The academic study of religion allows one to explore questions of human being in many ways. Please check out our video!
This Fall and Summer, there are a rich variety of courses addressing different faith traditions. This includes Native American Religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, ancient Greek Religion, and American Judaism. In each of these courses, we seek to explode preconceptions and to expand understanding, as we explore practices, rituals, ideas, and cultures from worlds, peoples, and times often different from our own.
Many of our courses also address particular themes or issues, such as the role of religion in society—from its situation in a globalizing world, to the Creator’s Game of the Haudenosaunee (lacrosse), to the role of gender in the Muslim world, to religious issues in America today, including issues around religion and migration, to the relation between religion and popular culture, to the effects of secularization on religion, particularly in the form of atheism and agnosticism.
Inquiry also plays a central role in our course offerings. It can be philosophical, theological, and existential, particularly in an exploration of the best possible ways to live—the focus of a course on religion, meaning and knowledge. It can be psychological, spiritual, and ethical, as in a course on psychology, religion and ethics. It can be philosophical, religious, and aesthetic, as in a course on religion and film. And it can be psychological and existential, as in a course exploring what it means to grapple with existence.
Last, but certainly not least, our courses also explore the literary and the scriptural dimensions of religion, particularly in their ethnic, historical, and cultural dimensions—from the productions of great Jewish writers, to the scriptural and cultural productions of the Ancient Near East, to the relation between scripture and law.
As this variety of course offerings demonstrate, the Department of Religion is multi- and inter-disciplinary. This multi- and inter-disciplinarity continues into our Summer course offerings on several faith traditions of the world, on a specific faith tradition, and on the pursuit of wisdom or the best life. As many of our majors attest, such intellectual richness is a great benefit for undergraduates wishing to construct vibrant and creative programs of study.
Come and join us!
⤓ Course Descriptions (PDF) | View Current Courses.
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Contact Information
Prof. Marcia C. Robinson.
Office: 511HL,
email: mrobin03@syr.edu.