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Requirements

Requirements for the Religious Studies Major (36 semester hours)

Three Required Courses (12 semester hours)

  • REL115W Introduction to the Study of Religion (4)

  • REL490 Senior Directed Study (4)

  • REL496W Directed Senior Thesis (4)

Six additional electives, at least two of which must be at the 300-level, and at least two of which must carry a REL prefix (24)

  • REL113 Scripting God: A Critical Introduction to the Bible (4)

  • REL135 Religions of Asia (4)

  • REL199 Topics in Religion (1-4)

  • REL214 Religion in America (4)

  • REL215 How Christianity Began: The History and Literature of Early Christianity (4)

  • REL225 Forgotten Scriptures: Apocryphal Literature and the Origins of Christianity (4)

  • REL227 Paganism: The Religions of Greece and Rome (4)

  • REL299 Topics in Religion (1-4)

  • REL322 In Search of the Historical Jesus (4)

  • REL323 The Bible and American Culture (4)

  • REL335W Race, Class, and Gender in the Life and Letters of Paul (4)

  • REL390 Independent Study (2 or 4)

  • REL399 Topics in Religion (1-4)

  • ARTH107 Introduction to Art History from the Roman to the Byzantine Empire (2)

  • ARTH108 Introduction to Art History of the Western Middle Ages and Islam (2)

  • ARTH112 Introduction to South Asian Art History (4)

  • ARTH259 Medieval Art and Architecture (4)

  • CHNSE352 Rites of Passage in Chinese Societies (4)

  • CLAS231W Myth and Cult in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean (4)

  • GREEK331W Myth and Cult in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean: Readings in Ancient Greek (4)

  • HIST171 History of the Modern Middle East (4)

  • HIST240 Ancient to Early Medieval European Ideas (4)

  • HIST259 American Jewish History (4)

  • HIST374 Love and Reason in the Middle Ages: European Intellectual History 400-1500 (4)

  • IDS230 Rites of Passage in Japan and the United States (4)

  • IDS353 Inner Life of Activism (4)

  • PHIL112 Philosophy of Religion (4)

  • PHIL235W Philosophical Ethics (4)

  • PHIL325 Kierkegaard, Meaning and the Self (4)

  • PPLE314 Politics and Religion in the United States (4)

Note:

At the end of their Junior year, Religious Studies majors will interview with the Religious Studies Faculty to determine the focus for their Senior Experience. The Senior Experience will consist of 2 courses: 1) a Senior Directed Study (REL490) with an advisor whose expertise most closely matches the interests of the student; 2) a Senior Directed Thesis (REL496W), normally directed by the same advisor with whom the student has completed his/her Senior Directed Study. In REL490: Senior Directed Study the student will a) acquire a knowledge base adequate to undertaking a Senior Thesis in an area of interest to him/her, b) survey a variety of methods and theories of religion, and c) develop a theoretical framework and method adequate to pursuing a thesis in his/her area. At the conclusion of the Senior Directed Study the student will complete a thesis proposal. In REL496W: Senior Directed Thesis the student will write his/her thesis under the supervision of a faculty advisor. Normally the Senior Directed Study and the Senior Directed Thesis will be completed in consecutive semesters. Both of these courses will be offered as multiple sections, each with a different Religious Studies professor enrolling one student. All sections of these courses will include a colloquium meeting bi-weekly for 2 hours with other students engaged in the senior experience and their faculty advisors, where they will present their work to peers and faculty and mark their progress toward the completion of the Senior Experience.

Willamette University

Religious Studies