THE 205J and M: Biblical Texts in Global Contexts
Professor Gaudino
If the Bible has emerged from the cultures of many different people living in various places—Israel, Palestine, Africa, the Mediterranean world, Mesopotamia—why has it been interpreted in ways that privilege only certain groups of people and certain ways of thinking and living? In this course we will learn about one of the great defining collections of sacred texts—the Bible—that has been incredibly influential for both individuals and communities. We will develop skills in reading and interpreting biblical texts that pay attention to different cultures, that listen to voices usually overlooked, that take into account current scholarship, and that identify what is oppressive in the text while also celebrating the liberative. We will study the Bible in a way that resonates with personal, local, and global contexts today.
THE 328/428/328X:Encountering Grief and Loss
Professor Gaudino
How do we bring grief and loss out of the shadows when we live in a society that teaches us to deny and hide from our experiences of suffering? How do we approach sorrow in a way that speaks of courage and reverence and growing wisdom? In our course, we will explore the different “gates of grief” that we and others, and even our dear earth, enter. This course will draw on multidisciplinary sources as well as Buddhist and Christian teachings. Each of us will have the opportunity to reflect on our own experiences of loss and to develop our skills and gifts in accompanying others who are grieving. We will learn that our journeys into grief, if we pay attention to them, can give us “medicine for the world.”
THE 351/451: Religions of Africa
Professor Aihiokhai
This course takes a comparative approach to theological inquiry, probing fundamental religious questions in relation to African Indigenous Religion; African Christianity; and African Islam. While the course attends to the major beliefs and practices of African Indigenous Religions; African Christianity; and African Islam in their historical development and in their contemporary forms, it is not a broad survey course. Comparative theology emphasizes written and oral analyses of primary religious sources (including, but not limited to scripture) in comparison, “reading” primary sources together and focusing on how diverse religious approaches to questions of ultimate concern might be mutually illuminative. The distinctive “African” markers of these religious traditions will be explored. This course will help students to become more aware of African religious, cultural, philosophical, and theological thoughts. It will also provide students the relevant knowledge and skills to appreciate Black religious thought operating in the Americas and the Caribbean.
THE 205D/205F: Biblical Texts in Global Contexts
Professor Dempsey
This course introduces students to the study of the Bible in the globalized world. With an emphasis on social location and the “world in front of the text,” the course considers the Bible’s historical, cultural, literary, sociopolitical, geopolitical, and theological aspects while providing students with basic skills for reading and assessing texts critically through the use of several contemporary hermeneutical lenses, inclusive of feminist, decolonial, and liberationist perspectives. Topics include the Bible and culture, the history of interpretation—past and present, interreligious dialogue, a critical assessment of biblical theology, the Bible’s portraits of God and their impact on religion, faith, and the theological imagination, and reading the Bible for gender, race, class, economic, and ecological justice. Students will learn how to read texts “with the grain” and “against the grain” to discover a vision for life and to ponder what cultural attitudes, systems of thought, global structures, and theological perspectives are still in need of transformation today, all of which call for praxis and a prophetic response. (Prerequisites: THE 105).
THE 302/402: Poets, Prophets, Divas, and Diviners
Professor Dempsey
This course explores the prophetic tradition not only in the Bible but also in the contemporary globalized twenty-first century world. The focus is on the world in front of the text in the context of cultural, social, geopolitical, sociopolitical, religious, and global realities to discover how culture has shaped texts and how texts continue to create and shape cultures and worldviews. Topics include God, gender, power, politics, justice, empire, ecology, hope, prophetic vision, systemic injustice, and what it means to be prophetic today and how to free and embrace the prophetic spirit within one’s life. Readings include interdisciplinary works from the Global North and the Global South. Students will learn many contemporary hermeneutical skills to read critically for justice in all areas of life, ie., gender, orientation, reproductive, theological, ecological, economic, age, ability, race, ethnicity, etc. for global transformation. Students will develop skills to appropriate not only written texts but also the texts of life in relation to social location. All perspectives and voices will be brought to the table for discussion and learning.