Muslims in a Global Context is a semi-annual mini-course series for students, educators, and the broader community to learn from faculty experts and practitioners about issues of critical importance to the understanding of countries with significant Muslim populations. Each term the cluster of countries changes. Speakers for this session include: Dr. Juan Cole, University of Michigan (Monday, November 11), Dr. James Hoesterey, Emory University, Dr. Sidharth Chandra, Michigan State, Dr. Azlan Tajuddin, LaRoche College.
Religion has always been one of the most important elements of human society. Why? Sociologists have long turned their attention to religion—from classic sociologists like Durkheim and Weber struggling to understand the importance of religion, to the predictions of the coming death of religion in the 1960s. Along with these analyses we consider how political and economic structures both shape and are shaped by religion, examine the impact of secularization and fundamentalism on the world, the impact of mass media, fringe movements, and consumer culture.
This course is a historical introduction to the religious traditions that developed in ancient Near East and the Mediterranean. Our major emphasis is on the history of the religious traditions that emerged in late antiquity in this area and which continue to be major world religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism. We focus on key concepts, historical developments, and contemporary issues. Throughout the course, we also examine interactions among these religious traditions.
This course surveys the Jewish historical experience from the 7th through the 18th centuries. Political, social, economic, cultural, and religious dimensions of a variety of Jewish communities are explored within the contexts of the larger societies in which the Jewish minority lived. Through study of primary texts in translation and secondary sources, we explore the different dimensions of medieval and early modern Judaism: rabbinic literature, Jewish philosophy, mysticism, biblical commentary, folklore and popular religion.
This course is a historical introduction to the religious traditions that developed in ancient Near East and the Mediterranean. Our major emphasis is on the history of the religious traditions that emerged in late antiquity in this area and which continue to be major world religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism. We focus on key concepts, historical developments, and contemporary issues. Throughout the course, we also examine interactions among these religious traditions.