expressions of love. Students are encouraged to investigate how their own religious beliefs inform their bodily lives and attitudes regarding sexual, romantic, and erotic expressions. The main focus of this course is concerned with Christianity, though depending on student interest, Jewish and Muslim interpretations may be covered briefly as well. Students will learn about concepts of the human body and related concerns of sexuality in ancient and medieval times, and investigate religious perspectives and prescriptions as they relate to specific understandings. Students will distinguish between historical ideas of erotic love and the modern construction of heterosexuality and homosexuality. The politicization of sexuality by religious groups and the use of religious ideas about sexuality by secular groups will be discussed. (UG)
REL 443: Proseminar
3 Credit Hour(s)
Fulfills core competencies: Communication Skills; Information Literacy. Research & Presentation; Writing Intensive. Introduction to research through an individual project. Required of all seniors. (UG)