UCOR Section Descriptions

Course Description

This course is designed to introduce students to the study of world religions. Religious traditions studied include Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. In addition to engaging in an overview of these traditions, students will also learn about religious studies as a discipline, and about the methods involved in comparative religion. This will necessarily involve discussions of feminist and post-colonial critiques.

Course Description

This course traces the long and difficult relationship between the Jewish and Catholic worlds. Beginning with the advent of Christianity, these two global communities usually interacted with strife and violence. The purpose of this class is to develop an understanding of the history of this relationship, to think critically about what inter-community engagement can and should look like, and to wrestle with the process of addressing a painful past for the sake of a better future.

Course Description

In this course, we tackle the complex role religion played in the establishment, defense, and continuation of slavery in the American colonies and fledgling United States, the role religion played in the slave communities themselves, the role it played in the abolitionist movement in the northern states through the time the slaves’ emancipation, and the role it played in maintaining rigid patterns of racial discrimination and segregation in the United States afterward.

Course Description

We will use a combination of historical, textual, legal, and anthropological approaches to analyze the complex interplay between Quranic exegesis, Islamic religious traditions, gender, sexuality and politics in the Muslim world. We will start with Quranic tenets and traditional precepts on gender and sexuality; we will continue with a study of how classical interpretations were altered by the encounter with the West; and we will conclude with different views and strategies adopted by Muslim women and gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims around the world.

Course Description

In this course, we tackle the complex role religion played in the establishment, defense, and continuation of slavery in the American colonies and fledgling United States, the role religion played in the slave communities themselves, the role it played in the abolitionist movement in the northern states through the time the slaves’ emancipation, and the role it played in maintaining rigid patterns of racial discrimination and segregation in the United States afterward.

Course Description

This course introduces students to Islam as a historical religion and a lived tradition. Core readings include passages from the Muslim scripture, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, and the classics of Islamic law, theology, and mysticism. The course also introduces students to the key texts of modern Islamic studies, especially those that contextualize Islam in relation to other Near Eastern religious traditions. Class readings also address numerous aspects of contemporary Islam, from gender struggles to the American-Muslim experience.

Course Description

We will use a combination of historical, textual, legal, and anthropological approaches to analyze the complex interplay between Quranic exegesis, Islamic religious traditions, gender, sexuality and politics in the Muslim world. We will start with Quranic tenets and traditional precepts on gender and sexuality; we will continue with a study of how classical interpretations were altered by the encounter with the West; and we will conclude with different views and strategies adopted by Muslim women and gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims around the world.

Course Description

Whatever one's education, background, or socio-economic status, the advances of science have great implications for the public. However, science has become increasingly specialized, often resulting in a disparity between what the expert scientist knows and what the non-expert understands. This class offers case studies for students to learn about scientific controversies in the public sphere so that they may better understand the dynamic, social, cultural, and political aspects of science.

Course Description

This course investigates the philosophical, social and psychological forces at work in the way humans create and deploy monsters to cope with the fear and uncertainty. Using philosophical and psychological resources, and drawing from stories, myths and media, this class seeks to understand and rethink the way strangers are turned to monsters.

Course Description

This course will examine U.S. military intervention in the world from 1898 to the present.