World Religions: Western and Eastern Traditions

This course examines various ways in which Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism have transformed over time and responded to new environments, circumstances, and challenges. In an effort to better understand these “living religious traditions,” this course will examine each religion’s founding narratives and figures, the histories of their religious traditions and their diversification, their theological doctrines, mystical traditions, rituals, concepts of life, death and time, and conceptions of the relationship between religion and ethical, social and political life. Students will also be required to understand, and encouraged to think through, some of the basic methodological and interpretive issues involved in the academic study of religion, especially those surrounding cultural diversity and evaluative judgment, as well as various non-religious based theories, from psychology to economics, as to why religions exist.