Since antiquity, Jerusalem has been a focal point for both spiritual transcendence and earthly strife. This course explores the history of a city holy to three major Western religions. It focuses on the political and religious factors that have shaped its changing meaning for Jews, Christians, and Muslims and the controversies that surround it to […]
This course will present a broad exposure to the history, thought, literature, and main institutions of Rabbinic Judaism from its inception, during the Second Temple period, through contemporary times. We will explore a variety of classical texts and genres in light of their religious and historical settings. We will consider institutions that have shaped Rabbinic […]
This course examines contemporary manifestations of antisemitism and islamophobia in Canada. It begins by providing a brief historical review of Christian anti-Jewish thought and theology as put forward by the early Church fathers, Augustine and the subsequent papal bulls. The significance of the role of the Jew as moneylender in medieval feudal Europe will be […]
This course offers an exploration of Jewish beliefs, institutions, and bodies of literature, emphasizing continuities and changes in religious expression within and across different places, circumstances, and times. Themes covered include God, the Jewish people, Torah and its interpretation, the land of Israel; the commandments (mitzvot) and their legal (halakhic) expressions; the Sabbath; daily and […]
This course examines the evolution of anti-Jewish thought and behaviour as a response to the crisis of modernity. It examines the role of antisemitism in 19th- and 20th-century European ideological, political and socio-economic developments and the Jewish responses to antisemitism. RELIGIOUS TRADITION(S) COVERED: Judaism
This course examines the role and representation of the religious on television. It introduces students to the vocabularies of Religious Studies and Media Studies, and critically explores the relationship between religion and television as aspects of contemporary popular culture. Distinguishing various televison genres from kinds of cinema, the course analyzes the ways in which daily […]
This course examines the role and representation of the religious in popular film. It introduces students to the vocabularies of Religious Studies and Film Studies, and critically explores the relationship between religion and film as aspects of contemporary culture. Drawing mainly on mass-distributed films from Europe and North America, the course analyzes the ways in […]
This course examines how the Holocaust is represented and taught in Canada, Germany and Poland in the context of racism and multiculturalism in these three countries. It combines aspects of cultural studies, history, religious studies and literary studies. Note: This course is open only to those students enrolled in the Concurrent Education Program. Note: This […]
Religion plays an important role in inculcating and perpetuating societal norms and values. However, that is only part of the story. Many members of marginalized groups have also found within religion a space in which to resist and to manoeuvre within those same norms and values. For religion is not just the site of patriarchal […]
The course examines the plurality of rituals and devotional practices in Islam and the variety of spaces and places engendered by Muslim worship and devotion from early Islam to the contemporary period. It examines the diversity of forms of Muslim worship and devotional practices such as prayer, pilgrimage, tomb visitations, as well as individual contemplation […]