2023-2024 St. George Campus Course Descriptions
For courses with tutorials, please also see the Arts & Science Timetable Builder. Sessional dates are available on the Faculty of Arts & Science calendar.
Note: If the courses listed below are in conflict with the Arts & Science timetable, the information on the timetable takes priority. Additional information on some courses (i.e., Special Topics) are available on this page. All courses are planned for in-person delivery unless otherwise stated.
Please contact the Associate Chair, Undergradate, Srilata Raman at s.raman@utoronto.ca, or Undergraduate Program Assistant, Phoebe To at religion.undergrad@utoronto.ca, with any questions you may have.
RLG100H1 World Religions
Term: Winter
Description: An introduction to the history, philosophy, and practice of the major religions of the world, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taosim.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
RLG101H1 Reason and Religion in the Modern Age
Term: Fall
Description: An introduction to critical thinking about religion as it took shape in modern European thought. We examine major thinkers such as Baruch Spinoza, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt, and others. Issues covered include freedom of thought, the relationship between religion and politics, belief and truth, rational ethics in relation to religious ethics, etc. We explore how issues addressed by these classical authors remain relevant in today's world.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG105H1 Spirituality, Religion, and the Environment
Term: Fall
Description: Humans, in diverse cultures and throughout history, have felt a deep connection to their environments. This search for a feeling of connection and oneness has led humans into canyons and caves, up mountains and rock faces, and across deserts and oceans. Sometimes this nature spirituality occurs within religious traditions, sometimes outside of them, and sometimes even in opposition to 'religion'. This course will explore the phenomenon of nature spirituality, and the wonder often associated with it. Readings will engage mystics and mountaineers, poets and painters, and farmers and foresters, all exploring nature connection in the context of the environmental crisis.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
Note: This is a fully online course.
RLG106H1 Happiness
Kevin O'Neill | Happiness course couldn't be timelier in today's unsettled world (Article)
Term: Fall
Description: Are you happy? Today happiness is a metric by which a growing number of people asess the quality of their lives, with a range of experts offering innumerable life hacks and opportunities to optimize life. But what does it mean to be happy? And how have people tried to achieve this ever-elusive state? Situated squarely within the study of religion, this course considers how different traditions from around the world and for thousands of years have raised similar questions about happiness - not simply for the sake of reflection but also to do something about it. And their answers have varied: fast, meditate, pray, go to the desert, come together, get high, suffer, renounce God, and/or make lots of money. Readings will include selections from social theory and religious texts as well as a few authors who seem to be (against all odds) kind of happy.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG107H1 "It's the End of the World as We Know It"
Term: Winter
Description: Throughout history, many religious movements have envisioned the end of the world. This course will explore the ways in which different religious movements have prepared for and expected an end time, from fears, symbols, and rituals to failed prophecies and social violence. By examining traditions such as Jewish and Christian apocalyptic texts through to fears of nuclear apocalypse and zombies, the course seeks to understand the ways in which ancient and modern claims of “the end” reflect the aspirations, anxieties, and religious concerns of communities.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
MHB155H1 Elementary Modern Hebrew l
Term: Fall
Description: This course is designed for students with little or no experience in Hebrew. As such, it offers intensive training in the basics of 4 language skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. Students will be able to recognize the Hebrew verb system's fundamental structures, learn its primary forms, and acquire the necessary basic vocabulary for everyday conversations. We will focus on reading: easy dialogues, passages without vowels, and short texts in simple Hebrew. Writing: short dialogues and paragraphs. Conversation: simple dialogues and stories. Comprehension: listening to short stories and recorded conversations.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
MHB156H1 Elementary Modern Hebrew II
Term: Winter
Description: The second half of a two-semester Modern Hebrew course for beginners is intended to strengthen the students' conversation skills and their reading, writing, and listening comprehension while further developing the cultural context of the language. Materials include simple stories and poems, digital media, film, comics, textbook exercises, and complementary class activities. In addition, students will be expected to deliver presentations in Hebrew and write about a range of topics, demonstrating an ability to acquire new vocabulary using print and digital dictionaries independently.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
JRC199H1 Truths & Reconciliations in Canada
Term: Fall
Description: In this course, we examine the idea of reconciliation among Indigenous and Canadian nations by considering the complicated role of religion and spirituality in "truth and reconciliation". Specifically, residential schools for Indigenous children were a collaboration of church and state that violently broke the spirit and intent of the treaties - or sacred promises - made between the Crown and Indigenous nations. The course will set the 2015 Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada in a longer history of twentieth-century commissions, reports, and petitions in which both Indigenous and Canadian people (and some churches) named the cultural and spiritual genocide of residential schools and called for action. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
RLG195H1 Alt-Bible: What Could Have Been
Term: Fall
Description:Why does our contemporary Bible not include any daughters for Adam and Eve or any stories of Jesus as a young boy? What if Enoch was more prominent than Moses or Thomas more prominent than Paul? "The Bible" that we have is not a single book or a simple collection, but something that has grown over time, been the object of contention and argument, and has sometimes been a common ground across traditions. We examine side-by-side writings that have become canonical and writings that once held authority but have not found widespread canonical status, and strive to understand the processes by which we ended up with "the Bible" we have today. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/CNR option.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
RLG196H1 Goddess Lessons: Gender, Religion and Pop
Erin Vearncombe
Term: Fall
Description: Is God a woman? How can we get to heaven without losing a piece of ourselves? What does it mean to follow Lesbian Jesus? Pop music provides us with some important - if often surprising - opportunities to think through deep questions. Increasingly, these questions tie together two of our most powerful human categories: gender and religion. This course will consider the diverse interactions between pop, gender, and religion. Examples might include Beyonce's self-representation as the Yoruba goddess Oshun and Lil Nas X's reinterpretation of the Garden of Eden in Montero. Restricted to first-year students. Not available for CR/NCR option.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
RLG197H1 Enchantment, Disenchantment, Re-Enchantment
Term: Winter
Description: Modernity is associated with disenchantment, secularisation and progress, and has traditionally been understood as the successor to the enchanted, spiritual, and transcendent worldviews of antiquity and the middle ages. Re-enchantment, a term increasingly encountered in popular and academic contexts alike, demonstrates nostalgia for an enchanted past, a discomfort with the modern narrative, and a desire to recover wonder. This course will examine the history of enchantment through a series of readings taken from literature, philosophy, theology, ranging from Plato to contemporary magical realism. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representation (1)
RLG198H1 Dystopia: Religion & Gender in Science Fiction
Term: Winter
Description: This course will examine the “what ifs” and imagined worlds of ideal utopias and oppressive dystopias through the lens of religion and gender in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland. Because science fiction and utopian/dystopian literature expresses what an author sees as possible or hopes is possible, but also fears is possible, we will consider science fiction as a political and social critique. Themes to be covered include fundamentalism, totalitarianism, the relationship between technology and religion, religion and reproductive rights, and the potential relationship between religion, gender and oppression. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
RLG200H1 The Study of Religion
Term: Fall
Description: An introduction to the discipline of the study of religion. This course surveys methods in the study of religion and the history of the discipline in order to prepare students to be majors or specialists in the study of religion.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG200H1 The Study of Religion
Term: Winter
Description: An introduction to the discipline of the study of religion. This course surveys methods in the study of religion and the history of the discipline in order to prepare students to be majors or specialists in the study of religion.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
Note: This is offered fully online for the Winter semester.
RLG201H1 Indigenous Spiritualities and Religions
Term: Winter
Description: This course examines how Indigenous communities saw the world before contact—primarily exploring early creation narratives and ways of engaging with the natural world through ceremonials of reciprocity and acknowledgements. It engages with how early colonial societies and Western-based religions evaluated and understood Indigenous spiritualities and practices. We consider Indigenous critiques of Western religion as it has actually been practiced as opposed to what has been taught as constituting the ideals of civilization. Finally, we analyze how Indigenous communities and culture begin to create “New Religions” that blend Indigenous values and thinking with aspects of Western culture or emerge in direct response to re-imagining spirituality in attempts to prove humanness and civility in contexts where little of Indigenous culture and values has been seen as acceptable.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
RLG202H1 Judaism
Term: Winter
Description: An introduction to the religious tradition of the Jews that explores key themes as they change from ancient times to today. The set of themes will include: the Sabbath, Study, Place, Household, Power. Each year will focus on one theme. We will read holy texts, modern literature, history, ethnography, and philosophy, covering each theme in a range of genres and across the diverse span of Jewish experience.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG203H1 Christianity
Term: Fall
Description: We explore the multiple religious traditions of Christianity and follow key themes as they have changed throughout the last two millennia. The themes might include: the Bible and its translation; missionizing and colonial practices; belief and conversion; authority and power; capitalism and Christianity. The course will equip students to understand how and why Christianity has come to exert such influence around the globe. No familiarity with the Bible, Christianity, or the academic study of religion is assumed.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG204H1 Islam
Term: Fall
Description: An introduction to the Islamic religious tradition that explores its diversity and development, from its inception to the modern period. Themes include Pre-Islamic Arabia, the life of Muhammad and the Qur'an, the development of the notion of Sunna and Hadith, Islamic religious communities (Sunni, Shiite and Ismaili traditions), Sufism, and religious practices. The course will emphasize the complexity of the Islamic tradition both in its classical phase and in modernity including Islam in the diaspora.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG205H1 Hinduism
Term: Fall
Description: This course explores themes relating to the religion of Hindus, called Hinduism since modernity. Topics include the canonical literatures, philosophies, and doctrines of Hinduism, along with the debates surrounding them; lived Hinduism, and the texts that inform its practice and experience; activities considered quintessential to Hinduism, such as temple visits, yoga, and venerating a guru; and the vibrant spectrum of Hindu expression one encounters in the diaspora. The course will equip students with fluency in core concepts and practices of Hinduism, as well as an understanding of Hindu history as one of dynamism and transformation.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG206H1 Buddhism
Term: Fall
Description: This course explores the development, spread, and diversification of Buddhist traditions throughout Asia and into North America. Basic Buddhist teachings will be explored through key themes, which might include embodiment, ethics, sexuality, race, art, sound and movement. In addition, students will investigate how Buddhist practics, such as mindfulness, have been shaped by, and even contributed to, forces like colonialism, Orientalism, capitalism, and white supremacy in the last hundred years or so in North America.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG209H1 Justifying Religious Belief
Term: Fall
Description: Beliefs typically characterized as “religious” concern such things as the existence and nature of the Deity, the afterlife, the soul, miracles, and the universe’s meaningfulness, ultimate purpose, or interest in the distribution of justice according to some plan. Common to these and other religious beliefs is that empirical evidence for them are lacking – at least so say all those who insist that rational beliefs require justification and that justification comes either from observing publically-accessible phenomena or some kind of solid scientific reasoning. Religious beliefs, it further seems, run counter to modern conceptions about who counts not only as an acceptably rational, but also as a fully moral agent. How might people who hold – and want to continue to hold – religious beliefs respond to these accusations and doubts?
The course examines these basic epistemological and moral challenges to religious belief as well as the various strategies available to religious believers who are confronted with such demands for justifications. By doing so, we will aim to understand better whether religious beliefs of various sorts could count as rational, whether reasonable people might disagree with each other about the very nature of reality and morality, and whether anyone who falls short of common intellectual and social ideals of rationality and reasonableness ought to be tolerated.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG211H1 Psychology of Religion
Term: Winter
Description: The psychoanalytic study of religion examines the nature of religious beliefs, experiences and practices as creations of mind and culture. What is the nature of and relationship between belief and knowledge, subjective and objective experience/reality, phantasy, dreams and reality? How do the individual and social unconscious create and shape religious beliefs, experiences and practices? These and other questions are explored in order to understand the ways in which psychoanalysis, as a critical theory of religion, contributes to theorizing the ways in which individual psychology is also social psychology. Included in our focus is a consideration of mystical, visionary, esoteric and paranormal experiences in the psychoanalytic study of religion. Insights from evolutionary and cognitive psychology and neuroscience will be considered as well in our discussions of psychology and religion.
Distribution Requirement: Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG212H1 Anthropology, Religion and Culture
Term: Fall
Description: Is religion a matter of belief or a matter of practice? Do all religions share common features? Is one born into religion, or does one learn to be religious? This course is designed to introduce students to some of the ways in which anthropologists have studied and thought about religion. The emphasis is not on memorizing things people believe and do in different societies but on understanding how anthropologists have tried to explain religious phenomena. The themes covered in the course include: magic and religion; the (ir)rationality of belief; the body as a site of knowledge; ritual; ethical self-cultivation; and religion's role in the secular age.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG213H1 Embarrassment of Scriptures
Term: Fall
Description: Surveys interpretative traditions related to sacred texts, focusing on reading strategies that range from the literal to the figurative with attention to rationales that transform literal textual meanings and copyists manipulations of texts. May focus on various religious traditions from year to year, targeting a single canonical tradition or comparative analysis. Students will gian insight into literalist, environmentalist, secularist and erotic approaches to texts. Prior exposure to the study of religion is not required; all readings will be in English.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG215H1 New Religious Movements
Term: Fall
Description: The saying goes that "Cult + Time = Religion". In this course, we will examine this assertion, looking especially at the development of recent religions, such as Scientology. This course will probe the history of scholarship on new religious movements (once known as "cult studies") and explore the challenges inherent in studying controversial movements.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
Note: This is a fully online course.
RLG217H1 Black Diaspora Religions
Term: Fall
Description: This course critically examines the intersection of religion and cultural expressions in the African Diaspora, with a particular emphasis on the Canadian landscape. The importance of religion in the Black Diaspora's experience of both oppression and liberation will be a key component of our analytic framework in explaining and understanding the Black/African experience and culture in the diaspora.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
RLG222H1 Witchcraft, Religion and the Powers of the Occult
Term: Fall
Description: Picture a witch in your mind's eye. Do you see them as male, female, or somewhere between the two? Young or old? Good or evil? This course goes beyond common Western assumptions about the character and morality of witchcraft to show how its study, its representation and its practice contribute in vital ways to our understandings of religion, the occult, morality, gender, sexuality, and science. We move across Europe, Africa, Melanesia and North America to shed light on a controversial figure in numerous societies and literary traditions, past and present. Depictions of withces, wiccans, sorcerers and magicians are analyzed and compared. At the same time, the course should make you ask yourself: What is rational, what is ethical - and ultimately, what is human?
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
RLG230H1 Religion, Law and Society
Term: Fall
Description: The role of religion in state law is a perennial source of contention across the globe. From the right to wear religious garments in public to constitutional commitments to a certain faith, such debates continuously reshape the notions of state and religion as we know them. However, these debates also have deep histories that revolve around foundational questions: What makes certain states "secular"? Who gets to determine what constitutes the "religious" from the secular? And what is so "modern" about modern secular law in the first place? In this course, we will develop the tools to critically address such questions and understand how they are continuously negotiated in practice. We will pay attention to the particularities of religion and state as they have emerged since the nineteenth century before turning to case studies from both Western Christian-majority and non-Western Muslim-majority contexts. In comparing these cases, we will discover how modern states differ significantly in their approaches to legislating and adjudicating religion in law. At the same time, whether proclaiming to separate religion and state or to conflate them, modern states often contend with the same underlying challenges.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
RLG232H1 Religion & Film
Term: Winter
Description: The role of film as a mediator of thought and experience concerning religious worldviews. The ways in which movies relate to humanity's quest to understand itself and its place in the universe are considered in this regard, along with the challenge which modernity presents to this task. Of central concern is the capacity of film to address religious issues through visual symbolic forms.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
RLG233H1 Religion and Popular Culture
Term: Winter
Description: A course on the interactions, both positive and negative, between religion and popular culture. We look at different media (television, advertising, print) as they represent and engage with different religious traditions, identities, and controversies.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
RLG234H1 Language and Religion
Term: Winter
Description: What is language to religion? And how is it used by humans and divine agents? This course moves across traditions, examining types of communications from speech to rhetoric to book to revelation; and types of communicators from hermit to evangelist to deity. We will see language used to clarify and to obscure; to exclude and to liberate. And we will think about miscommunication too: the message lost in transmission. All readings will be in English. No knowledge of other languages is required.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
RLG235H1 Religion, Gender, and Sexuality
Term: Winter
Description: This course equips students to understand how norms and practices of gender and sexuality are deeply entangled with religious imaginations and traditions. We will examine how ritual. scriptural and legal traditions enable and constrain embodied and political power. Readings will draw from feminist, womanist, queer, and other perspectives. With a combination of in-class discussions, critical reading exercises, and short essay assignments, students will strengthen their awareness of transnational intersections of religion, gender and "religio-racial" formations. You will develop skills in analyzing the role of popular culture and legal and religious texts in shaping norms and experiences of gender and embodiment.
Distribution Requirement: Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG236H1 Material Religion
Term: Fall
Description: Religions are more than beliefs or sacred texts. They are also formed through buildings, bodies, objects of devotion, images, websites. We examine how religion is embodied, circulated, built, played, displayed, and painted. We ask why religions are often constituted through feasting or fasting, excess or asceticism, abundance of objects or destruction of icons. Religious activity is explored through its connections with objects of wealth and consumption - not just great art, but items common within popular culture. The overall aim is to 'see' religion in a new way - and to understand the role of the senses in the formation of religious experience.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representation (1)
RLG241H1 The Earliest Christians
Term: Winter
Description: What can the earliest writings of Early Christianity tell us about the movement and its founding figure? We examine these writings critically and historically in order to understand the immense variety of early Christianity as it grew within Judaism and within the Greco-Roman World. No familiarity with Christianity or the New Testament is expected.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG242H1 Bible in America
Term: Fall and Winter
Description: This course offers a critical examination of the role of biblical texts (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and New Testament) within the history, literature, and culture of the United States of America. It will employ a range of methodological perspectives to explore the use, influence, and impact of biblical interpretation especially regarding claims of American identity. All readings will be in English. No knowledge of Hebrew or Greek is required.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
MHB255H1: Intermediate Modern Hebrew I
Ido Moses
Term: Fall
Description: This course will further enhance students' Hebrew language skills. With the context of contemporary Israeli and Jewish culture in mind, the course focuses on (1) Reading: unadapted texts and simple articles in regular Hebrew. (2) Writing: the beginning of practical writing on topics discussed in class, writing about personal experiences, and writing structured compositions. (3) Conversation: conversational skills developed by regular participation in class presentations and discussions of current events and cultural issues; role play and participation in dialogues and informal expressions. (4) Comprehension: listening to recorded short stories in easy Hebrew. (5) Grammatical Skills: Completing the syntactic study of verb conjugation in different tenses.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
MHB256H1: Intermediate Modern Hebrew II
Ido Moses
Term: Winter
Description: This course of Intermediate Hebrew is intended for those who completed the requirements of intermediate Hebrew I. Intermediate Hebrew aims to instill more excellent proficiency, enrich vocabulary, and deepen the student's understanding of the cultural context of Israeli Hebrew. Subjects include current affairs, Israeli society, and cultural traditions. Added emphasis will be placed on language registers and grammatical and syntactic nuances, with materials ranging from children's books to television programs. By the end of the semester, students will complete their understanding of the Hebrew verb system and main preposition words.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
RLG260H1 Introduction to Sanskrit I
Term: Fall
Description: The first semester of an introduction to Classical Sanskrit for beginners. Students build grammar and vocabulary, and begin to read texts in Sanskrit. Complete beginners are welcome. The course is held online via live webinar participation. The final exam will require attendance on the St. George campus, or in another authorized exam centre.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
Note: This is a fully online course.
RLG261H1 Introduction to Tibetan I
Term: Fall
Description: An introduction to Classical Tibetan language for beginners. Development of basic grammar and vocabulary, with readings of simple texts. Two sections of the course may be offered: an on-campus class meeting and an online section. The final exam will require attendance on the St. George campus, or in another authorized exam centre.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
Note: This course has an in-person section and a fully online section.
RLG263H1 Introduction to Sanskrit II
Term: Winter
Description: The second semester of an introduction to Classical Sanskrit for beginners. RLG260H1, or equivalent, is a pre-requisite. Students continue to build grammar and vocabulary, and use that knowledge to read texts in Sanskrit. The course is held online via live webinar participation. The final exam will require attendance on the St. George campus, or in another authorized exam centre.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
Note: This is a fully online course.
RLG264H1 Introductory Pali I
Term: Fall
Description: This introductory course offers an opportunity to students interested in Buddhism to read, analyze, and discuss select simple passages from the scriptures of the Theravada canon in their original language. It will cover philosophical, psychological, and narrative texts and their interpretation, as well as provide a first exposure to the Pali Language. Complete beginners are welcome.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
Note: This course has an in-person section and a fully online section.
RLG265H1 Introductory Pali II
Term: Winter
Description: This course offers an opportunity to students interested in Buddhism and with basic knowledge of Pali to read, analyze, and discuss select simple passages from the scriptures of the Theravada canon in their original language. It will cover philosophical, psychological, and narrative texts and their interpretation.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
Note: This course has an in-person section and a fully online section.
All 300-series courses normally presuppose that a student has already completed, by the first day of the course, at least 4.0 FCEs (or their equivalent). Students who do not meet the specific Prerequisites listed in the Calendar, but believe they have adequate academic preparation, should contact Phoebe, the Undergraduate Assistant, at religion.undergrad@utoronto.ca regarding entry to the course.
JNR301H1 The History of Buddhist Meditation
Term: Winter
Description: This course will survey historical, cultural, and textual contexts for Buddhist meditative and contemplative practices and techniques.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG308H1 Migration, Religion and City Spaces
Mariana Dobreva
Term: Winter
Description: Immigrants have transformed cities through religious practices. Explore how transnational migration has affected religious diversity and vitality in metropolitan areas. Through discussion, site visits and analysis, students will examine the ways that immigrants use religion to make home, challenges around the establishment of new religious structures, and policy designed to accommodate new religious practices and communities.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
RLG309H1 Religion and Human Rights
Term: Fall
Description: We will explore the dynamic inter-relations of women, ethnicities and minorities, among others, within the context of religion in this age of human rights, focusing on the contemporary global context. Our aim will be to include both theory and praxis. The approach will be intersectional, cross-cultural, inter-religious and inter-disciplinary. We will do this by drawing on both academic and non-academic resources, grassroots movements as well as global initiatives to approach these issues.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
Note: This is a fully asynchronous course.
RLG312H1 Gender, Body and Sexuality in Islam
Sara Verskin | Sample Readings
Term: Fall
Description: This course focuses on constructions of sexuality, gender, and embodiment in Islamic texts and contexts across time and space. Drawing f rom historical texts, ethnographic research, and feminist and queer theory, we will examine how norms of gender and sexuality are constructued and contested through practices such as marriage and divorce, dress, and inheritance. Students will strengthen their literacy on global gender issues, historicize religious ideas on gender, and analyze the role of culture, legal and religious texts in shaping norms and experiences of gender, sexuality, and embodiment.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
RLG315H1 Rites of Passage
Term: Fall
Description: We examine rituals of transition from one social status to another (such as childbirth, coming of age, marriage,) from theoretical, historical and ethnographic perspectives. We pay particular attention to the importance of rites of passage in the construction of gendered identities.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
RLG317H1 Religion, Violence, and Non-Violence
Term: Winter
Description: People acting in the name of religion(s) have incited violence and worked for peace. How can we understand this tension both today and in the past? Through examination of the power of authoritative tradition, collective solidarity, charisma, and acts of resistance, this course addresses religious justifications of violence and non-violence across varied historical and geographical contexts.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG318H1 Sacred & Secular Nature in the Christian West
Term: Fall
Description: How did we get to where we are now? How did humans come to be so alienated from nature? This course will examine how religion, particularly that of the Christian West, has shaped the understanding of, and interaction with, nature on a global level. It examines the complex shift from understanding nature as sacred and revelatory, to its conceptualization as a commodity and resource. Students will explore the ethical and cultural consequences of this shift for the human-nature relationship, and contemporary attemps to recover a notion of sacred nature in the context of the environmental crisis.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representation (1)
Note: This is a fully online course.
RLG319H1 Death, Dying and Afterlife
Term: Winter
Description: This course introduces students to various religious approaches to death, the dead, and afterlife. Through considering different ways in which death has been thought about and dealt with, we will also explore different understandings of life and answers to what it means to be human.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour
RLG321H1 Women and the Hebrew Bible
Term: Fall
Description: This course provides a critical examination of the Hebrew Bible (sometimes called the Old Testament) with an emphasis on women characters. It examines the historical and literary contexts of Hebrew Bible texts and engages diverse methods of contemporary biblical scholarship with particular attention to issues of gender. All readings will be in English. No knowledge of Hebrew is required.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG322H1 Early Gospels
Term: Fall
Description: Careful examination of the earliest "lives of Jesus" ('gospels') shows that they offer very different portraits of Jesus of Nazareth. The course will compare ancient biographical accounts of famous ancient figures such as Alexander the Great, the Caesars, and wandering philosophers with early depictions of Jesus, both the gospels that eventually were included in the New Testament, and extra-canonical or "apocryphal" gospels such as the Gospels of Thomas, Peter, or Mary.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representation (1)
RLG324H1 The Apostle Paul and His Enemies
Term: Winter
Description: An examination of Paul’s life and thought as seen in the early Christian literature written by him(the seven undisputed letters), about him (the Acts of the Apostles, the Acts of Paul)and in his name (falsely authored compositions in early Christianity.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG327H1 Hospitality and Ethics in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Term: Winter
Description: Refugee crises in modern times have raised questions concerning what degree of hospitality is owed the stranger or foreigner whose motivation is a new, safe, and secure home rather than being treated as a guest passing through on a time-limited visa. Jacques Derrida's ideas of both conditional hospitality (e.g., tourists) and unconditional hospitality (e.g., strangers) need to be explored from the perspective of philosophical and ethical traditions including Jewish, Christian, and Muslim ethics.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG328H1 Religion, Race, and the Legacy of Cain and Abel
Term: Winter
Description: Cain's killing of his brother Abel is one of the best known but least understood stories in the Bible. For thousands of years, interpreters have puzzled over the gaps and ambiguities of the story in order to piece together the how, what, where and why of this violent incident. This course explores the legacies of Cain and Abel across various religious traditions and in art, literature, and popular culture. It considers the surprising roles that this biblical story has played in modern ideas about religion, politics, and race. All readings will be in English. No knowledge of Hebrew is required.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG331H1 Creation Narratives and Epistemologies
Term: Fall
Description: The course will examine the importance of Indigenous cultural knowledge and values as presented in various Indigenous Creation Narratives. Creation Narratives or Cosmological narratives have long been studied as mere mythology. Yet, it is in these very narratives that complex, layered, and nuanced epistemologies emerge. Often, these narratives not only lay the epistemological frameworks of cultural value system, but they also contain what many refer to as original instructions and purpose for the "Original People".
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representation (1)
RLG336H1 Religion and its Monsters
Term: Winter
Description: A course looking at the theories about and responses to the monstrous in global religious traditions and practices.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
Note: This is a fully online course.
RLG338H1 Religion and Religiosity in Israel/Palestine
Term: Winter
Description: Focusing on present-day Israel/Palestine, this interdisciplinary course is intended for students interested in exploring a wide range of theoretical questions and examining their applicability to the study of sites, texts, rituals, and politics in the region. We will address the history of the land's consecration from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim perspectives. Students will analyze specific sites associated with religious congregations and ritual practices, and study them within their local and regional contexts. Looking at the complex relationships between religious-political movements and institutions within Jewish and Muslim societies, we will delve into various attempts to secularize (and theologize) Jewish and Palestinian communities and their discontents. Rather than providing the typical emphasis on conflict, the course is a journey into the history and present of the land and its diverse communities.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
RLG341H1 Dreaming of Zion: Exile and Return in Jewish Thought
Term: Fall
Description: An inquiry into the theme of exile and return in Judaism, often called the leading idea of Jewish religious consciousness. Starting from Egyptian slavery and the Babylonian exile, and culminating in the ideas of modern Zionism, the course will examine a cross-section of Jewish thinkers - ancient, medieval, and modern.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG343H1 Kabbala: A History of Mystical Thought in Judaism
Term: Winter
Description: A historical study of Kabbala and the mystical tradition in Judaism, with emphasis on the ideas of Jewish mystical thinkers and movements.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG346H1 Time and Place in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Term: Fall
Description: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam each have their own sets of prayer times, frequency of prayers and their locations such as home, synagogue, temple, church or mosque. They have completely different calendrical systems. Holiness is also connected to geographical locations, which often serve as destinations of pilgrimage. This course will examine linear and cyclical times and the concepts of holiness in time and place by looking at primary sources in translation. We will investigate the persistence of holy places, how their names continue, and how gender issues are part of the jurisdictional politics of disputes over place and time.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG347H1 Judaism in the Late Modern Era
Term: Fall
Description: Continuing from, but not presupposing, "Judaism in the Early Modern Era", the course will trace the late modern stages in the development of Jewish thought, and will bring the history of modern Jewish thought to the present.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representation (1)
RLG350H1 The Life of Muhammad
TBD
Term: Fall
Description: This course examines Muhammad's life as reflected in the biographies and historical writings of the Muslims. Students will be introduced to the critical methods used by scholars to investigate Muhammad's life. Issues include: relationship between Muhammad's life and Quran teachings and the veneration of Muhammad.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG351H1 The Quran: An Introduction
TBD
Term: Winter
Description: The revelatory process and the textual formation of the Quran, its pre-eminent orality and its principal themes and linguistic forms; the classical exegetical tradition and some contemporary approaches to its interpretation.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
RLG352H1 Post-Colonial Islam
Term: Fall
Description: This course will study Islam in a post-colonial framework. It will introduce students to the work of post-colonial studies, and how critical scholarship has transformed our understanding of monolithic concepts such as modernity, the nation and Islam. It will focus on the particular case of Islam in South Asia and the Middle East by exposing students to the transformative impact of colonialism. It will equip students with the tools to challenge the hegemonic notion of a singular 'tradition' in Islam by tracing its lineages in the post-colony.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
Note: This is a fully online course.
MHB355H1 Advanced Modern Hebrew I
Term: Fall
Description: This advanced-level course is designed to deepen the student's knowledge of Hebrew in various fields and to increase vocabulary through extensive reading and writing. Areas of focus include (1) Reading: Scientific articles, newspaper editorials, prose, and poetry passages, with emphases on Israeli culture. (2) Writing: practical writing according to communicative functions and models of persuasion, explanation, etc. In addition, students will be asked to write short essays about a literary text. (3) Conversation: increasing vocabulary in conversations and discussions while emphasizing different language styles. (4) Comprehension: listening to radio programs on an advanced level and viewing regular television programs and YouTube music clips. (5) Grammatical Skills: complementing the student's linguistic knowledge and handling of irregular forms.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
RLG366H1 Hindu Philosophy
Alessandro Graheli
Term: Winter
Description: Two centuries back, Hegel famously claimed that philosophy was born and flourished in ancient Greece and Europe, while in India it existed only in an immature, pre-historical form. A reason behind his uncharitable assessment of Hindu philosophy was his ignorance of the sources. In this course we will explore this neglected rational soul of Hindu thought. Unbeknownst to Hegel and later Orientalists, in fact, Hindu philosophy is the dialectic product of a dialogue among the traditional Sanskrit sciences of (1) Linguistics, (2) Hermeneutics, (3) Epistemology, and (4) Poetics. During the course we will evaluate the evidence in favour and against four central claims made by these four disciplines in defense of the Vega, the sacred scripture of the Hindus: (1a) 'The relation between words and meanings is eternal', (2a) 'Words denote universals', (3a) 'The meaning of a sentence is its truth value, (4a) 'All sentence-meanings are figurative meanings'. We will also evaluate some crucial Buddhist tenets that challenged these claims, thus forcing their proponents to gradually refine the traditional views.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG371H1 Interdependence
Term: Winter
Description: This year, we will explore socially engaged Buddhist ethics and practice from Theravada and Mahayana perspectives. Our theme is interdependence - how this ethic informs, and manifests in socially engaged Buddhist approaches to human rights, peacebuilding, racial, gender, and environmental justice and inter- and intra-faith dialogue. Our focus will be contemporary, intersectional, and diverse.
Readings will include excerpts from English translations of Theravada and Mahayana scriptures, as well as contemporary readings by male and female monastic and lay teachers in Asian and North American contexts. In addition to weekly group meetings and discussions, there will also be an opportunity to integrate individual interests in student research papers and individual and/or group presentations and projects. We will draw on academic and non-academic resources, as well as local, grassroots, and global initiatives.
Weekly meetings will begin with the traditional land acknowledgement honouring our ongoing reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. We will then have a presentation and discussion on the weekly topic and required readings, followed by a short break. In the second hour, we will focus on Buddhist and secular mindfulness practices that are a support and training in socially engaged Buddhism.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
RLG372H1 Tibetan Buddhism
Term: Winter
Description: This course examines the history of global engagement with Tibetan religions, including contemporary adoptions of Tibetan religious identities outside the Tibetan plateau. The course begins in the Buddhist past by examining some of the earliest recorded Tibetan debates on religious identity and authority. It then moves to the modern period to compare non-Tibetan depictions of Tibetan religious traditions with indigenous Tibetan forms of self-representation. The course thus addresses questions regarding the plurality of Tibetan religious identities from Buddhist to Bön to Islamic and the ways that these identities interact with historical romanticizations of Tibet.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG373H1 Buddhist Ritual
Term: Fall
Description: Daily worship, the alms round, life-crisis celebrations, healing rituals, meditation, festivals, pilgrimage, the consecration of artefacts and taking care of the ancestors are among the forms of Buddhist ritual introduced and analyzed in this course. Liturgical manuals, ethnographic descriptions and audiovisual records form the basis for a discussion of the role of ritual as text and event.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG375H1 Biohacking Breath
Term: Fall
Description: This course explores Buddhist practices of manipulating - or "biohacking" the breath or "winds" (prāna) of the human body, covering relevant theories of human anatomy and physiology and the religious, philosophical, and medical teachings alongside which these practices are developed. Intentional breathing practices in the history of European thought and the role of breathwork in contemporary global biohacking movements will also be studied for comparison and contrast. During experiential lab sessions, basic prānāyāma and other breathing practices will be learned and practiced with the guidance of qualified teacher-practitioners.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
RLG376H1 Touching the Earth
Term: Winter
Description: A study of Buddhist relationships with the earth, including "earth touching" contemplative practices, ritual ceremonies for land spirits or sacred sites, geomantic and cosmographic traditions, the use of landscape imagery to depict enlightenment, contrasts between wilderness and urban spaces, and contemporary ecological movements in Buddhist communities and their responses to climate disruption. The course combines experiential learning approaches and outdoor excursions with reading and written work.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
RLG377H1 Intermediate Tibetan I
Term: Fall
Description: This course provides a review of classical Tibetan grammar through the study and translation of texts from a variety of genres. These include selections from Tibetan philosophical works, canonical Buddhist discourses, Tibetan historical writings, autobiographies, and dream narratives.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
Note: This course has an in-person section and a fully online section.
RLG387H1 Religion and Science
Term: Winter
Description: Course explores issues at the intersection of religion and science which may include such topics as evolution and the assessment of its religious significance by different traditions, conceptions of God held by scientists (theism, pantheism, panentheism), ethical issues raised by scientific or technological developments (cloning or embryonic stem cell research), philosophical analysis of religious and scientific discourses.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG391H1 Modern Atheism and Critique of Religion: Hegel to Nietzsche
Term: Winter
Description: Examines select modern thinkers and their critical approaches to the nature and significance of religious beliefs and practices. Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, and Nietzsche are among the major thinkers studied.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG392H1 The European Enlightenment and Religion
Term: Fall
Description: This course explores some of the major thinkers of the European Enlightenment and their philosophical inquiries into the meaning and significance of religion as a set of cultural institutions. Special attention is paid to the analysis of religious concepts and institutions along epistemological, ethical, and political lines.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG393H1: Graphic Religion: Myth and the Spiritual in Graphic Novels
Term: Winter
Description: Survey of themes connecting religious ideas, symbols, and representations with graphic novels and sequential art. The course will explore techniques of story-telling in mythic and visual representations in religious traditions and explore how these techniques and images are mirrored within popular comic-style (sequential) art.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
(Looking for an independent study course instead?)
RLG404H1 Departmental Capstone - Research
Ynon Wygoda
Term: Winter
Description: This seminar gives you the chance to explore the role of research in undergraduate education, and to construct a retrospective view of your and others' experience of studying religion in the university. Each student will also develop a research project and will examine a range of audiences for their research, from specialists in their field, to wider academic scholars, to an audience beyond the university. Interaction between students will be a central feature of the work of the seminar. Open to students in the Majors and Specialists of the Department for the Study of Religion.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
RLG405H1 Departmental Capstone - Practical
Term: Fall
Description: A capstone seminar that emphasizes integration of the study of religion with contemporary public life in the development of a research project, locating a research specialization in relation to non-academic contexts, and communicating the process and results of a research project to non-academic audiences. Open to students in the Majors and Specialists of the Department for the Study of Religion.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
RLG406H1 Constructing Religion
Term: Winter
Description: How have different researchers constructed 'religion' as their object of study, and are some frameworks simply incompatible with each other? We discuss - but also provide critical assessments of - different theoretical and methodological frameworks. Open to students in the Majors and Specialists of the Department for the Study of Religion.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG411H1 Advanced Topics in Religion: Mysticism and Poetics
Term: Fall
Description: This course will consider some of the consummate poet-mystics in Western Christianity, including Iacopone, Dante, Mechthild, Hadewijch, Silesius, Traherne, and Blake. It will examine how the recording of mystical experience in poetic form allows the mystical writer to achieve a result not otherwise possible in regular forms of communication. Readings will explore how, through the practice of mystical poetry, language becomes approximate and playful, capable of giving presence to absence, materiality to the immaterial, and lexicon to the non-lexical.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
RLG411H1 Advanced Topics in Religion: Academic Hebrew II
Term: Winter
Description: הקורס עברית אקדמית ב מהווה המשך ישיר והשלמה לקורס עברית אקדמית א. עם סיום הקורס יוכלו הסטודנטים להתמודד עם טקסטים עבריים עכשווים שאינם ספרותיים: מאמר דעה בעיתון, מחקר אקדמי, בלוג עברי, מסמך משפטי וכיוצא בזה. חלק נכבד בקורס יוקדש למחקר, פיתוח וכתיבה של עבודה אקדמית בעברית, ברמה גבוהה, בנושא המחקר של התלמיד/ה. הקורס יתנהל כולו בעברית.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
RLG412H1 Advanced Topics in Religion: Academic Hebrew I
Term: Fall
Description: הקורס עברית אקדמית א מחייב שליטה גבוהה בשפה העברית, והוא נועד לתלמידים ותלמידות עם ידע קודם בעברית (דקדוק ותחביר) המעוניינים להעמיק ולחזק את יסודות השפה. הקורס יתמקד בהבנת הנקרא ובפיתוח ההבעה והעושר הלשוני בעל-פה ובכתב. הטקסטים הנלמדים בקורס עוסקים בנושאים כמו משפחה, זיכרון, מיתוסים בחברה הישראלית ומדע. הקורס יתנהל כולו בעברית.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
RLG416H1 Topics in Religion and Gender
Term: Fall
Description: What do religious communities assume about human bodies? What is the role of the body in religious practice? Do different kinds of bodies lead to different religious experiences? This course is an advanced study on the intersection of religion and gender, focused specifically on the topics of bodies and embodiment. It explores the different ways that human bodies have been imagined and presented within religious traditions. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, students will examine religious expressions concerning bodies and bodily experiences from a variety of religious traditions.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
RLG420H1 Religion and Philosophy in the European Enlightenment
Term: Winter
Description: An advanced study of selected Enlightenment thinkers with a focus on their interpretations of religion. The main thinkers discussed are Spinoza, Hume, and Kant. Issues include the rational critique of traditional religion, the relations among religion, ethics and politics, and the pursuit of universal approaches to religion.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG425H1 Hermeneutics and Religion
Term: Fall
Description: A study of how principles of textual interpretation and theories of language have been central to modern philosophy of religion. We begin with Schleiermacher, and then move to an in-depth treatment of the 20th century hermeneutical theories of Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG435H1 The Thought of Leo Strauss
Term: Winter
Description: The philosophic thought of Leo Strauss approachced through his writings on modern Judaism. Primarily addressed will be the mutual relations between philosophy, theology, and politics. Among other topics to be dealt with: origins of modern Judaism, Zionism, liberal democracy, and biblical criticsm; meaning of Jerusalem and Athens; cognitive value in the Hebrew Bible.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG441H1 Words and Worship in Christian Cultures
Term: Fall
Description: How are we to analyze the words that Christians use? And how are such words related to ritual forms? We explore techniques for the analysis of texts, while looking at forms of verbal discourse ranging from prayers, speaking in tongues, and citing the Bible to more informal narratives.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representation (1)
RLG451H1 The Parables of Jesus
Term: Winter
Description: Examination of the parables in the gospels and other early Christian writers, and major trends in the modern analyses of the parables. Special attention will be paid to the social and economic world presupposed by the parables.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representation (1)
RLG458H1 Advanced Topics in Islam: Marriage and Divorce in Islamic Thought and Practice
Term: Winter
Description:
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG461H1 Buddhism and Indigeneity
Term: Winter
Description: In dominant discourse, Buddhism travels and, upon its arrival, enlightens, reforms, improves, or civilizes whoever was there before. In this course we will ask how that view disagrees with people for whom Buddhism is not something that comes later but something that comes first, who say: "We have always been Buddhists". Such an alternative vision of Buddhism is shared by communities who fight against caste discrimination, occupation by foreign powers, or the destruction of their world. In conversation with members of Indigenous communities visiting our class, we will ask what Buddhist Studies can contribute towards decolonization and Indigenous empowerment, particularly for Indigenous people in Canada.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
Independent Studies Courses
RLG490Y1 | RLG491H1 | RLG492H1 | RLG493H1 | RLG494Y1
Description: Student-initiated intensive research courses supervised by faculty mmebers of the Department. The student must obtain both a Supervisor's agreement and the Associate Chair's approval and fill out the Independent Studies Course form in consultation with the Supervisor with information on the proposed course in order to register. The form is available on our website. The maximum number of Independent Studies courses one make take is 2.0 credits. Deadline for submitting applications to the Department, including Supervisor's approval, is the end of the first week of classes of the session. A 1.0 credit course may be compressed into a single session or spread through two sessions; a 0.5 credit course may similarly be done in either one session or across two sessions. These courses are open to RLG majors and specialists only. Not eligible for CR/NCR option. Please send completed forms and direct any questions to religion.undergrad@utoronto.ca.
Distribution Requirement: Humanities