Discussion and research-based study of topics in religious studies. Includes theoretical approaches to the study of religion.

Examines classic theories about religion from the last 150 years of academic study: psychological, sociological, economic, phenomenological, and anthropological.

A discussion of major comparative approaches in the study of religion.

Explores asceticism and the concepts, practices, and goals associated with this radical way of life through case studies from various religions. Subjects include theories of the body and of culture, as well as issues of social status, gender, devotion, and violence.

Examination of extraordinary events, such as miracles, exorcisms, ghosts, psychic abilities, UFOs, and other related phenomena. Discussion of the similarities and dissimilarities between religious and non-religious contexts for such happenings, as well as possible explanations for them.

Examines the social construction and cultural meaning of southern religion using fictional characterizations, philosophical reflections, historical accounts, and theoretical comparisons.

Examine religious practices that are not religion and critical analysis of the category of religion and its contested borders.

An exploration of the religious encounters between eastern and western Christians, Christian heretics, Jews, Muslims, and polytheists; political, military, and cultural changes of the high middle ages; and the ways that crusading ideas and symbols have been reused in contemporary politics and popular culture.

Examine the role of religion in the formation of the workplace in the United States. Survey a range of case studies in order to explore how religion has shaped how Americans understand the relationship between human labor and moral community.

Examine religions through the concepts of space and time.

Investigate ancient Chinese beliefs and practices surrounding death and the afterlife from the Neolithic era to the arrival of Buddhism. Explore tombs, burial objects, and funeral rites; philosophical essays and historical accounts; medical practices; religious relics, tokens, and talismans; ghost stories; poetry; and paintings.