The remaining courses may be selected from the list of electives set out below. The courses are subject to the approval of the supervisor and should be in the area of specialisation.
REL4046S Buddhism 24 8
REL4048S Critical Theory (Not offered in 2015) 24 8
REL4049F Islamic Studies: Intro to PG Studies 24 8
REL4052S Readings in Religious Studies 24 8
REL4053F Religion and Culture in Africa 24 8
REL5110S African Religious Movements 24 9
REL5111F Reading Religious Texts 24 9
REL5112F Philosophers on Religion (Not offered in 2015) 24 9
REL5113S Contemporary Jewish Thought 24 9
REL5018S Religion and Gender 24 9
REL5020S Phenomenology of Religion 24 9
Subject to approval by the Head of Department, an elective offered by a cognate department may replace one or more of the listed electives. Please consult the supplementary elective handbook for descriptions of elective courses offered.
Course Outlines
REL4010F - Critical Terms in Religious Studies: Professor David Chidester
The Critical Terms course focuses on the basic theoretical frameworks, methodological approaches, and keywords in the academic study of religion. The course develops an analytical vocabulary that will be useful for students in any specialised field supported by the postgraduate programme in Religious Studies. Sessions are devoted to exploring exploring (1) Religion, Religions, Religious; (2) Belief and Rationality; (3) God and Person; (4) Experience and Gender; (5) Body, Image, and Relic; (6) Performance and Sacrifice; (7) Territory and Time; (8) Modernity and Conflict; (9) Culture and Writing; (10) Transformation and Transgression; and (11) Liberation and Value.
REL4011H - Research Essay/Project: Dr Andrea Brigaglia
An appropriate research paper, chosen in negotiation with the Head of Department, of approximately 15,000 words in length.
REL4046S - Buddhism: Dr Elisabetta Porcu
This course will introduce students to the systematic study of Buddhism. Topics will vary from year to year according to the research interests of students and staff. Areas will include Buddhist traditions both historical and contemporary; their schools, texts and practices. Themes will include Buddhist encounters with modernity in Asia and the West, monasticism and lay Buddhism, women's place in the Buddhist tradition, Buddhism and popular culture, and contemporary Buddhism in Africa and Asia. Students will be exposed to relevant literatures on Buddhist teachings and practices, Buddhism in connection to society and culture, Buddhist ethics and contemporary debates with Buddhist communities.
REL4048S - Critical Theory: Dr Louis Blond
All religious traditions have been fundamentally altered by their encounters with modernity. Enlightenment, reason and the growth of secularism have continually challenged and eroded not only religious traditions but also the foundations of Western political culture in general. In order to understand this process, a new mode of theoretical investigation arose in the early 20th century which became known as Critical Theory.
Critical Theory allows and exploration of not only the social processes but also the modes of investigation, including the dominant forms of Western reasoning that requires analysis and critical engagement.
This course will introduce students to a variety of thinkers and concepts enabling them to understand and study a range of phenomena and social processes. Thinkers such as Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Franz Fanon and Judith Butler will be studied in order to gain critical insight into contemporary problems. The concepts and methodology of critical theorists will be examined thereby giving students the tools to enter crucial debates surrounding subjectivation, power, gender, post-colonial theory and aesthetics.
REL4049F - Islamic Studies - Intro to PG Studies: Associate Professor Sa'diyya Shaikh
This course will introduce students to Islam as a religious tradition. Using the tools and terms of the comparative study of religions, the course will familiarize students with the beliefs, practices and institutions of Islam in their variety, historical development and particular contexts. This will include themes in the life of the Prophet Muhammad, the foundational texts of Islam, law and jurisprudence, theology, mysticism and social movements.
REL4052S - Readings in Religious Studies: Professor Abdulkader Tayob
This course is a critical introduction to the seminal figures that have shaped the study of religion. Texts will be read for the terms, concepts and models that have helped scholars to understand and produce new knowledge on religion(s). Texts chosen will be the familiar standard references used in the study of religions (Weber, Durkheim, WC Smith, Eliade) but also texts that have challenged these foundations (Adorno, Chidester, Asad). The course aims to provide theoretically rigorous foundation for the study of religion(s).
REL4053F - Religion and Culture in Africa: Dr Asonzeh Ukah
This course is an exploration of African religions and culture. It will provide in-depth discussions of principal and fundamental issues and themes concerning African culture and African Traditional Religions, beginning with issues revolving around the academic study of African religions. Some concepts and world-views that are ordinarily considered to be uniquely African will be analysed. We will also examine a select set of issues and historical developments in the cultural thinking of Africans about Africa.
REL5003W - Minor Dissertation: Dr Andrea Brigaglia
A dissertation of approximately 25,000 words under supervision which shows thorough practical and/or academic knowledge of the approved subject and methods of research, and evidence of independent critical power in the handling and interpretation of material already known or newly discovered, may embody such original work of others as may be pertinent, may include the candidate's own published material on the same subject, if the prior permission of the Senate has been obtained. The dissertation must be the candidate's own work and any contributions to and quotations in the dissertation must be cited and referenced.
REL5018S - Religion and Gender: Associate Professor Sa'diyya Shaikh
This course addresses intersections between gender studies and cross-cultural study of religion. Various feminist theoretical perspectives will be used to analyse the significance of social, ethical and symbolic discourses relating to sexuality and gender in selected religious traditions, with a special emphasis on Islam and Muslim societies.
REL5110S - African Religious Movements: Dr Andrea Brigaglia & Dr Asonzeh Ukah
With the coming of Islam and Christianity in Africa, new religious movements blossomed with a dizzying frenzy that scholarship in this area is lagging behind. This course examines some major theories in history and sociology of religious movements as well as a critical investigation of major religious movements within the three major religious traditions of Africa, namely, African Indigenous religions, African Christianities and African Islams.
REL5111F - Reading Religious Texts: Dr Andrea Brigaglia
This course is designed to give students exposure to religious texts and their commentarial literature in the religious traditions studied in the department. It will introduce hermeneutical and analytical tools for reading these texts in translation or, skills permitting, in their original languages. With these tools, students will undertake a close reading of selected texts in light of their social and religious contexts. They will also develop the skills to address relevant issues about canon, authenticity, orality and writing, intertextuality and interpretation. This course will prepare masters students for the critical contextual reading essential to undertake new research in these traditions.
REL5112F - Philosophers on Religion: Dr Louis Blond
This course will explore a selection of philosophers who have placed religion at the centre of their work either in order to critique its worth or to transform religious concepts into different, often secular, forms. The philosophers selected will be major figures in Western thought who have challenged traditional forms of Jewish and Christian religious authority (for example, Spinoza and Nietzsche) or philosophers who have contributed to debates on the value of religious concepts and religious ethics (for example, Jacobi, Hegel, MacIntyre and Levinas) to demonstrate their continued relevance. The course will explore how value and meaning are contested on religious concepts and it will attempt to show that current debates extend and build on the significant contributions of earlier thinkers in the Western cannon.
REL5113S - Contemporary Jewish Thought: Dr Louis Blond
This course raises issues that affect much of 20th century and Contemporary Jewish Thought as they affect religious and secular life. The Jewish experience of the twentieth century is marked by emancipation, holocaust and the re-establishment of the state of Israel. We will explore a selection of thinkers who have attempted to come to terms with the consequences of these events as they affect secular and religious life. The thinkers selected will be major figures in Jewish thought who have wrestled with the political, philosophical and religious questions raised in Jewish experience, such as Hannah Arendt, Emil Fackenheim, Richard Rubenstein, Theodor Adorno, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacque Derrida, Yeshayahu Leibowitz. We will also address themes such as post-holocaust thought, religious freedom and the law, and the relationship of Jews to the European tradition and the concept of otherness.
REL5020S- Phenomenology of Religion: Professor David Chidester
This course explores the multidimensional phenomenon of religion by using the resources of theory and method developed in the academic study of religion. As an open, plural, intercultural and interdisciplinary field of study, the academic study of religion has developed a range of basic categories, such a myth, for the analysis, interpretation and explanation of religion in all its forms. These categories, however, have emerged out of a history that includes both the European Enlightenment and European colonialism. In the context of that history, this course explores the potential and the limits of basic categories in the study of religion for gaining knowledge about religion and the religions.