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BTI Consortium | Last Updated August 15, 2025 - 11:00AM
SOCIOLOGY
School
Boston University Graduate Program in Religion
GRS RN709
Cults and Charisma
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
Examines religious sects, new religions, and charismatic leadership using case- studies from history and the contemporary world, as well as analytical principles from religious studies and anthropology.
Professor
Class Day & Time
David Frankfurter
TR
2:00PM-3:15PM
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N/A
School
Boston University School of Theology
STHTR 800
Ethnographic Research
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
This seminar aims to train students in the understanding and application of ethnographic research methods. The research methods covered in this course are qualitative in nature, focusing on projects which require practitioners to go into the field and to analyze social spaces constructed, inhabited, and maintained by particular sets of social actors. The data in focus is less readily accessible via surveys, demographic analysis, and experimental designs. Course participants will, first of all, gain a broad understanding of the traditions related to ethnography, fieldwork, and qualitative research in the field of sociology. Secondly, participants will engage key debates in sociology related to the theories and methods of ethnographic work, ultimately developing research designs that most effectively fit personal projects in progress. Thirdly, participants will expand their techniques of data collection via guided field assignments and class interactions. Fourthly, participants will develop practices of research presentation that communicate findings in a compelling and insightful manner, with the aim of making findings accessible to a broader academic audience. Throughout the course, special attention will be given to the observation of how social boundaries are constructed and maintained in particular social settings.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Young, Luther
F
8am-10:45am
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
3
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N/A
School
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary-Boston
CH/WM621
The Church in China: Suffering and Witnessing
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
In contemporary discourse of missional church, the Chinese Church, especially the house church movement feature prominently, and often serve as a model of minority churches witnessing in an unfriendly world. By providing a survey and interpretation of the Christian presence in China from the 7th century to the present, this course provides an opportunity to examine the Church in China as a missional church, and to draw lessons for global church in the 21st century.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Yao, Xiyi
F Sat
Fri 6:30-9:30pm; Sat 8:30am-4:30pm
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
3
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
SYNC
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
Sept. 12-13, Nov. 7-8, Dec. 12-13
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 2305
Celebrity and Charisma in American Christianity
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
American Christianity has long been inflected by the presence of celebrities. Celebrity preachers, revivalists, healers, writers, and teachers have drawn crowds to their versions of the Christian faith. �Charisma� has two meanings, both of which are central to American Christian history: a figure�s compelling attractiveness and a divinely conferred talent. The best known American Christian figures were thought to have both. In this course we will consider questions including, What makes a religious figure rise to prominence? How do various religious communities think about charisma? How do leaders leverage the inheritances of their religious traditions? From early American visionaries like Joseph Smith, to revivalists like Aimee Semple McPherson, to prophetic figures like Martin Luther King Jr., we will grapple with how each figure approached their moment in history. By reading and viewing primary texts by major religious figures as well as secondary literature from religious historians, we will consider how celebrity in American Christianity is gained, wielded, and lost
Professor
Class Day & Time
Hanson Woodruff
M
12:00pm-01:59pm
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N/A
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3113
Magic Today: An Anthropological Perspective
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
What is magic? Is it different from religion? Is magic a way of knowing? In this course, we look at magic from an anthropological perspective. We focus, in particular, on contemporary magic in Europe and North America, addressing for example contemporary paganisms, Wicca, chaos magic, new age spirituality, and contemporary esotericism. By engaging with ethnographic works, students become acquainted with or deepen their knowledge of the main issues, traditions, debates, and research in the field of the anthropology of religion and of magic. Students analyze contemporary magic vis-�-vis popular culture, feminism, globalization, medicine, social media, history, and well-being. They do so through ethnographic readings, films, music, arts, discussions, and independent research.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Parmigiani
M
03:00pm-04:59pm
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N/A
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3160
Religious Dimensions in Human Experience:��Apocalypse, Sports, Music, Home, Sacrifice, Medicine
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
What is Religion? Why does it show up everywhere? Using archaeology, religious studies and social thought, this course will study the major themes in the history of religions including encountering the holy, sports, and ritual;, crossing borders, sacrifice as creation, pilgrimage and sacred place, suffering and quest for wisdom, music and social change, violence and cosmic law. Readings from Native American, African American, Latinx, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu traditions. Focus on the tension between individual encounters with the holy and the social construction of religion. Readings from Gloria Anzaldua, Toni Morrison, Judith Sherman, Arthur Kleinman, Popul Vuj, Mircea Eliade, Michael D. Jackson. Jointly offered in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as Anthropology 1475 and Religion 16.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Carrasco
TR
10:30am-11:45am
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
Jointly offered in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as Anthropology 1475 and Religion 16.
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3196
Images of Race, Sexuality, and God in African American Fictional Literature
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
This course will explore African American fictional literature through a womanist theological lens, examining the intricate ways in which African Americans have navigated the social, political, and religious forces that shape their lives. By analyzing the rich tapestry of African American literature, we will gain a deeper understanding of how issues of race, sexuality, and spirituality intersect and inform the community�s relationship with God, religion, and the church.<br>With a focus on fictional narratives, this course will investigate how African American authors address themes of identity, race, and sexuality, while also considering the broader implications for theology and religious practice. We will study works across a variety of genres, spanning the 18th to the 21st century, by writers such as Frederick Douglass, James Weldon Johnson, Nella Larsen, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and others. While the primary focus will be on fiction, key non-fiction texts will also be included to deepen our exploration of these pivotal themes. Through this course, students will engage critically with the ways African American literature reflects and shapes understandings of race, sexuality, and the divine.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Brown Douglas
R
12:00pm-01:59pm
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N/A
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3210
The Aquatic, Arboreal, and Atmospheric Life of Blackness
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
This course explores the intersection of Black ecologies and Black religion and theology. It highlights frameworks within Black studies, Black religion, and Black theology to highlight and analyze the connection between Blackness and elements like water, trees (including wilderness), and climate. The course investigates how the knowledge generated from these relationships foster anarchist and liberative practices that create alternative epistemic pathways for a more just relationship to earth, as well as counternarratives for challenging prevailing understandings of environmental concepts such as climate change, the Anthropocene, and extraction.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Hoskins
R
12:00pm-01:59pm
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N/A
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3780
Gender, Religion, and Ethnicity in Inner Asia
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
This course examines gender, religion, and ethnicity in Inner Asia from antiquity. It will cover Mongolia, Tibet, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and the Turkic and Mongolian peoples of Russia and China. Religions addressed primarily include Buddhism, Islam, and "Shamanism," as well as state secularism as a religious phenomenon. The course is based on an interdisciplinary selection of readings in history, anthropology, religious studies, and to a lesser extent, sociology and archaeology.
Professor
Class Day & Time
TBD
W
09:00am-10:59am
Grading Option
Letter, P/F
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
This course is limited to 15 participants. For permission to enroll, please email a paragraph to Prof. Pount (dotnopount@gmail.com) describing your interest in the class and any relevant background.
School
Boston University Graduate Program in Religion
GRS RN716
Religion, Race, and Climate Change
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
A multi-disciplinary course delving into the influence of and race on human behavior and nonhuman, planetary realities at local and global scales. It focuses on the historical, systemic, and societal implications associated with ongoing climate change debates.
Professor
Class Day & Time
James Hill Jr.
M
2:30PM-5:15PM
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N/A
School
Boston University School of Theology
STHTR 820
Introduction to Black Church Studies
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
This course will examine trajectories of intellectual thought that have been missing, silenced, or marginalized in standard narratives of black church studies. Using critical race theory, we will explore counter-narratives that challenge prevailing ways of thinking about black church origins, theological and philosophical foundations, liberating discourses, and its representation in the public sphere. At the conclusion of the course, students will be equipped to reflect on the history, necessity, and trajectory of black church studies through the counter-narratives.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Young, Luther
W
8am-10:45am
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
3
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N/A
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 1534
Introduction to Literary Papyrology
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
The course will offer an introduction to the methods and object of papyrology with a specific focus on literary and para-literary papyri. Students will examine case studies of especially representative pieces and the final project will consist in the detailed analysis of a papyrus selected and studies throughout the semester. Two semesters of Greek or equivalent are required.Jointly offered in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as Religion 2420.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Bazzana
R
03:00pm-05:29pm
Grading Option
Letter, P/F
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
Y
Notes
Two semesters of Greek or equivalent are required
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 2319
Evangelicalism and Political Culture in the United States Since c.1950
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
The aim of this course is to investigate the relationship between evangelical religion and political culture in the United States from the end of the Second World War until the present. Key questions to be asked include: What is evangelicalism? When, where, and how did it arise? What were its religious, cultural, and political characteristics from its origins in Europe to its establishment in the United States? How is evangelicalism to be distinguished from fundamentalism? What were the most important demographic and political characteristics of evangelicalism at the end of the Second World War? What factors shaped its political evolution in the decades after World War Two, especially around issues relating to race, gender, culture, media, identity, political parties, and foreign affairs? How does the political culture of white evangelicals differ from that of evangelicals of color? Who were the most important personalities, and which were the most notable events and processes shaping evangelical political consciousness? What is the current state of evangelicalism’s political consciousness and how can one explain its close relationship with the Republican Party and Donald Trump? What contribution will/did evangelicals make to the 2024 presidential election? What factors need to be considered in assessing what may happen to evangelical political consciousness in the next several decades? What impact has political consciousness had on evangelical religiosity and spirituality?Jointly offered with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as REL XXXX.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Hempton
T
09:00am-11:45am
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N/A
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3136
Religion, Theory, and the Archive
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
Black and indigenous scholars have long argued that archives are often violent and dismembering, especially as the universities which house them preserve the physical and immaterial remnants of slavery and colonialism. Religious studies scholars, especially historians of religion, have attended to this quandary while sifting through archives of slavery, colonialism, conquest, and sexual violence. At Harvard, this conversation has re-emerged in unique ways through Harvard the Legacy of Slavery: Reckoning with the Past to Understand the Present, and the question of what lies in university archives has taken center stage. This course examines these archival dilemmas and the violent hauntings of the past with an eye towards the historical study of religion in the Americas. We will read work by such scholars as Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe, Solimar Otero, Toni Morrison, and more. Jointly offered in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as African and African American Studies 109 and Religion 1092.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Greene-Hayes
T
03:00pm-04:59pm
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
Jointly offered in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as African and African American Studies 109 and Religion 1092.
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3187
Global Religious Change: Babies, Converts, Migrants
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
This course uses social scientific perspectives to understand religious change in the 20th and 21st centuries by investigating six dynamics: births/deaths (fertility), converts in/converts out (switching), and emigration/immigration (migration). Students will be introduced to important debates in the sociology of religion such as theories of religious change and issues related to data availability, interpretation, and communication. Relevant questions include: What data sources exist to interpret religious/non-religious global trends? Is the world becoming more or less religious? Under what conditions does an individual or community switch religions? What causes declines in fertility rates, and how do rates differ by religion? Will Islam become the world�s largest religion and, if so, by when and how? How does migration effect religious belief and practice? By investigating the six dynamics of religious change in the past, we can make reasonable assumptions for the religious and non-religious future. Four case studies detailed in the course are Christianity�s demographic shift to the global South with a focus on Nigeria, the Jewish diaspora, demography of religion in India, and religious decline in the West. Students will have the opportunity to write a final research paper or produce a demographic report.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Zurlo
M
12:00pm-02:45pm
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N/A
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3206
The Book of Baldwin
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
This is a seminar in Africana intellectual history engaging in close readings of the written corpus of James Baldwin. It is designed to address larger conceptual issues of religion, race, identity, gender, sexuality through the intensive study of a major thinker in North America. A working knowledge of African American social history is recommended but not required. This is a limited enrollment course. Interested students should attend the first course meeting on Tuesday, September 5. If the course is overenrolled, a selection procedure will be described at that first meeting. Selected students will then be invited to enroll in the course by the end of the day on Wednesday, September 6.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Hucks
T
03:00pm-04:59pm
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
This is a limited enrollment course. Interested students should attend the first course meeting on Tuesday, September 5. If the course is overenrolled, a selection procedure will be described at that first meeting. Selected students will then be invited to enroll in the course by the end of the day on Wednesday, September 6.
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3222
Gender and Asceticism in South Asia
BTI Category
Sociology/Ethnography/Research Methods
Semester
FA25
This course examines how asceticism operates as a gendered discourse, challenging binaries of male/female and masculine/feminine, while offering insights into the fluidity of spiritual roles across South Asia. Focusing on themes such as celibacy, virtue, and bodily discipline will elucidate how ascetic practices intersect with issues of gender and power.
Professor
Class Day & Time
TBD
W
01:00pm-02:59pm
Grading Option
Letter, P/F
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Online?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
This course is limited to 15 participants. For permission to enroll, please email a paragraph to Prof. Chase (mochase@wisc.edu) describing your interest in the class and any relevant background.
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