Postgraduate Electives 2012

REL4010F - Critical Terms in Religious Studies: Prof David Chidester

The Critical Terms course focuses on the basic theoretical frameworks, methodological approaches, and keywords in the academic study of religion. The course develops an analytical vocabulary that will be useful for students in any specialised field supported by the postgraduate programme in Religious Studies. Sessions are devoted to exploring exploring (1) Religion, Religions, Religious; (2) Belief and Rationality; (3) God and Person; (4) Experience and Gender; (5) Body, Image, and Relic; (6) Performance and Sacrifice; (7) Territory and Time; (8) Modernity and Conflict; (9) Culture and Writing; (10) Transformation and Transgression; and (11) Liberation and Value.

REL4011H - Honours Research Project

An appropriate research paper, chosen in negotiation with the Head of Department, of approximately 15,000 words in length must be submitted by no later than 29 October 2012.

REL4039F - Reading Religious Texts: Dr Annie Leatt

This course exposes the student to religious texts and their commentarial literature in the religious traditions studied in the department. It will introduce hermeneutical and analytical tools for reading texts in translation or, skills permitting, in their original language. With these tools students will undertake a close reading of selected texts in light of their social and religious contexts. They will also develop the skills to address relevant issues about canon, authenticity, orality and writing, intertextuality and interpretation.

REL4043S - Sociology of Islam: Prof Abdulkader Tayob

This course introduces students to Islam as a social phenomenon, focusing on the foundation of Islamic societies and the historical transformation of Muslim social institutions. Themes to be explored include the emergence of state (caliphate), religious leaders, law, mystical movements and revival groups that constituted Muslim societies. Students will be exposed to sociological theories applied to Islam, beginning with Ibn Khaldun to the present.

REL4045S - Phenomenology of Religion: Prof David Chidester

This course explores the multidimensional phenomenon of religion by using the resources of theory and method developed in the academic study of religion. As an open, plural, intercultural and interdisciplinary field of study, the academic study of religion has developed a range of basic categories, such as myth, for the analysis, interpretation and explanation of religion in all its forms. These categories, however, have emerged out of a history that includes both the European Enlightenment and European colonialism. In the context of that history, this course explores the potential and the limits of basic categories in the study of religion for gaining knowledge about religion and the religions.

REL4046S - Buddhism: Dr Annie Leatt

This course will introduce students to the systematic study of Buddhism. Topics will vary from year to year according to the research interests of students and staff. Areas will include Buddhist traditions both historical and contemporary; their schools, texts and salvific practices. Themes will include Buddhist encounters with modernity in Asia and the West, monasticism and lay Buddhism, women's place in the Buddhist tradition, and contemporary Buddhism in Africa and Asia. Students will be exposed to relevant literatures on neuropsychology and meditation, Buddhist ethics and contemporary debates with Buddhist communities.

REL4048S - Critical Theory: Dr Louis Blond

All religious traditions have been fundamentally altered by their encounters with modernity. Enlightenment, reason and the growth of secularism have continually challenged and eroded not only religious traditions but also the foundations of Western political culture in general. In order to understand this process, a new mode of theoretical investigation arose in the early 20th century which became known as Critical Theory.

Critical Theory allows and exploration of not only the social processes but also the modes of investigation including the dominant forms of Western reasoning that requires analysis and critical engagement.

This course will introduce students to a variety of thinkers and concepts enabling them to understand and study a range of phenomena and social processes. Thinkers such as Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Franz Fanon and Judith Butler will be studied in order to gain critical insight into contemporary problems. The concepts and methodology of critical theorists will be examined thereby giving students the tools to enter crucial debates surrounding subjectivation, power, gender, post-colonial theory and aesthetics.

REL4049F - Islamic Studies - Intro to PG Studies Dr Andrea Brigaglia

This course introduces students to Islam as a religious tradition from inception to modern times. Using the tools and terms of the comparative study of religions, the course will familiarise students with the beliefs, practices and institutions of Islam in their variety, historical development and particular contexts. This will include themes in the life of the Prophet Muhammad, the foundational texts of Islam, law and jurisprudence, theology, mysticism and social movements.

REL5001S - Christianity in Contemporary South Africa: Dr Sibusiso Masondo

Change is a volatile and dynamic process which causes anxiety and uncertainty among those going through it. As a result, it needs careful management and mediation. In African Christianity there are various ways of change management. The course will explore change management strategies in both mainline or missionary churches and the African independent or indigenous churches. It will pay particular attention to how they perceive the process of conversion.

REL5003W - Minor Dissertation

A dissertation of approximately 25,000 words under supervision.

REL5013F- Africa and Theories of Religion: Dr Sibusiso Masondo

The course surveys and examines theories of religion as enunciated by various theorists. A special interest of the course is to study how theories of religion have shaped and been shaped by African history and culture. Among what was shaped and continues to be shaped are perceptions, images, representations and assumptions about Africa and African people.

REL5088S - Studies in Paul: Prof Chuck Wanamaker

This course examines the language and literature of the Pauline letters of the New Testament. Developing theory and method in socio-rhetorical criticism, the course devotes special attention to the rhetoric, social worlds, and religious worldviews in selected biblical texts.

REL5091S - Explorations in Islam: Prof Abdulkader Tayob

(will not be offered in 2012)

This course explores mystical interpretations of Islam (Sufism) as one of the most important historical manifestations of the Islamic experience. The course will involve intensive readings of Sufi texts in translation. Some of the themes covered in these texts include understandings of the Sufi Path, cosmological formulations on the nature of human beings, reality and God, various Sufi rituals and meditative techniques, and social implications of the Sufi path.

REL5106F - Intellectual Disciplines - Modern Islam: Prof Abdulkader Tayob

This course explores the construction of modern Muslim identities through a range of different media. These will be explored in new definitions of religion and Islam, the emergence of new institutions, the discovery of gender, the mobilization of states, the articulation of law, the re-invention of religious authority, the politics of culture, and the search for values.

REL5108F - Levinas, Derrida and the Other: Dr Louis Blond and Prof Carrol Clarkson (Dept of English)

This course introduces two of the most influential thinkers in Modern continental Philosophy. Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida have transformed the nature of European philosophy, ethics and textual interpretation in seminal ways, affecting disciplines as diverse as philosophy, literature, aesthetics, modern Jewish thought and rabbinics. Starting with common ancestry in the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, this course will examine the development of Levinas and Derrida's though and explore the key notions of 'alterity', 'otherness' and 'trace', examining how such ideas reflect and extend the tradition of Continental Philosophy but also draw on elements of Jewish thought.

TIMETABLE for FIRST SEMESTER - only on WEDNESDAYS