This seminar examines selected topics and issues in human judgment and decision-making. Drawing largely from primary sources, the course considers various approaches to the study of decision-making, as well as descriptions and theories of human decision-making derived from those approaches. Students are led to reflect on the relevance and application of such issues to real-world choices in arenas such as economics, politics, business and marketing, health and medicine, and at individual, organizational, and broadly social levels.
Religious Studies
This course addresses topics related to the field of religious studies not addressed in other courses and is offered depending on interest. Prerequisites vary with topic. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic differs.
This course addresses topics related to the field of religious studies not addressed in other courses and is offered depending on interest. Prerequisites vary with topic. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic differs.
An examination of the origins, nature, and content of representative literature from the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament, and cognate literature. Attention is paid to issues of critical reading and theological interpretation of Jewish scriptures. Not open for credit to students who have completed RELG 141.
An examination of the origins, nature, and content of representative literature from the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament, and cognate literature. Attention is paid to issues of critical reading and theological interpretation of Jewish scriptures. Not open for credit to students who have completed RELG 141.
This course explores Buddhist contributions to global conversations on poverty, environment, racism, capitalism, and gender. The central questions examined will be: what should the world look like and how do Buddhists engage to make that vision a reality?
An examination of the Holocaust from theological, historical and social psychological perspectives. Exploration of diverse religious and moral worldviews with particular attention to the ethical and unethical responses of victims, perpetrators and witnesses. What are the implications of the Holocaust for transformation of moral thought and behavior? Topics include cruelty, social conformity, altruism, forgiveness, survival and the function of conscience during and in the aftermath of atrocity. Authors include Emil Fackenheim, Elie Wiesel, Raul Hilberg, Christopher Browing, Primo Levi, Marion Kapland, Philip Hallie, and Lawrence Langer.
Survey of Judaism and its emergence from Israelite Religion as evidenced in the Tanakh (Jewish Bible) into the Rabbinic culture of interpretation and Halakah (Jewish law). Approach is both historical and thematic. Focus is upon key periods of Judaism's development and the major ideas, movements, and practices central to ancient and modern Jewish life and thought. Attention is paid to the role of sacred Jewish texts and interpretation, community, covenant, and halakhic observance. Not open for credit to students who have completed RELG 120.
This seminar examines the history and methodological development of the discipline of religious studies. After surveying the discipline's inception in textual studies in the late Enlightenment period, the course examines its connections to earlier theological traditions, and the branching out into sociological, hermeneutical, and phenomenological approaches in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The seminar aims to acquaint junior majors with the complexities involved in studying religious phenomena, as well as with the categories and frameworks that constitute the contemporary multi-disciplinary field of religious studies.
In this course students examine human relationships with non-human animals through the lenses of Buddhism, Christianity, theories and methods in religious studies, and through reflection on their own lives. What roles have non-human animals played and do they play now in these religious traditions, in other aspects of culture, and in the lives of students themselves? How does having a body, an attribute that human and non-human animals share, relate to religion, its study, and human-animal relations? Students volunteer in animal-related groups (veterinarian offices, animal shelters, and farms, for example) as they find their own voices in this emerging interdisciplinary field.
This course addresses topics related to the field of religious studies not addressed in other courses and is offered depending on interest. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic differs.
Rhetoric
Study of the principles, precepts, and strategies of informative, persuasive, and ceremonial speaking. Emphasis is placed on assessing the rhetorical situation and researching, composing, practicing, and delivering a speech. Ethical, political, and social questions raised by speaking in public are considered. Students deliver speeches, practice effective listening, and serve as speech critics and interlocutors.
Study of the principles, precepts, and strategies of informative, persuasive, and ceremonial speaking. Emphasis is placed on assessing the rhetorical situation and researching, composing, practicing, and delivering a speech. Ethical, political, and social questions raised by speaking in public are considered. Students deliver speeches, practice effective listening, and serve as speech critics and interlocutors.
Topical survey of the major questions and controversies in rhetorical theory, criticism, and practice, including rhetorical situations, classical canons of rhetoric, the role of rhetoric in civic life, and the relationship of rhetoric to power, politics, law, education, and ethics. Students consider the rights and responsibilities of speakers and critics. Accordingly, readings include selections from a wide array of rhetorical theorists and critics as well as a diverse and open canon of orators and speakers.
In this survey of the expectations for successful speaking across several disciplines, students will explore the techniques, strategies, and precepts peer and professional tutors may employ to help student speakers and listeners attain their goals. Participants will examine samples of student speaking and listening, discuss possible responses, and develop model interactions between and among tutors and students.
History and criticism of American speeches and rhetorical texts. The course examines a broad range of historical and rhetorical factors that influenced the creation and reception of speeches from the colonial period through the end of the Civil War, focusing not only on the political, religious, legal, and social exigencies to which speeches responded but also on the place of those rhetorical texts in U.S. public controversies.
History of rhetorical theory and practice from Homer to Augustine. Primary focus on the relationship of rhetoric to politics, law, religion, philosophy, liberal education and culture in ancient Greece and Rome, along with an examination of the influence of ancient rhetoric on medieval rhetoric. Readings include selections from the Iliad, the sophists, Isocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Philodemus, Cicero, Quintilian, Tacitus, Augustine, and others. Texts are read in English translation.
Russian
An introduction to the fundamentals of the language and culture with emphasis on communicative proficiency, clarity of pronunciation and basic skills in reading, writing, and conversation. Use of language laboratory required. Four hours of class each week, plus an additional conversation meeting with a native speaker.