Religion

RE/PY 2732: Suffering, Healing & Values

This course examines medicine, not from a scientific or professional view, but from a specifically humanistic approach. Using essays, films, fiction, poetry and plays, we will aim to make explicit the moral values most deeply held by practitioners in the healing professions. What other kinds of values can get in the way of those most deeply held aims? What are the responsibilities of a medical professional in todays society? What are the sources of those responsibilities? The course will focus both on professional and personal dilemmas and will help students think through some moral problems that are likely to confront them in their professional and personal lives. The class should also help prepare students to navigate through the tough moral issues they are likely to face, either as a medical professional, a citizen, a parent, a child of parents, or as potentially a sick person themselves. This class proposes to grant students the reflective time to read some of the most eloquent authors on suffering, caretaking, and sickness (for example, Oliver Sacks, Jerome Groopman, Susan Sontag, Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, Tony Kushner, Tracy Kidder, Perri Klass, etc.) and to express their reflections on these resources in effective communication. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter. Units: 1/3 Category: Category II

Recommended Background:

PY/RE 1731 or an introductory level literature course.

RE/PY 3711: Topics in Philosophy

This course is organized around an advanced or specialized topic in philosophy and provides preparation for HU 3900 Inquiry Seminars in philosophy and religion. Emphasis on topics and authors will vary with instructor, but will typically involve the study of: a particular philosopher (e.g., Plato, Marx, Dewey, Arendt); a particular philosophical tradition (e.g., Pragmatism, Analytic Philosophy, Buddhism, Feminism); a particular philosophical problem or topic (free will, globalization, consciousness, social movement, justice); or a particular philosophical classic (Aristotle’s Ethics, Hobbes’s The Leviathan, Beauvoir’s The Second Sex). The topical theme of the course will be provided as a modified course title in the course description posted online. Units: 1/3 Category: Category I

Recommended Background:

None.

RE/PY 3721: Topics in Religion

This course is organized around an advanced or specialized topic in religion and provides preparation for HU 3900 Inquiry Seminars in philosophy and religion. The focus will vary, but the material will be drawn from a particular religious thinker, a particular religious tradition or a particular historical or contemporary problem. The topical theme of the class will be provided as a modified course title in the course description posted online. Units: 1/3 Category: Category I

Recommended Background:

none

PY/RE 1731: Introduction to Philosophy and Religion

This course provides an overview of key concepts, methods and authors in both fields. These introduce the student to the types of reasoning required for the pursuit of in-depth analysis in each discipline. Emphasis on topics and authors varies with the particular instructor. Units: 1/3 Category: Category I

PY/RE 2716: Gender, Race, and Class

This course examines the meanings of social categories such as gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, nationality, and species. What are the philosophical and religious foundations of the categorizations of beings operative in our contemporary cultures? How do attributions of same and different, normal and abnormal, rational and irrational, human and nonhuman shape social and political processes of inclusion and exclusion? Are social categories real, constructed, or both? This course focuses primarily on intersectional approaches to oppression and identity that see social categories such as gender, race, and class as mutually constitutive rather than separable. Course readings span a range of philosophical and religious traditions including Continental philosophy, analytic philosophy, Latina/o studies, feminist theory, queer theory, critical race theory, disability studies, and environmental studies. Students may not earn credit for both PY 2716 and RE 2716. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter. Units: 1/3 Category: Category II

PY/RE 2731: Ethics

This course offers a general introduction to modern moral theory. What makes one action wrong, and another right? What are our moral duties towards others? Do moral values change over time, making beliefs about right and wrong simply “relative,” or are moral values objective, holding true for all people, everywhere, at all times? Should emotions play a role in ethical deliberation, or should we aspire to be purely rational when engaged in moral thought and action? Is it okay to cheat on an exam, so long as everybody else does it? Do we have a right to use animals in laboratory experiments? Is eating meat ethical? Is it wrong to share a racist or sexist joke? Should abortion be legal? Students will learn how to apply key moral concepts to real-world problems and situations after closely studying several moral theories, including utilitarianism, Kantianism, and feminist care ethics. Other topics covered include moral relativism, psychological hedonism, and ethical egoism. Units: 1/3 Category: Category I

PY/RE 2732: Suffering, Healing & Values

This course examines medicine, not from a scientific or professional view, but from a specifically humanistic approach. Using essays, films, fiction, poetry and plays, we will aim to make explicit the moral values most deeply held by practitioners in the healing professions. What other kinds of values can get in the way of those most deeply held aims? What are the responsibilities of a medical professional in todays society? What are the sources of those responsibilities? The course will focus both on professional and personal dilemmas and will help students think through some moral problems that are likely to confront them in their professional and personal lives. The class should also help prepare students to navigate through the tough moral issues they are likely to face, either as a medical professional, a citizen, a parent, a child of parents, or as potentially a sick person themselves. This class proposes to grant students the reflective time to read some of the most eloquent authors on suffering, caretaking, and sickness (for example, Oliver Sacks, Jerome Groopman, Susan Sontag, Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, Tony Kushner, Tracy Kidder, Perri Klass, etc.) and to express their reflections on these resources in effective communication. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter. Units: 1/3 Category: Category II

Recommended Background:

PY/RE 1731 or an introductory level literature course.

PY/RE 3711: Topics in Philosophy

This course is organized around an advanced or specialized topic in philosophy and provides preparation for HU 3900 Inquiry Seminars in philosophy and religion. Emphasis on topics and authors will vary with instructor, but will typically involve the study of: a particular philosopher (e.g., Plato, Marx, Dewey, Arendt); a particular philosophical tradition (e.g., Pragmatism, Analytic Philosophy, Buddhism, Feminism); a particular philosophical problem or topic (free will, globalization, consciousness, social movement, justice); or a particular philosophical classic (Aristotle’s Ethics, Hobbes’s The Leviathan, Beauvoir’s The Second Sex). The topical theme of the course will be provided as a modified course title in the course description posted online. Units: 1/3 Category: Category I

Recommended Background:

None.

PY/RE 3721: Topics in Religion

This course is organized around an advanced or specialized topic in religion and provides preparation for HU 3900 Inquiry Seminars in philosophy and religion. The focus will vary, but the material will be drawn from a particular religious thinker, a particular religious tradition or a particular historical or contemporary problem. The topical theme of the class will be provided as a modified course title in the course description posted online. Units: 1/3 Category: Category I

Recommended Background:

none

RE/PY 1731: Introduction to Philosophy and Religion

This course provides an overview of key concepts, methods and authors in both fields. These introduce the student to the types of reasoning required for the pursuit of in-depth analysis in each discipline. Emphasis on topics and authors varies with the particular instructor. Units: 1/3 Category: Category I

RE/PY 2716: Gender, Race, and Class

This course examines the meanings of social categories such as gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, nationality, and species. What are the philosophical and religious foundations of the categorizations of beings operative in our contemporary cultures? How do attributions of same and different, normal and abnormal, rational and irrational, human and nonhuman shape social and political processes of inclusion and exclusion? Are social categories real, constructed, or both? This course focuses primarily on intersectional approaches to oppression and identity that see social categories such as gender, race, and class as mutually constitutive rather than separable. Course readings span a range of philosophical and religious traditions including Continental philosophy, analytic philosophy, Latina/o studies, feminist theory, queer theory, critical race theory, disability studies, and environmental studies. Students may not earn credit for both PY 2716 and RE 2716. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter. Units: 1/3 Category: Category II

RE/PY 2731: Ethics

This course offers a general introduction to modern moral theory. What makes one action wrong, and another right? What are our moral duties towards others? Do moral values change over time, making beliefs about right and wrong simply “relative,” or are moral values objective, holding true for all people, everywhere, at all times? Should emotions play a role in ethical deliberation, or should we aspire to be purely rational when engaged in moral thought and action? Is it okay to cheat on an exam, so long as everybody else does it? Do we have a right to use animals in laboratory experiments? Is eating meat ethical? Is it wrong to share a racist or sexist joke? Should abortion be legal? Students will learn how to apply key moral concepts to real-world problems and situations after closely studying several moral theories, including utilitarianism, Kantianism, and feminist care ethics. Other topics covered include moral relativism, psychological hedonism, and ethical egoism. Units: 1/3 Category: Category I

RE/PY 2732: Suffering, Healing & Values

This course examines medicine, not from a scientific or professional view, but from a specifically humanistic approach. Using essays, films, fiction, poetry and plays, we will aim to make explicit the moral values most deeply held by practitioners in the healing professions. What other kinds of values can get in the way of those most deeply held aims? What are the responsibilities of a medical professional in todays society? What are the sources of those responsibilities? The course will focus both on professional and personal dilemmas and will help students think through some moral problems that are likely to confront them in their professional and personal lives. The class should also help prepare students to navigate through the tough moral issues they are likely to face, either as a medical professional, a citizen, a parent, a child of parents, or as potentially a sick person themselves. This class proposes to grant students the reflective time to read some of the most eloquent authors on suffering, caretaking, and sickness (for example, Oliver Sacks, Jerome Groopman, Susan Sontag, Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, Tony Kushner, Tracy Kidder, Perri Klass, etc.) and to express their reflections on these resources in effective communication. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter. Units: 1/3 Category: Category II

Recommended Background:

PY/RE 1731 or an introductory level literature course.