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Boston University
Graduate Program in Religion 

School

Boston University Graduate Program in Religion

CASRN735

Women, Gender, and Islam

BTI Category

Semester

Islamic Studies

SP26

Investigates the way Muslim religious discourse, norms, and practices create and sustain gender and hierarchy in religious, social, and familial life. Looks at historical and contemporary challenges posed to these structures.

Professor

Class Day & Time

Ali, Kecia

T

3:30-6:15p

Grading Option

Letter, P/F, Audit

Credits

4

Online?

N

Professor Approval Req'd?

N

Prerequisites?

N

Notes

Graduate

School

Boston University Graduate Program in Religion

CASRN766

Religion and the Problem of Tolerance

BTI Category

Semester

Interreligious Learning

SP26

Explores the religious roots of tolerance as an alternative to secular, more liberal foundations for pluralism. Grapples with the challenge of tolerance to the revealed religions and the ways different societies have met or failed to meet this challenge. Presents multiple case-studies and contemporary connections, explores relevance to students own experiences.

Professor

Class Day & Time

Seligman, Adam

M

2:30-5:15p

Grading Option

Letter, P/F, Audit

Credits

4

Online?

N

Professor Approval Req'd?

N

Prerequisites?

N

Notes

Graduate

School

Boston University Graduate Program in Religion

CASRN794

Magical Texts: Literature and Practice

BTI Category

Semester

Church History/History of Religions

SP26

An advanced course in the interpretation of ancient magical texts that emphasizes the use of theoretical models (Malinowski, Levi-Strauss, Tambiah, J.Z. Smith, et al.) for understanding the complementary uses of sound and symbol, myth and nonsense, and forms of verbal/scribal efficacy in magic, all with attention to social context. Texts include a selection of ritual manuals, amulets, binding tablets, and mystical ascent texts from Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian antiquity.

Professor

Class Day & Time

Frankfurter, David

T

3:30-6:15p

Grading Option

Letter, P/F, Audit

Credits

4

Online?

N

Professor Approval Req'd?

N

Prerequisites?

N

Notes

Graduate

School

Boston University Graduate Program in Religion

CASRN791

Classical Approaches to Religion

BTI Category

Semester

Ethics (all traditions)

SP26

This graduate seminar revisits the classical foundations of the study of religion while reimagining how those foundations might be critically and creatively reworked for our present moment. Students will engage major figures such as Émile Durkheim, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and Max Weber, alongside more recent interlocutors including Talal Asad, Saba Mahmood, and Sylvia Wynter. The goal is not only to understand what these thinkers argued, but to examine how their ideas continue to shape the institutional, political, and cultural boundaries of “religion” as a modern category.
What makes this iteration distinct is its commitment to situating the classical in active dialogue with questions of race, coloniality, and power. Rather than treating the field’s canons as fixed inheritance, we approach them as living archives, frameworks to be reinterpreted, contested, and extended. Through readings, discussion, and student led inquiry, participants will consider how genealogies of the discipline might be retold from other vantage points: from the Global South, from Black and Indigenous studies, and from decolonial and feminist critique.

Professor

Class Day & Time

Hill, Jr., James H.

M

2:30-5:15p

Grading Option

Letter, P/F, Audit

Credits

4

Online?

N

Professor Approval Req'd?

N

Prerequisites?

N

Notes

Graduate Only

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