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Course Listing for RELIGIOUS STUDIES - Fall 2026 (ALL: 09/08/2026 - 12/23/2026)
Class
No.		 Course ID Title Credits Type Instructor(s) Days:Times Location Permission
Required		 Dist Qtr
2789 RELG-101-01 Intro to Religious Studies 1.00 LEC Angowski, Elizabeth MW: 1:30PM-2:45PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 25 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  NOTE: Seat Reservations: 8 for first years 8 for sophomores
  This course introduces students to the academic study of religion by focusing on those major themes that connect religious experiences from around the world. We will explore the complex ways in which issues in religion relate to topics such as spiritual beings, birth, death, ritual, the afterlife, ethics, and the good-life. Through a range of classical, modern, and ethnographic sources, students will gain an understanding of the ways in which scholars have sought to understand the social, political, economic, and cultural contexts in which various religious traditions are embedded.
1678 RELG-109-01 Jews and Judaism 1.00 LEC Catlin, Samuel TR: 10:50AM-12:05PM TBA GLB2  
  Enrollment limited to 40 Waitlist available: Y Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  Also cross-referenced with MIDDLEAST Cross-listing: JWST-109-01
  A historical and conceptual survey of some of the major texts, traditions, movements, ideas, and practices associated with Judaism from antiquity to the present. Special attention will be paid to the changing social categories through which Judaism and Jewishness have been understood, by Jews and others, in various historical and geographic contexts, including, e.g., "religion," "nation," "ethnicity," "race," and "culture." Students who take this course will be prepared for further coursework in Jewish Studies and coursework on Judaism in Religious Studies. No prior knowledge of Jewish religion, culture, history, or languages is assumed.
3162 RELG-211-01 Intro Hebrew Bible/Old Testame 1.00 LEC Hornung, Gabriel TR: 9:25AM-10:40AM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 39 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  Also cross-referenced with JWST
  Where did the Bible come from? This class will examine the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) in its evolution and complexity. We will pay careful attention to the text's many powerful voices and striking literary features, its great figures such as Abraham, Moses, and David, and its relationship with the major historical events which shaped the life of ancient Israel and later Jewish and Christian tradition. (May be counted toward Jewish Studies and International Studies/Middle Eastern Studies.)
3364 RELG-218-01 Journeys of Faith 1.00 SEM Koertner, Mareike TR: 1:30PM-2:45PM TBA GLB2  
  Enrollment limited to 19 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  This course explores the religious, historical, and cultural significance of Islamic pilgrimage practices, with emphasis on the Hajj, Umrah, and Arba’in as well as regional devotional pilgrimages across the Muslim world. Through a diverse range of textual, historical, and ethnographic sources, students examine how pilgrimages shape Muslim piety, communal identity, political and spiritual authority, and global networks from the early Islamic period to the present. The course also highlights the social, political, and economic impacts pilgrimages exert as well as the impact of modern transformations through the impact of colonialism, nation-states, mass transportation, and contemporary technologies on pilgrimage experiences.
3163 RELG-222-01 Voodoo 1.00 LEC Landry, Timothy TR: 6:30PM-7:45PM TBA GLB2  
  Enrollment limited to 24 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
    Cross-listing: ANTH-222-01
  This course focuses on those religious traditions known collectively as "Voodoo." Students will examine powerful displays of spirit possession, rituals in which the ancestors raise from their graves to dance, and secretive ceremonies of devotion, healing, and resistance. Students will explore how Voodoo is practiced and in what ways racial tropes have contributed to the dehumanization of its devotees. With a focus on Benin (West Africa) and Haiti (Caribbean) we will juxtapose Western imaginations and fantasies of Voodoo to the real-lived experiences of practitioners. By examining historical and ethnographic accounts, students will learn how, despite racial stereotyping and anti-Africa sentiments around the globe, Voodoo has become one of the world's more important religions on the global stage today.
3165 RELG-231-01 Christianity in the Making 1.00 LEC Jones, Tamsin MW: 1:30PM-2:45PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 39 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  Also cross-referenced with CLASSCIVIL, HIST
  This course will examine the philosophical, cultural, religious and political contexts out of which Christianity emerged from the time of Jesus through the 5th century. Emphasis will be placed on the complexity and diversity of early Christian movements, as well as the process that occurred to establish Christianity as a religion that would dominate the Roman Empire. Topics to be covered will include the writings of the New Testament, Gnostics, martyrdom, desert monasticism and asceticism, the construction of orthodoxy and heresy, women in the early Church, the formation of the biblical canon, and the identity and role of Jesus of Nazareth.
3161 RELG-275-01 Existentialism and Religion 1.00 SEM Jones, Tamsin MW: 10:00AM-11:15AM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 19 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  This course engages some of the most basic questions of human existence, as understood by a wide variety of philosophers, artists, poets, and theologians in the 19th and 20th centuries. What does it mean to be human? How do we lead authentic lives? We examine the many ways in which existentialism can be understood as a critical engagement with basic philosophical, theological and social assumptions in regnant Western thought: rationalism, religion and moral positivism. We look at some of the major themes of existentialism (contingency, ambiguity, death and finitude, absurdity and authenticity) and how they constitute what it is to exist as a person. Finally, we examine different examples of religious existentialism.
3368 RELG-332-01 Religion, Law, Literature 1.00 SEM Catlin, Samuel W: 1:30PM-4:10PM TBA HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: Y Mode of Instruction: In Person  
    Cross-listing: JWST-332-01, CLCV-332-01
  Religion and law interact in many ways, from religious law to legal regulation of religion. However, in this seminar we’ll read literary works that address other, more ambiguous relations between religious and juridical power. Do secular political institutions secretly depend on notions of divine authority? What happens when neither god nor state can deliver justice—or when these forces are themselves the causes of injustice? And why is it through literature, specifically, that we tend to pose these questions about religion, law, and power? We’ll put Greek tragedies, biblical and talmudic selections, and modern fictional, dramatic, and philosophical texts into conversation with themes and social issues like sovereignty, democracy, patriarchy, civil war, colonialism, immigration, xenophobia, incarceration, detention, apartheid, policing, due process, and protest.
3365 RELG-335-01 Buddhist Ethics 1.00 SEM Angowski, Elizabeth MW: 11:30AM-12:45PM TBA GLB2  
  Enrollment limited to 19 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  Also cross-referenced with PHIL
  How do Buddhists understand what it means to live well with and for others? How do they imagine and sustain just institutions? To address these questions, this course examines the place of ethics and moral reflection in Buddhist thought and practice. The first third of the semester focuses on how Buddhists have framed abstract topics like the nature of being, the nature of the world, moral subjectivity, moral agency, the value of rationality, and so on. Next, we pay close attention to the formulation and application of moral guidelines in lived contexts. During the latter portion of the term, we study Buddhist approaches to contemporary social and political issues.
1434 RELG-399-01 Independent Study 0.50 - 2.00 IND TBA TBA TBA Y HUM  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  Advanced work on an approved project under the guidance of a faculty member. Submission of the special registration form, available in the Registrar’s Office, and the approval of the instructor and chairperson are required for enrollment.
2782 RELG-401-01 Senior Seminar 1.00 SEM Catlin, Samuel TR: 2:55PM-4:10PM TBA Y WEB  
  Enrollment limited to 19 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  The purpose of this senior seminar is for our majors to learn a variety of methodological approaches to conducting research in religious studies: ethnographic, historical, textual/literary, philosophical/theological, and sociological. Each student will engage in a research question of interest throughout the semester. This course is required of all our majors in the fall of their senior year, but is open to minors.
1435 RELG-466-01 Teaching Assistant 0.50 - 1.00 IND TBA TBA TBA Y  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  Submission of the special registration form, available online, and the approval of the instructor are required for enrollment. Guidelines are available in the College Bulletin. (0.5 - 1 course credit)
2420 RELG-497-01 Senior Thesis 1.00 IND TBA TBA TBA Y WEB  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  Submission of the special registration form and the approval of the instructor and chairperson are required for enrollment in this single-semester thesis.
2418 RELG-498-01 Senior Thesis Part 1 1.00 IND Staff, Trinity TBA TBA Y WEB  
  Enrollment limited to 15 Waitlist available: N Mode of Instruction: In Person  
  This course is the first part of a two semester, two credit thesis. Submission of the special registration form and the approval of the thesis adviser and the director are required for enrollment. The registration form is required for each semester of this year-long thesis.