RELGST 1475 - RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY

Minimum Credits: 3
Maximum Credits: 3
What is the best way to accommodate religious and cultural diversity within a nation-state and in civil society? How should individual rights to practice religion be balanced with communal needs? Should freedom from religion be protected as much or more than freedom of religion? These are pressing contemporary issues in many countries, including the United States, but issues of religious diversity and questions of whether and how to tolerate religious minorities have a long history. In this course, we will examine the toleration of minority religions in particular historical settings, and the issues and problems (both doctrinal and social/political) that societies grappled with as they confronted diverse religious landscapes. We will also use these historical precedents as a lens to examine contemporary examples of religious pluralism, diversity, and conflict. Case studies will mainly be drawn from pre-modern Europe and modern Europe and North America, but we will also look at Mughal and modern India and discuss religion in pre-modern China.
Academic Career: Undergraduate
Course Component: Lecture
Grade Component: LG/SNC Elective Basis
Course Attributes: DSAS Diversity General Ed. Requirement, DSAS Global Issues General Ed. Requirement, SCI Polymathic Contexts: Global&Cross Cul GE. Req.

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