2 classes matched your search criteria.

Spring 2019  |  CNES 8530 Section 001: Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean World -- The Emergence of Islam (66814)

Instructor(s)
Class Component:
Discussion
Credits:
3 Credits
Grading Basis:
A-F only
Instructor Consent:
No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:
In Person Term Based
Class Attributes:
Topics Course
Meets With:
RELS 8190 Section 001
Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
 
01/22/2019 - 05/06/2019
Thu 02:30PM - 05:00PM
UMTC, East Bank
Nicholson Hall 325
Enrollment Status:
Open (6 of 10 seats filled)
Course Catalog Description:
Intensive study of particular aspects of religious practice in the ancient Mediterranean world, often from a comparative perspective. Focus on scrutiny of primary sources and discussion of contemporary trends in scholarship. Topics specified in the Class Schedule.
Class Notes:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?CNES8530+Spring2019
Class Description:

The emergence of Islam in the seventh century C.E. was one of the most momentous turning points in human history. However, every aspect of this crucial historical process remains vigorously contested in modern scholarship. Was Islam originally an ecumenical monotheistic movement open to Jews and Christians, or did Islam's earliest adherents consider it a new and exclusive religion separate from Judaism and Christianity? Was the Prophet Muhammad a local preacher of righteousness or the conscious creator of a religion with global ambitions? Is the Qur'anic text a record of Muhammad's own preaching or the result of a collective effort that continued after Muhammad (and perhaps had begun before him)? Did early Muslims believe in the imminent end of the world or not? Did Arabian tribes have a shared sense of belonging to a unified "Arab"
ethnos before Islam, or did this sense of identity grow after disparate Arabian peoples conquered the Near East together?


This course provides a forum for in-depth discussion of these fundamental historiographic questions. In the process, we will delve into some of the earliest literary and documentary witnesses to early Islamic history and read from seminal works of scholarship in the past century.
Who Should Take This Class?:
Anyone interested in the religious landscape of Late Antiquity, early Islamic history, or the pre-modern world in general.
Grading:
Participation (30%) and research paper (70%)
Class Format:
Seminar
Textbooks:
https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/66814/1193
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
3 October 2018

Spring 2019  |  CNES 8530 Section 002: Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean World -- Metaphor and Gender (66821)

Instructor(s)
Class Component:
Discussion
Credits:
3 Credits
Grading Basis:
A-F only
Instructor Consent:
No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:
In Person Term Based
Class Attributes:
Topics Course
Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
 
01/22/2019 - 05/06/2019
Mon 01:30PM - 04:00PM
UMTC, East Bank
Nicholson Hall 201
Enrollment Status:
Open (4 of 15 seats filled)
Course Catalog Description:
Intensive study of particular aspects of religious practice in the ancient Mediterranean world, often from a comparative perspective. Focus on scrutiny of primary sources and discussion of contemporary trends in scholarship. Topics specified in the Class Schedule.
Class Description:

The purpose of this course is to use contemporary metaphor theory to read ancient texts. Metaphors are no longer seen as merely a literary device but as a fundamental way that we think:
"our conceptual system is largely metaphorical" (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) and we will explore this way of understanding metaphors by first reading Susan Sontag's classic essays Illness and Metaphor and AIDS and its Metaphors (1977 and 1988). From there we will go on to a broad theoretical discussion of metaphors and their functions and to detailed analysis of use of metaphorical language in text examples. In class we will be working primarily with biblical texts (based in the Hebrew or Greek texts or translations depending on your language skills), but students will be able to work with texts from their own area of specialization as well.

If metaphor is one focal point of this course, gender is another. We will not be dealing with the conceptualizing of gender and sex on a larger scale, but focus on how gender functions in texts. Gendered language could both refer to "grammatical gendered language" (also called linguistic gender) or to
"conceptual gendered language" (language which connotes or denotes gender) and gendered metaphors belong to this second category. We will investigate whether there is a connection between grammatical gendered language and gendered metaphors, how we identify gendered metaphors in the first place, and how to best understand them. For this purpose we will be studying gendered metaphors for God and Zion in the book of Isaiah. In this context we will also be exploring the relationship between metaphors and religious language and metaphors and the concept of the divine more in general.

By the end of this course you will have gained a thorough working knowledge of current theoretical discussions of metaphor and of gender and you will be enabled to work with metaphors in any ancient or contemporary text. Metaphor and Gender is relevant for students working with metaphorical language in any field but particularly for students in biblical studies, Jewish studies, religious studies, and the study of religion in antiquity. Students will be heavily involved in the weekly presentation of topics and discussion. More detailed topics and readings will be specified by the course schedule.

Textbooks:
https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/66821/1193
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
8 January 2019

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