Undergraduate Program

This course introduces major world religions and the scholarly methods of the academic study of religion. Religions covered may include Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and/or New Religious Movements.

Meets New Mexico General Education Curriculum Area 5: Humanities.

An introductory study of the structure and content of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. This class provides the context and reading skills for study and investigation of the Bible and its influence upon western culture and religion.

An introduction to the history, beliefs, practices, and development of the Hebrew and later Jewish religion as reflected in the Hebrew Biblical Scriptures, using a historical and critical approach, with attention given to understanding its socio-cultural and political environment.

{Fall}

An introduction to the history, beliefs, practices, and development of the early Christian religion as reflected in the New Testament, using a historical and critical approach, with attention given to understanding its socio-cultural and political environment.

Introduces students to how people’s religious beliefs and practices influence their perspectives on health and their approaches to medical care and treatment. In units arranged by religion or region (North American indigenous religion, African religion, Hinduism, Chinese religion, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), students will learn how religious beliefs and practices relate to rites of passage, sexuality, women’s health, diet, mental health, trauma, and end of life issues. In addition to assessing students’ knowledge of the relationship between religion and perspectives on health and medical care and treatment, course assignments will raise students awareness of how people with different worldviews interact. Course requirements or activities also will teach them how to evaluate their own biases and how to assess the biases and credibility of various sources of information about religion, health, and medicine found on the Internet and elsewhere.

Meets New Mexico General Education Curriculum Area 5: Humanities.

Provides an academic overview of the major religious traditions of Asia, which may include the religions of India (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, China (Daoism and Confucianism, Chan Buddhism), and Japan (Shinto and Zen Buddhism). Students will be assigned both primary and secondary texts.

Meets New Mexico General Education Curriculum Area 5: Humanities.

{Fall}

This is a survey course that will cover major religious traditions of the West, including the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and other religious systems. The course will focus on how each tradition has developed historically and how it exists in the world today.

Meets New Mexico General Education Curriculum Area 5: Humanities.

{Spring}

(Also offered as AFST 303)

Students will be introduced to the Black experience, which necessitates the redefinition of God and Jesus Christ in the lives of Black people as the struggle for transcendental and political freedom.

An introduction to Jewish religion and thought that explores the worldview of rabbinic Judaism, including law, philosophy, and mysticism from the 1st to the 20th centuries.

This course examines the life and role of the Prophet Muhammad, the message of the Qur'an, and the history of the theological, philosophical, legal, and mystical dimensions of Islam to the present.

An examination of the social, political, and cultural aspects of fundamentalism in the contemporary Muslim world.

An introduction to the origin and development of mystical aspects of Islam, commonly known as Sufism. The course examines themes such as Sufism vis-à-vis Islamic orthodoxy, mystical experience, the literary heritage of Sufism, Sufi organizations.

(Also offered as CLST 319)

This course examines issues pertaining to gender and sexuality in ancient Mediterranean religions and cultures, with special attention paid to Greco-Roman religion, Judaism, and Christianity.

(Also offered as CLST 320)

This course examines the perception and reality of magic in the ancient Mediterranean world by examining relevant texts, spells, and relics to situate it within the practice of ancient religion.

(Also offered as CLST 321)

This course examines the development of the genre of apocalypse by reading several early Jewish apocalypses before examining the lasting influence of apocalypticism in one particular Jewish sect, Christianity.

This course engages in the close study of biblical texts that address sexual behavior and sexuality, considering how these texts were likely understood in their original context and the different ways they are interpreted today.

(Also offered as HIST 326 / 526)

The history of Christianity from its beginnings in Palestine to the eve of the Protestant Reformation. Primary focus will be on the rich variety of forms–doctrinal, liturgical and institutional–that Christianity assumed through the Medieval centuries. Also of concern will be its contributions and significance as a civilizing force.

{Fall}

(Also offered as HIST 327 / 527)

The development of Christianity from the Protestant Reformation to the modern day, with focus on the variety of forms Christianity assumed throughout this period as it moved outward from Europe and became a world religion.

A historical survey of Buddhist practices, beliefs, material culture, institutions, and figures from the time of the historical Buddha through to the contemporary period.

This course examines Hindu scriptures and practices to understand how deities and their relationships with men and women, high and low castes, and the natural and social worlds have changed over time.

This course gives an in-depth survey of the origins of Daoism, one of the most important schools of Chinese religious and philosophical thought.

This course takes saints as an entry point for exploring North American Catholic history. We focus on the practices by which ordinary Catholics make men and women into saints after their deaths.

(Also offered as AMST 346)

This course examines New Mexican religion from the seventeenth century onward, considering how life here shapes religious practice, and how religion factors in how visitors imagine and represent inhabitants.

Studies in major religious figures or movements. Topic varies.

An introduction exploring relationships between the literary and religious traditions.

{Fall}

This course introduces students to the history of Roman Catholicism in the United States, emphasizing the interaction of Catholicism with politics and culture, and the religious lives of ordinary Catholics.

A survey of classical and contemporary currents in Atheism.

(Also offered as PHIL 365)

Philosophic analysis of some major concepts and problems in religion.

Prerequisite: one course in Religious Studies or Philosophy.

(Also offered as HIST 441)

Szasz.

This class will cover the rise and development of the nation’s religious groups, from first contact to the present day. The focus will be on the social impact of the groups and how they influenced the development of American life.

Major religious figures or movements. Topic varies.

Prerequisite: one RELG course.

An examination and critique of influential 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century scientific attempts to explain religion in contrast to supernaturalist theories. Also considered are some postmodernist and evolutionary psychology perspectives on religion.

Prerequisite: one upper-division course in Religious Studies.

(Also offered as COMP, HIST, PHIL, POLS 453)

Supervised research in one or more disciplines leading to an undergraduate thesis for the major in Asian Studies.

Topics in the literary and historical analysis of Biblical texts.

Prerequisite: 230 or 231 or 232.

(Also offered as ITAL *475)

Principally the Vita Nuova and the Divine Comedy.

Restriction: permission of program chairperson.

Preparation for teaching courses about living world religions. Includes teaching experience in 107.

Tutorial arrangement with a member of the graduate faculty.