Religious Studies Course Offerings and Videos

Spring 2024 Course Offerings

View our YouTube course videos

***Please check MYUI for the most current information and full descriptions***

I had a great experience with the Religious Studies Department at Iowa. It helped me discern what I wanted to do as a career and the professors were excellent. Marija Pritchard, BA 2019

**EXW: Online course / Updated: November 6, 2023

RELS: 1015:0EXW GLOBAL RELIGIOUS CONFLICT & DIVERSITY Souaiaia
GE: Diversity & Inclusion
Origins, evolution, and history of indigenous and global religions; role of religion in causing conflict, promoting peace, and/or mitigating effects of conflicts; religious, cultural, and institutional systems, conceptual and otherwise, that produce and/or manage violence, peace, and social change. Students will explore consequential ideas and historical events; examine texts, documents, and videos dealing with religious diversity and conflict; and engage with narratives and theories on the place and function of religion in society. Online asynchronous course. Assessment consists of quizzes, research and writing assignments, group activities, and weekly discussions
More info on Prof. Souaiaia’s website: bit.ly/3UlfqON

RELS:1080 INTRO TO THE NEW TESTAMENT Dean
GE: Values & Culture; Values, Society, and Diversity
Few (if any) contenders challenge the Christian Bible as the most significant book in Western civilization. For many contemporary Christians, the New Testament is the inspired Word of God and a central component of their faith. But even non-Christians cannot escape its influence and impact on literature, art, law, language, and popular culture.
Throughout this course, we will explore the content of the New Testament through reading and applying a variety of scholarly methods to the text itself. We will explore the context from which the writings emerged, both religious and cultural. We will situate the text in our contemporary context by asking questions about the place of the New Testament in America today. See MYUI for full info.

RELS:1250 MODERN RELIGION & CULTURE Dean
GE: Historical Perspectives
The world is changing fast. People use religion to struggle against these changes, create meaning out of them, or change along with it. This is as true (and disorienting) today as it has ever been. But it was also true at the dawn of the Reformation more than 500 years ago. So, we’ll start there with Martin Luther and his hammer at the door of the Wittenburg Church on October 31, 1517, and follow the ripples, effects, and threads through to today. Focusing on Europe and the United States, we will explore the explosion of Christian and religious diversity, the violence of the Wars of Religion, anti-Semitism, the rise of religious tolerance, the changing perspectives on class, race, and gender, and the challenge of science and modernity in their larger context. See MYUI for full info.

RELS:1810 HAPPINESS IN A DIFFICULT WORLD Cates
Couse Video: https://youtu.be/koBRWBUfNeI
GE: Values & Culture; Values, Society, and Diversity
Everyone wants to be happy. For many people, being happy involves gaining freedom from factors in their lives that keep them from realizing their full potential and feeling connected to others. Is religion a help or a hindrance in the search for freedom? This introductory course seeks wisdom from three iconic figures. It focuses on the religious backgrounds and unique spiritualities of Maya Angelou (an African-American Christian), Black Elk (a Lakota Sioux medicine man), and the Dalai Lama (a Tibetan Buddhist monk). The course encourages students to ponder the many forms of oppression that humans can experience as obstacles to happiness, and the forms of liberation that are possible: social, political, economic, mental, emotional, and spiritual. See MYUI for full info.

RELS:1903EXW QUEST FOR HUMAN DESTINY (FROM EDEN TO Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”) Holstein
GE: Values and Culture; Values, Society, and Diversity
The framework for this course is made up of three ancient works: The Epic of Gilgamesh and, from the Bible, the first nine chapters of the Book of Genesis and the Book of Jonah. The differing ways in which these three texts deal with the issue of the inevitability of death is the focal point of the course. How this point is exploited is examined in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych," Clarke's Childhood's End, the Book of Ecclesiastes, the E'numa E'lish, and Stanley Kubrick's film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. See MyUI for full information.

RELS:2000 RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY FOR LEADERSHIP/ENTREPRENEURS Kaity Lindgren-Hansen
Video: https://youtu.be/8Et0vtxXwUo
GE: Diversity & Inclusion
This course exposes students to some contemporary religious diversity (focusing on forms of Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism) and facilitates a level of religious literacy that is required of anyone who wishes to provide excellent personal or institutional care for human beings who are dying. People’s worldviews—including their beliefs and questions about the meaning of life—often have a big impact on how they approach their own death and the death of the people they love. An important goal of this course is to help students get more comfortable talking about death, beginning with the question of what death really is and how we know for sure when someone has died. See MYUI for full info.

RELS:2265:0EXW HARD CASES IN HEALTHCARE AT THE END OF LIFE Cates
Same as ASP:2265:0EXW; GHS:2265:0EXW
Course Video: https://youtu.be/GpLxQ5atSEQ
This course exposes students to some contemporary religious diversity (focusing on forms of Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism) and facilitates a level of religious literacy that is required of anyone who wishes to provide excellent personal or institutional care for human beings who are dying. People’s worldviews—including their beliefs and questions about the meaning of life—often have a big impact on how they approach their own death and the death of the people they love. An important goal of this course is to help students get more comfortable talking about death, beginning with the question of what death really is and how we know for sure when someone has died. It examines first-world clinical contexts in which advanced medical technologies make it possible to keep a person (or is it just the person’s body?) alive long after the person appears to have lost the most basic of brain functions. See MYUI for full info.

RELS:2361 MIDDLE EAST & MEDITER ALEXANDER-SULEIMAN Bond
Admin Home: HIST:2461; same as CLSA:2461
Foreign Civilization and Culture; Historical Perspectives
This course covers the Middle East and Mediterranean world from the era of Alexander the Great (d.323 B.C.E.) to that of Suleiman I the Magnificent (d.1566). See MYUI for full info.

RELS:2444 CITIES OF THE BIBLE Cargill
Admin home: CLSA:2444
Survey of the history and archaeology of key biblical cities and the contributions they made to the formation of the Bible.

RELS:2620 SEX AND THE BIBLE Miller
GE: Diversity & Inclusion
What role did sex play and how did gender differences influence characters and literature in a heavily patriarchal ancient world? How is the act of sex portrayed in biblical literature and why is it sometimes hidden and at other times so brazenly flaunted? This course also examines the politics of sex, including the institution of marriage, both biblical and modern (as influenced by the Bible), and other sexual laws and prohibitions, both in antiquity and today.

RELS:2852:0EXW WOMEN IN ISLAM & THE MIDDLE EAST Souaiaia
GE: International & Global Issues; Values & Culture; Values, Society, & Diversity;
This is a course about women within and without the Muslim community. It focuses on women from the early time periods of the rise of Islam until modern times. We will consider the textual references to women in the primary religious texts (Qur’ân and the Sunnah) and references and stories of prominent women as told in the Islamic history books. In order to provide a comprehensive exploration of the status of women and gender issues, the course will also rely on interviews, guest lectures, images, documentaries, and films produced from a variety of perspectives and through the lenses of a number of disciplines. In this course, we aim to explore the role and status of women in the modern and pre-modern Middle East with respect to institutions such as the law, religious practices, work, politics, family, and education. More info on Prof. Souaiaia’s website: bit.ly/3UlfqON

RELS:2877 SPORT & RELIGION IN AMERICA Dean
On a global level, young people today are growing up in a world where sport culture has taken on religious and spiritual elements and for many in the Americas, as is evident with the World Cup coverage, sport has become a religion. In Sport and Religion in America, an entry-level course where there will be no pre-requisites, students will read academic articles as well as popular news reports that demonstrate the ways that sport has taken on religious elements and has even become a "religion" for some individuals and groups. Students will be introduced to some theories of religious belief and practice and will be asked to apply the theories to the discourse of sport events as well as the culture of the events themselves. See MYUI for full info.

RELS:3700/3701 NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS I /II

RELS:4154 MAGIC MACHINES: TECH & SOCIAL CHANGE Supp-Montgomerie
Same as Comm:4154
How media has altered culture, society, and human consciousness throughout history with focus on last two centuries (or modernity); how communication has been shaped by a variety of media (i.e., gesture, language, writing, printing, calendars, clocks, photography, telegraph, telephone, phonograph, film, radio, television, computers); 21st-century questions concerning technology and how few communicate today without aid of some kind of machine or technique.

RELS:4893 CLASSICAL ARABIC: VOCAB SYNTAX GRAMMER Souaiaia
Arabic grammar, syntax, and reading fluency.

RELS:4930 INTERNSHIP: RIGHTS & REMEDIAL JUSTICE Souaiaia
Faculty supervised research experience in human rights remedial justice. More info on Prof. Souaiaia’s website: bit.ly/3UlfqON

RELS:4960   INDIVIDUAL STUDY: UNDERGRADUATES
RELS:4970   HONORS TUTORIAL
RELS:4975    HONORS ESSAY
RELS:6070 NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS i
RELS:6580   SEMINAR: RELIGION & SOCIETY Turner
RELS:7100   READINGS IN AMERICAN RELIGIONS Nabhan-Warren, Turner
RELS:7200   READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ETHICS Cates
RELS:7450   READINGS IN HISTORY OF CHRITIANITY Nabhan-Warren
RELS:7500   READINGS IN ASIAN RELIGIONS Schlutter, Souaiaia
RELS:7600   READINGS: ISLAMIC & MIDDLE EASTERN ST Souaiaia
RELS:7650   READINGS ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN RELIGIONS Dilley
RELS:7900   INDIVIDUAL STUDY: GRADUATES
RELS:7950   THESIS

Fall 2023 Course Offerings

RELS:1050 BIG IDEAS: INFORMATION, SOCIETY, CULTURE Dilley
GE: Quantitative or Formal Reasoning / Same as POLI:1050
Does data matter? How do societies create information and use data? What can we learn about the past and ourselves from the data that we generate individually and as societies? Students work with faculty from multiple disciplines to investigate these questions through contemporary and historical examples, using inquiry-based activities to build success in basic data skills, critical thinking, and teamwork. They gain experience working with different types of data used to illuminate and improve politics, literature, entertainment, public health, and other areas of society and culture.

RELS:1130 INTRO TO ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION Souaiaia
GE: Values & Culture; International and Global Issues / Same as HIST:1030
This course is for students with an interest in learning about the Islamic civilization, the religious practices and beliefs, and/or the history or the regions where Muslims are in the majority. We will examine the traditions and main social and legal institutions of Islam. Arguably, Islam, as a major system of beliefs and practices in the world, affects both Muslims and non-Muslims. Consequently, besides examining the basic tenets, texts, and ideas of the Islamic civilization, this course focuses on the variety of ways in which Muslims and non-Muslims have understood and interpreted Islam. We will review the discussions surrounding the life of the Prophet of Islam, Islamic pre-modern and modern history, the place and role of individuals and society, the legal and economic status of women, and Islamic governments and movements. As a survey course, we will examine these topics through an interdisciplinary approach: we will apply textual, legal/normative, anthropological, geographical, sociological, analytical, linguistic, and historical methodologies. *More info on Prof. Souaiaia’s website: https://ahmed.souaiaia.com/teaching/courses/

RELS:1225 MEDIEVAL RELIGION AND CULTURE Dean
GE: Historical Perspectives / Same as HIST:1025
This course explores European religion, principally Western Christianity, and its broader cultural setting from the end of antiquity to the eve of the Reformation (ca. 1500). It examines beliefs and practices among the intellectual and social elite as well as the meaning of religion for the largely illiterate and unlearned majority of the population. Topics also include the role of women, religious opposition, the place of the liturgy, religious art and architecture, politics and religion, and the syncretic blend of “official” and folk religion.

RELS:1350 INTRO TO AFRICAN AMERICAN RELIGIONS Turner
GE: Values & Culture; Values, Society & Diversity
This course is designed to introduce students from a variety of majors to the social and cultural history of African Americans through the framework of religious history. It will provide students with the opportunity to explore how African American religious communities developed and changed in response to various struggles for freedom in black America, and how these freedom struggles transformed religious consciousness and social and political values in the United States from the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade to the present. The course will engage students in critical and creative thinking about the cultural, historical, and political issues that have constructed the African American religious experience and the relationships between religion, race, and society in the United States.

RELS:1404 INTRO TO ASIAN RELIGIONS Schlutter
GE: Values & Culture; Values, Society & Diversity
Course Video
This course will offer an intro to the diverse ways in which people living in Asia bring a broad range of religious ideas to life through practice. The course is designed to give students an opportunity to encounter a variety of religious beliefs, rituals, and practices, and to help them build the foundation of cultural knowledge required for future work on and in Asia. We will focus on Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Shinto, and various systems of popular religious beliefs; exploring how individuals often participate in a number of different religious practices even though such practices may seem to belong to several different religious and philosophical systems. The course will specifically address the gendered, racist, and colonialist history of the study of Asia and Asian religions, and how this still affects the field today. See MYUI for full info.

RELS:1702 RELIGION IN AMERICA TODAY Dean
GE: Values & Culture; Values, Society & Diversity
Have you ever been curious about what and why people believe? Do you wonder about why people eat certain things at certain times of the year, why people pray, why they raise their families in certain ways? If you wonder about any of these things THEN THIS IS THE CLASS FOR YOU! We will explore together commonalities as well as differences among religious and spiritual groups in the United States today including evangelical Protestant Christians and Roman Catholics; Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jews; and Muslims. We will also learn about less well known groups and adherents such as the Amish, Zen Buddhists, Scientologists, Jehovah Witnesses, and snakehandling Holiness-Pentecostals, as well as the beliefs of agnosticism and atheism.
*See MYUI for full info.

**RELS:1903:0EXW QUEST FOR HUMAN DESTINY Holstein
GE: Values & Culture; Values, Society & Diversity
The framework for this course is made up of three ancient works: The Epic of Gilgamesh and, from the Bible, the first nine chapters of the Book of Genesis and the Book of Jonah. The differing ways in which these three texts deal with the issue of the inevitability of death is the focal point of the course. How this point is exploited is examined in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych," Clarke's Childhood's End, the Book of Ecclesiastes, the E'numa E'lish, and Stanley Kubrick's film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. *See MYUI for full info.

**RELS:2000:0EXW RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY FOR LEADERSHIP & ENTREPRENEURSHIP Cates
GE: Diversity & Inclusion
Course Video
This course is intended for students who may be interested in business careers, especially in entrepreneurship and leadership. Its aim is to facilitate business success by helping students to acquire practical skills in engaging religious diversity in the workplace. Through the analysis of real-life case studies, focused inquiry into influential religions, and guided ethical discussion, the course helps students to understand the impact that religions have on the perceptions and choices of business leaders, investors, co-workers, and customers, as well as the principles and operations of successful organizations. This is an asynchronous, online course that fits well into tight schedules.

RELS:2080 PUBLIC LIFE IN US: RELIGION AND MEDIA Supp-Montgomerie
Same as COMM:2080
Examine how the U.S. came into being through specific communication practices, how religion has helped and hindered that process; religious roots of the idea of the U.S., intertwined histories of print media and religion, role of religion and secularism in public discourse; U.S. pride as a nation in which diversity thrives in public discourse; communicative acts that created and sustained this country and also mark sites of discord, conflict, and confusion from the very beginnings of the U.S. to today; how religion has been a source of national identity & national division.

RELS:2087 NARNIA & BEYOND: WRITINGS OF CS LEWIS Dean
Exploration of C.S. Lewis's use of fantasy to describe the indescribable, his efforts to empathize with human suffering while hoping in possibility of miracles, and his jargon-free narration of Christian beliefs for a war-weary country; Lewis's works that continue to attract attention, ranging from children's literature to science fiction to autobiography and nonfiction; as a professor of medieval and renaissance literature, Lewis's unique perspective on Christianity that led him to make use of imagery, metaphors, and narratives previously neglected by Christian thinkers.

**RELS:2260:EXW HARD CASES HEALTHCARE AT THE BEGINNING OF LIFE Cates
Course Video
This highly interactive, online course is for everyone who is intrigued by—and wants to explore—the ethical impact that advances in biotechnology, including genetic, reproductive, and neonatal technology, are having in the medical arena and, more generally, on our humanity. It is also for those who want to understand the growing religious diversity of America’s communities and the impact that religion and spirituality can have on people’s ways of confronting matters of life and death. The central goal of the course is to help you prepare for life and work in contexts where ethical, religious, and spiritual questions simply cannot be avoided and ought to be treated with intelligence and sensitivity. See MYUI for full description.

RELS:2272 GODS & SUPERHEROES: MYTHS FOR THE MODERN WORLD Dean
Superheroes stand—with their hands on their hips and capes waving in the wind—in the space between the human and the divine. Not quite one or the other, their stories reflect our religious desires and our existential fears. Some draw on the wealth of ancient mythologies of religions of the past (Shazam, Thor: Ragnarok, Wonder Woman). Some draw on religious worlds more immediately to their audiences (Daredevil, Ms. Marvel, Superman). But they all discuss important questions about modern existence, such as how to treat others, how to live the best life, or even what it means to be human. This course will analyze the religious nature of the superhero, the religious myths and traditions informing their stories, and how the superhero movies—which dominate the box office—update and adapt the content for their contemporary audience. Our focus will be on how the superhero genre and the media of film, television, and comics convey and/or challenge religious ideas through pop culture productions.

**RELS:2330:EXW WEALTH, INEQUALITY, AND ISLAM Souaiaia
GE: Diversity & Inclusion
In this course, using Islam and Islamic institutions as case studies, students will explore how people, individually and collectively, domestically and globally, organize different aspects of production and distribution of goods and services for current and future use--given the resources at hand and the determinant value systems to which societies adhere. This course emphasizes the conceptual and practical interventions of religious, societal, and state institutions in expanding and/or limiting opportunity, access, and the sharing of resources among members of individual communities and across the world. The course will help students develop understanding and appreciation of religious and cultural diversity that shape economic behavior, social hierarchies, and the forces that produce inequity, poverty, and extreme wealth. The course will provide students with vocabulary, knowledge, and sensitivity to help them navigate a connected world; become more competent in performing their job in a diverse workforce and in complex marketplace; and develop communication strategies that avoid blind spots, negative biases, and discrimination. More info on Prof. Souaiaia’s website.

RELS:2674 FOOD, BODY, & BELIEF: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Choi
Same as GHS:2674
What we eat (and don’t eat) says a lot about who we are. In this course, we will explore the central role that food plays in shaping our ethnic, gender, class, religious and political identities from a global perspective. We will ask questions like: What do we eat and why?; What shapes our eating habits?; Where does our food come from?; How much food is “wasted”?; and How can we assure equal access to food? The course pays particular attention to the impact of the global flow of ideas, images, people and materials on food consumption, food inequality, bodily practices (eating disorders, yoga), and spiritual pursuits (fasting, rituals). Students will gain a better understanding of the relationship between food, body and belief through course readings, documentary and feature films, participation in field trips (farmers’ market; local food festival), and a “Taste of Korea” for both vegans and omnivores!

RELS:3655 ZEN BUDDHISM Schlütter
This course introduces the history, doctrines, practices, and literature of Zen Buddhism. It examines Zen’s doctrinal origin in India, its historical development in medieval China, its transmission to Japan, the evolution of key doctrines and practices, and the distinctive features of Zen monastic life and culture. The Zen culture unit will address general aesthetics and concepts of Japanese swordsmanship, tea ceremony, garden design, Ikebana, etc. We will also trace the recent history of Zen and its coming to America—especially how Zen clashed with empires in Japan’s quest for power and WWII, and how Zen wrestles with modernity and globalization.

We will work with primary sources, philosophical/religious texts, scholarly essays, stories, films, and arts. A semester-long “Zen” assignment will invite students to read haiku, analyze koan, give a Zen talk, create a Zen character and describe his/her Zen experience at a Zen monastery based on course materials, and write a critical essay from the perspective of an educated modern skeptic! The purpose is to develop students’ analytical reading and writing skills while introducing students to Zen teachings and the influence of the past on contemporary Zen practice and studies. This course will have two essays, a midterm, and a final.

RELS:3700, 3701 EXT, EXV, EXW NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS I

RELS:3808 MACLOLM X, KING, AND HUMAN RIGHTS Turner
The course explores the religion and politics of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the context of U.S. civil rights and international human rights in West Africa and the Muslim world. Emphasis is placed on civil rights connections to Gandhi, the Nobel Peace Prize, and other international experiences that have impacted Pan Africanists such as Stokely Carmichael who have worked on human rights. The course welcomes International Studies majors and undergraduate and graduate students from a wide range of disciplines.

RELS:4930:0IND INTERNSHIP: RIGHTS & REMEDIAL JUSTICE Souaiaia
Faculty supervised research experience in human rights remedial justice. If you have not received permission from the instructor to add this section, your enrollment may be administratively dropped.

RELS:4960 INDIVIDUAL STUDY UNDERGRADUATES Independent Study
RELS:4970 HONORS TUTORIAL Independent Study
RELS:4975:0IND HONORS ESSAY Independent Study

RELS:5067 READINGS IN ISLAMIC STUDIES

RELS:5400 THE POLITICS OF EVERYDAY LIFE Supp-Montgomerie
This course introduces the concept of “everyday life” as a mainstay of cultural studies and a theoretical frame useful in diverse fields. Students will gain an introduction to foundational texts in the study of everyday life and ordinary culture and explore the limits and promise of this approach through an invitational exploration of everyday religion, taking up such themes as ritual action, religious affect, cultural techniques, and materiality. The study of everyday life is a mode of scholarship that eschews grand action, epochs, and leaders to attend instead to the minute acts, quotidian discourse, and mundane technologies that constitute culture; thus, it is also a form of scholarship that situates the political in the realm of partial, imperfect, and grassroots activity.

RELS:6070, 6075 NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS I

RELS:6125 CLASSICAL ARABIC AND GRAMMAR Souaiaia

RELS:6580 SEMINAR: RELIGION & SOCIETY Turner
Same as AFAM:6580
This seminar explores how African American religious traditions (Christianity, Islam, and African diaspora religions) developed and changed in response to various social justice struggles in Black America, and how freedom struggles transformed religious consciousness, racial identities, and social and political values in the United States from the period of trans-Atlantic slavery to the present. Dr. Turner will engage students in critical and creative thinking about the historical, cultural, political, theological, and gender issues that shaped the African American religious experience and the relationships between religion, race, and society in the United States.

RELS:7100:OIND   READINGS IN AMERICAN RELIGIONS Individualized Experience
RELS:7200:OIND   READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ETHICS Individualized Experience
RELS:7450:OIND   READINGS IN HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY Individualized Experience
RELS:7500:OIND    READINGS IN ASIAN RELIGIONS Individualized Experience
RELS:7600:OIND   READING: ISLAMIC & MIDDLE EASTERN ST Individualized Experience
RELS:7650:OIND   READINGS: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN RELIGIONS Individualized Experience
RELS:7900:OIND   INDIVIDUAL STUDY GRADUATES Individualized Experience
RELS:7950:OIND   THESIS Individualized Experience