Fall enrollment is open as of Friday March 21, 2025.
Explore new cultures and worldviews while fulfilling your gen-ed requirements! Try a religious studies course this fall.
Courses listed below are just a sample - many more courses are available.
Myth in the Ancient Near East
RELGST 0090/JS 0090
Course attributes:
DSAS Cross-Cult. Awareness General Ed. Requirement
DSAS Geographic Region General Ed. Requirement
SCI Polymathic Contexts: Global&Cross Cul GE. Req.
Asian Studies
The myths of the ancient Near East are among the earliest written interpretations of the world and human existence. They are also among the most enduring, although they have only been unearthed in the last 200 years. In this course, we read myths from ancient Mesopotamia, Ugarit, and Israel. We study the myths as literary works, representative of the ideas and issues of the original cultural context in which they were shaped. These myths offer insight into the religious mentality of the ancient Near East, as well as societal and political issues. We examine themes such as the presentation of the life of the gods, the relationship between the human and divine worlds, the issues of mortality and immortality, existence, fertility, kingship, and ethics. The primary goal of this course is to better understand these myths as they existed and developed in their ancient settings. Of course, because the myths are expressions of human thought, we may find that in studying them we also come to better understand ourselves.
Witches to Walden: Religion in Early America
RELGST 0405/HIST 0676
Course attributes:
DSAS Historical Analysis General Ed. Requirement
SCI Polymathic Contexts: Soc/Behav. GE. Req.
Global Studies
Why did the prosecution of witches become a priority for the Puritan rulers of New England? What religious ideals convinced Henry David Thoreau to lead a life 'off the grid' in Walden Pond? How did non-Protestant immigrants make their way in the new nation? And how did religious rhetoric undergird the debates over slavery that led to the civil war? These are some of the questions that we will explore in this course, which traces the religious history of the United States from the era of colonization to through the Civil War.
What is Religion?
RELGST 0500
Course attributes:
DSAS Social Science General Ed. Requirement
Whether we are religious or not, religion affects us. It shapes the ways we understand our identities, our bodies, and our relationship with nature; it reinforces or undermines the hierarchies that organize our society; it is referenced by the music we listen to and the shows we watch; it saturates the rhetoric of the politicians who govern us. Public conversations on religion are often dominated by people with a particular religious or theological agenda. This course will introduce you to a different way of talking about what religion is-a way that treats it as a kind of human social activity. It provides a survey of a wide variety of theories about what religion is that you can use to understand the place of religion in our world. It also provides an introduction to methods that you can use to gather information about religion both as a part of human history and as a lived part of contemporary human culture. By learning these theories and methods, you will be better equipped to talk about the role of religion in our world in a way that is well-informed and balances critical thinking with cultural sensitivity.
Archaeology of Israel-Palestine
RELGST 1170/ANTH 1590/JS 1170
Course attributes:
DSAS Geographic Region General Ed. Requirement
SCI Polymathic Contexts: Ethical/Policy GE. Req.
SCI Polymathic Contexts: Global&Cross Cul GE. Req.
Is archaeology in a place like Israel-Palestine an objective science? In this course, we explore how past and present are linked as nation-states and religious communities utilize the archaeological record to mold identities and to forward certain narratives. Our focus will be on the major archaeological sites of Israel-Palestine, particularly in Jerusalem and its environs. We will explore the political and religious issues that have emerged from or surround their excavation. Archaeology in the Holy Land has long been driven by a desire to shed light on - or even authenticate - the Bible, while the "exotic Orient" was explored in the 19th and early 20th centuries through western expeditions and excavations that served to further colonial interests. These religious and political motivations persist even if their manifestations have shifted with time. Through site tours, museum visits, student-led discussions, talks with local experts, and even a day participating in an archaeological excavation, students will gain direct experience with the places that have aroused controversy because of their problematic relationship to biblical and other ancient texts and/or because of their location in politically contested space.
From Vodou to Santeria: Religions of the West African Diaspora
RELGST 1418/AFRCNA 1418
Course attributes:
DSAS Diversity General Ed. Requirement
SCI Diversity General Ed. Requirements
This course is an introduction to the study of West African Diaspora religions in the Americas. We define "diaspora" as the spread and dispersal of people of African descent, both forced and voluntary, through the slave trade, imperial and colonial displacements, and postcolonial migrations. In what form do African religious expressions exist in the African Diaspora communities? This course exposes students to the indigenous African foundations of the religious beliefs and religious practices of African communities living in the Diaspora. Students will receive historical, ethnographical, and anthropological approaches to grasp the essence of these non-doctrinaire and non-textual religions focused on a rich memory of African deities, rituals, morality and practices that have been passed from generation to generation. Because most of the Africans forced to migrate to the New World as slaves came from West Africa, this course will provide students with insights into the beliefs and practices of the "Yoruba Religions" also known as the "Afro-Atlantic religions" such as Santeria in Cuba; Vodou in Haiti; Shango in Trinidad and Grenada; Candomblan Brazil among others. Topics to be covered in this course will include sources of African religious beliefs, African theological notions about God and the Universe, African conceptions about the nature of the human being, witchcraft and the problem of Evil in African religious thought and practice, illness, health, death, and ancestor worship. Furthermore, we will also pay close attention to less known Afro-American cults and religions containing Amerindian mythology and shamanism that emphasize divination, healing, and spirit mediumship such as: the Maria Lionza cult in Venezuela, The Palo Monte in Cuba, and the Garifuna Dugu in Central America. A special feature of the course will include the analysis of "spirit possession" as a common denominator to African-derived religions as well as a relevant keystone in transmission dynamics. Finally, we will examine how these religions have survived cultural and ideological assault and have continued to provide spiritual resources for societies rooted in African cosmologies.
Religion and Race
RELGST 1420/AFRCNA 1415/ANTH 1701
Course attributes:
DSAS Diversity General Ed. Requirement
SCI Diversity General Ed. Requirements
This course examines the intersections of religion, race, and racism. Recently, scholars of religion have demonstrated that religious identities are often racialized as well. In this course, we will discover that religion and race are both modern categories rooted in post-enlightenment ideas about what it means to be human. We will see how the establishment of these religious and racial categories led to new hierarchies and inequalities. We will discuss how post-enlightenment thinkers linked religion and race, and how their ideas played a role in european imperialism. We will also investigate how the discipline of religious studies has developed its analytical tools with a racialized understanding of religion. The course will examine case studies in which religion has been racialized, and consider the political ramifications of these examples. In particular, we will think about the impact of white supremacy on black religion in the united states, the complicated relationship between antisemitism and islamophobia, and contemporary islamophobia in the us. Finally, we will explore the possibilities of anti-racism through faith-based scholarship and activism.
Jews and the Body
RELGST 1243/JS 1243
Jews are not only the "People of the Book," but also a people whose books are deeply concerned with the body. This course examines the body as a religious site to explore key questions about humanity, holiness, gender, sexuality, identity, otherness, community, tradition, and health. We will approach religion as a human phenomenon, studying Jewish bodily practices-rituals, commandments, and cultural behaviors-through critical historical and sociological lenses. These practices reflect Judaism's diversity across time and space. We will consider both historical and contemporary Jewish experiences of the body, covering such topics as food, sexuality, reproduction, queerness, health, and death. Questions we will discuss in this course include: How do Jewish practices shape ideas of the body, and conceptions of the body shape Jewish practice? How do Jewish bodily practices engage with scientific developments? How do Jewish cultures imagine bodies that are hungry, pleasured, gendered, transgendered, sexual, transgressive, differently-abled, well, sick, and mortal? All of these issues and more come into play when we shift our attention from the image of Jews as a textual community to the ways that Jews have understood and managed their embodied selves.
Religyinz: Religion in Pittsburgh
RELGST 1802
In this course, students will get a taste (sometimes literally) of lived, religious diversity in the city of Pittsburgh. In this experiential course, students will have a chance to visit some of the sites that Pittsburghers have made sacred, and learn more about the lives of religious Pittsburghers, past and present. In the process, students will learn about scholarly concepts like "urban religion," "lived religion," and "material religion," and how to apply those ideas to the sacred spaces, objects, foods, and rituals of Pittsburgh.