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CS92PROD
The Peoples of the Books: Sacred Texts in Social Contexts

RELI 376
Spring 2012 not offered
Certificates: Middle Eastern Studies

This course will explore the diverse roles of sacred texts in the everyday lives of religious communities. It will focus, in large part, on differing understandings of scripture in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, but it will pose a set of theoretical questions about textual interpretation and authority that are relevant to a wide range of religious (and secular) traditions. How, we will ask, do individuals and communities engage with religious texts and narratives? How do social structures and institutions shape the process of textual interpretation? How is the immense authority of sacred texts negotiated in the context of everyday social life? How are ancient texts reimagined in contemporary literary works and artistic productions? How, in short, do texts and communities--peoples and their books--work to construct each other in religious life?

Essential Capabilities: Intercultural Literacy, Interpretation
This course will encourage students to reflect on interpretation as a social process, by examining the everyday practices of reading, speaking, citing, and interrogating religious texts in a range of contexts. It will also explore how religious texts have been reinterpreted in contemporary literature.

This course will expose students to divergent views of scripture and textual authority in a number of different religious traditions (primarily but not entirely Jewish, Christian, and Muslim). It will foster intercultural literacy through a cross-cultural analysis of literacy itself.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS RELI
Course Format: DiscussionGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: None

Last Updated on MAR-29-2024
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