This course explores concepts of soul from early Greek Civilization to the early Christian era. It examines a cluster of related concepts -- soul, spirit, shade, consciousness, will, and mind - that express the self or “inner person.” Entailed are soul as a thing separate from body; sensation and perception; relation of soul to body; […]
This course addresses city formation, urban space, and the socio-religious structure in Islamic cities from early Islam to the pre-modern period. The course approaches the Islamic city both as an urban phenomenon and as a modern analytical concept. Its content include some central themes in Islamic studies such as the place of religion in the […]
This course examines religious, intellectual, and cultural relations between the three faith communities of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. It examines the origins of these religious communities, as expressed through their holy texts, and the ways these faith communities grew and spread through history. Methodologically the course pays special attention to the study of primary sources […]
How have South Asian religions been represented, practiced, communicated, and transformed through popular culture? How are religious themes, images, and ideas explored in contemporary film, television, print media and music? Focusing on Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Sikhism, the course explores concepts of the religious and the popular in ancient and medieval South Asian art forms […]
Explores how the colonial encounter shaped the academic study of Buddhism and the image of Buddhism in the West. Reading popular and scholarly accounts of Buddhism written from the early nineteenth century to the present day, the course analyses how the legacy of and response to colonialism have coloured our understanding of Buddhism as a […]
Explores Buddhist responses to the changing conditions of modernity in Southeast Asia. Seeking to understand Buddhism as a living religion, it investigates how Buddhists have drawn on religious narratives, symbols and rituals to respond to social and political challenges from the nineteenth century to the present, including issues of religious reform, colonialism, nationalism and ethnicity. […]
This seminar explores the establishment of Christianity among the indigenous peoples of colonial Latin America, with a primary focus on Mexico and Peru. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Christianity Cross-listed as AP/HIST 4753 6.00.
This public history seminar explores the origins, development and paradoxes of the Canadian Jewish community from its inception in the 18th century to the present. It pays particular attention to the complexities of immigration, relationships between Jews and non-Jews, inspiration and anxiety about religious change, the Holocaust, Zionism & the State of Israel in public […]
This course is an interdisciplinary investigation of how religion is mediated in culture through mass media (television, radio, the press) as well as through electronic media (internet, video games) and popular culture (film). To de-construct cultural texts through significant practices of communication, within symbolic universes and the symbolic interpretation of meaning. To describe individual religious […]
The course reviews the basic teachings of the major religious traditions, including those of the indigenous people, and analyzes their role in international relations and the globalization process, through time and space, from a comparative and multicultural perspective. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Multiple Cross-listed as GL/ILST 3.00.