Religious Studies Minor
Office: Room 12201, 5057 Woodward
Director: Sean C. Stidd
Email: sean.stidd@wayne.edu
https://clas.wayne.edu/religiousstudies
Religious Studies aims at an academic investigation of the world's religions, of religious history, and of the place of religion in world cultures and societies from the ancient to the present. It draws on faculty resources from a wide range of traditional academic disciplines: anthropology, history, philosophy, classics, Near Eastern studies, Asian studies, literature, art history, political science, and sociology. Religious Studies respects the beliefs and backgrounds of the students who pursue courses in this area, but it also approaches its objects of study in a thoroughly scholarly manner, maintaining both intellectual openness and critical rigor.
The Wayne State Religious Studies Program, housed in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, at present offers an undergraduate Religious Studies Minor and serves as an intercollegiate, interdepartmental, and interdisciplinary faculty body to sponsor visiting lectures and academic conferences on religious studies. Its Director works with a Faculty Steering Committee and group of faculty affiliated with the Program to develop curricular offerings and plan other Program activities.
The Minor in Religious Studies is designed to give undergraduates majoring in other disciplines familiarity both with religious traditions themselves and with the wide range of academic approaches to the study of religion in fields such as Anthropology, History, Philosophy, and Sociology.
The minor requires a minimum of eighteen credits with the following required courses and electives.
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Required Courses | ||
| PHI/NE 1900 | Comparative Religion | 3 |
| or ANT 3560 | World's Religions | |
| PHI 2400 | Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion | 3 |
| SOC 2209 | Sociology of Religion | 3 |
| Electives | ||
| Three additional courses with substantial content concerning religious traditions to be approved by the Director of Religious Studies. Such courses include but are not necesarly limited to these. | ||
| ANT 5370 | Magic, Religion and Science | 3 |
| CLA 3530 | The World of Early Christianity | 3 |
| CLA 3590 | Byzantine Civilization | 3 |
| HIS 5385 | History of Christianity to the Reformation | 3 |
| NE 2000 | Introduction to Islamic Civilization of the Near East | 3 |
| NE 2010 | The Bible and Ancient Mythology | 3 |
| ITA 3500 | Dante in Translation: The Divine Comedy | 3 |
| NE 3320 | Muhammad: Life of the Prophet | 3 |
| NE 5300 | Quran: History and Interpretation | 3 |
| PCS 2010/PS 2830 | Topics in Peace and Conflict Studies (When taught as "Conflict and Religion") | 1-4 |
| PHI 2150 | Chinese Philosophy | 3 |
| PHI 2170 | Islamic and Near Eastern Philosophy | 3 |
| PHI 5800 | Special Topics in Philosophy | 2-4 |