Courses by MDiv Distribution Category for 2012-2013
Show Projected Course Offerings through 2015
Courses below are listed according to distribution categories and indicate which courses may be used to satisfy the MDiv distribution requirements. Some designations are obvious and approval for distribution requirement is simple and automatic. Other courses, however, may explore more than one religious tradition or may not be related to a particular tradition at all. This makes them much harder to categorize. For this reason, the list below should be taken simply as a guide. Courses might apply to other categories to satisfy HTP or OR requirements in a student's particular case. Approvals of these exceptional cases are made by the MDiv Curriculum Committee. Cross-registered courses from other schools may also meet distribution categories subject to the same approval.
Not all courses available and of interest to MDiv students belong to a distribution category. The program was designed with sufficient flexibility to allow selection from among all course offerings. MDiv students are encouraged to select elective courses when appropriate to their interests or program.
Please see HDS Handbook for Students for descriptions of the distribution categories, as well as related MDiv requirements.
N.B.: Courses that are classified as two or more religious traditions may normally only count as an HTP or a comparative course toward an MDiv student's other religion requirement.
Jump to HTP and OR Courses | Scriptural Interpretation Courses
Histories, Theologies, and Practices (HTP) and Other Religion (OR) Courses
Jump to:
African Religions
Buddhist Studies
Christianity
East Asian Religions
Hinduism
Islam
Judaism
South Asian Religions
Comparative
Non-Tradition Specific
African Religions
These courses will satisfy an HTP requirement for students focusing on African Religions or an OR requirement for students focusing on another religion. (Note that any Scriptural Interpretation courses listed below may be used to satisfy an OR requirement, provided the SI course pertains to a religion other than the one the student is focusing in.)
The Ethical and Religious Thought of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Seminar | |
The Shock of the New | |
Islam in African History | |
African Religions | |
Poetry and Religion | |
Space and Place: Seminar | |
Ritualization, Play, and Transitional Phenomena |
Buddhist Studies
These courses will satisfy an HTP requirement for students focusing on Buddhist Studies or an OR requirement for students focusing on another religion. (Note that any Scriptural Interpretation courses listed below may be used to satisfy an OR requirement, provided the SI course pertains to a religion other than the one the student is focusing in.)
Compassionate Care of the Dying: Buddhist Training and Techniques | |
Chinese Buddhist Texts: Readings in Medieval Buddho-Daoist Documents: Seminar | |
Buddhist Women and Representations of the Female | |
Advanced Topics in Buddhist Philosophy - Conference Course | |
The Body and its Moral Cultivation: Buddhist Sources | |
Studying Buddhism Across Time and Place | |
Moral Anthropology: Buddhist Insights |
Christianity
These courses will satisfy an HTP requirement for students focusing on Christianity or an OR requirement for students focusing on another religion. (Note that any Scriptural Interpretation courses listed below may be used to satisfy an OR requirement, provided the SI course pertains to a religion other than the one the student is focusing in.)
Women, Sex, and Gender in Ancient Christianity | |
Papyrology and the New Testament | |
Prophecy, Ecstasy, and Dreams in Early Christian History | |
Early Christian Thought 1: The Greek Tradition | |
Early Christian Thought 2: The Latin Tradition | |
Augustine and His Heretics | |
Archaeology and the World of the New Testament: Seminar | |
Seminar for Advanced New Testament Students | |
Black Women and Global Pentecostalism | |
Power, Politics, and the Female Religious Life | |
Modern Spiritual Pioneers and Religious Revolutionaries | |
Advanced Greek: Martyrdom | |
Advanced Greek: Writing History | |
Themes in Mormon History: Seminar | |
Performing the Body: Gender, Sexuality and Desire in Christian Worship | |
Gender, Authority, and Domination in Modern Theologies and Theories of Religion | |
Latin Paleography and Manuscript Culture: Seminar | |
History of Western Christianity, 150-1100 | |
Protestant-Catholic Relations in America, 1600-2000 | |
Religions in North America: An Introduction to the History of Interpretations | |
Religion and Identity in Modern American History, 1865-2000 | |
The Niebuhr Brothers and Their World | |
The Religious History of American Women: Seminar | |
The American Evangelical Tradition from Jonathan Edwards to Jerry Falwell | |
Marx and His Readers | |
Complementarity and its Discontents: Theologies of the Human in Premodern Christianity and Contemporary Debate | |
Colloquium in American Religious History | |
Liberal and Liberation Theologies in Dialogue | |
Readings in Postmodern Theology | |
Religion and American Public Life | |
Religion, Politics, and Public Policy in the U.S. | |
Body and Flesh: Christian Metaphors in Contemporary Theory | |
Histories, Theologies and Practices of Christianity | |
Origen, Evagrius, and Cassian | |
The Ethical and Religious Thought of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Seminar | |
Christian Ethics and Modern Society | |
Christian Perspectives on War and Peace | |
Unitarian and Universalist History in the United States | |
Ethics, Punishment and Race | |
Unitarian Universalist Religious Education: Seminar | |
A Profile in Ministry: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Seminar | |
Sacred Music in History and Current Practice | |
Introduction to Public Preaching | |
Preaching in the Unitarian Universalist and Free Church Traditions: Seminar | |
The American Spirit in Music | |
Preaching in the Christian Liturgical Year: Incarnation to Pascha | |
Baptist Polity, Practice, and History | |
United Methodist Polity | |
Lutheran Confessional Theology | |
Virginia Woolf and Religion | |
United Church of Christ Polity | |
Curating the Sermon: Preaching and the Arts | |
Unitarian Universalist Polity and Practices: Seminar | |
Religion, Gender, and Politics in Transnational Perspective | |
Crusades, Plagues and Hospitals: Medicine, Religion and Society in the Medieval Mediterranean | |
God, Hindu and Christian | |
The Last Things: Religious, Theological and Cultural Perspectives in Eschatology |
East Asian Religions
These courses will satisfy an HTP requirement for students focusing on East Asian Religions or an OR requirement for students focusing on another religion. (Note that any Scriptural Interpretation courses listed below may be used to satisfy an OR requirement, provided the SI course pertains to a religion other than the one the student is focusing in.)
Animated Spirituality: Japanese Religion in Anime, Manga, and Film | |
The Body and its Moral Cultivation: Buddhist Sources | |
Japanese Folk Religion | |
Shinto |
Hinduism
These courses will satisfy an HTP requirement for students focusing on Hinduism or an OR requirement for students focusing on another religion. (Note that any Scriptural Interpretation courses listed below may be used to satisfy an OR requirement, provided the SI course pertains to a religion other than the one the student is focusing in.)
Introduction to the Hindu Traditions of India | |
Hinduism Through the Modern Novel | |
God, Hindu and Christian | |
Hindu Ethics: Seminar |
Islam
These courses will satisfy an HTP requirement for students focusing on Islam or an OR requirement for students focusing on another religion. (Note that any Scriptural Interpretation courses listed below may be used to satisfy an OR requirement, provided the SI course pertains to a religion other than the one the student is focusing in.)
Women, Justice, and Shariah | |
Women, Spirituality, and Peace | |
Religion, Gender, and Politics in Transnational Perspective | |
Science and Religion: Debates, Approaches, and Controversies | |
Political Islam in the 20th and 21st Centuries | |
Islam in African History | |
Islam, Modernity and Politics | |
Contemporary Muslim and Diasporic Memoirs and Autobiographies in the West | |
The Islamic Ritual's Influence on the Legal Reasoning of the Fiqh | |
Bodies and Sexualities in the Medieval Middle East: Medical, Cultural, and Religious Views | |
The Spring of 2011 in the Middle East | |
Crusades, Plagues and Hospitals: Medicine, Religion and Society in the Medieval Mediterranean | |
Does the Fiqh Know a Concept of Natural Law? | |
History of the Near East 600-1055 | |
Contemporary Voices in Western Islam | |
Introduction to Islamic Philosophy and Theology | |
Introduction to the Modern Arab World I | |
Introduction to the Arab World II | |
Understanding Islam and Contemporary Muslim Societies | |
Islam, Metaphor, Meaning | |
Public, Private and Islam | |
Sufi Traditions in Persian Literature |
Judaism
These courses will satisfy an HTP requirement for students focusing on Judaism or an OR requirement for students focusing on another religion. (Note that any Scriptural Interpretation courses listed below may be used to satisfy an OR requirement, provided the SI course pertains to a religion other than the one the student is focusing in.)
The Synagogue and Jewish Community |
South Asian Religions
These courses will satisfy an HTP requirement for students focusing on South Asian Religions or an OR requirement for students focusing on another religion. (Note that any Scriptural Interpretation courses listed below may be used to satisfy an OR requirement, provided the SI course pertains to a religion other than the one the student is focusing in.)
South Asian Literary Cultures: An Introduction | |
Introduction to the Hindu Traditions of India | |
Hinduism Through the Modern Novel | |
Religious Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict and State Terror in Modern India: Cases from Kashmir, Panjab, Gujarat and Nagaland | |
Religious Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Modern South Asia | |
Buddhist Women and Representations of the Female | |
Advanced Topics in Buddhist Philosophy - Conference Course | |
The Body and its Moral Cultivation: Buddhist Sources | |
Studying Buddhism Across Time and Place | |
Moral Anthropology: Buddhist Insights | |
Hindu Ethics: Seminar |
Comparative
Courses listed as comparative may be used to satisfy one of the three OR requirements. Any course in this category may be used as a fourth, fifth, or sixth HTP course. (Up to three HTP courses, combined, may be comparative or non-tradition-specific.)
Ethnographies of Religion, Texts and Contexts | |
Christianity, Identity, and Civil Society in Africa | |
Apocalypse Now/2012: How the World Ends (or Doesn't) in Human Societies | |
Bible, Literature, Culture: The Song of Songs | |
The Deep: Purity, Danger, and Metamorphosis | |
The World's Religions in Multicultural America - Case Studies in Religious Pluralism | |
Feminist Environmental Philosophy and Theology |
Non-Tradition Specific
Courses listed as non-tradition specific may be used to satisfy an HTP requirement. (Up to three HTP courses, combined, may be comparative or non-tradition-specific.)
Ritual, Culture and Postcolonial Imaginations | |
Alternative Spiritualities in the United States | |
Gender, Race, and Transformation Latina Theory | |
Transnational Feminism | |
Faith in Action | |
Eye Contact, Ethics and Interbeing | |
Religion, Democracy and Education | |
Spiritual Care and Counseling | |
Spiritual Care and Counseling | |
Advanced Spiritual Counseling: Taking Care of Others, Taking Care of Self | |
Clinical Chaplaincy: Interfaith Caregiving Skills and Practice | |
Clinical Case Studies in Psychology and Religion | |
"What is Enlightenment?": Science, Religion, and the Making of Modernity | |
Emerging Topics in Greek Religion | |
Orthodoxy: Truth, Authority and Law |
Scriptural Interpretation Courses
These courses will satisfy a SI requirement if they relate directly to the religious tradition on which the student is focusing. They may not be taken to satisfy an HTP requirement, but may be taken to satisfy an OR requirement, provided the course pertains to a religion other than the one the student is focusing in.
Jump to:
African Religions
Buddhist Studies
Christianity
East Asian Religions
Hinduism
Islam
Judaism
South Asian Religions
African Religions
No courses are offered in this category for the time period selected.
Buddhist Studies
Buddhist Psychology: Theory and Practice | |
Introduction to Buddhist Narrative and Story Literature | |
Introduction to Buddhist Scriptural Anthologies and their Critical Interpretations | |
Tibetan Religious Literature |
Christianity
Introduction to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament 1: Pentateuch and Former Prophets | |
Introduction to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament 2: Latter Prophets and Writings | |
Job and the Problem of Suffering | |
Law in the World of the Bible | |
Introduction to the New Testament | |
Historical Jesus | |
Scriptural Interpretation in Ancient Israel: Inner-Biblical Exegesis | |
Genesis: Narrative Artistry and Theological Meanings | |
The Apostle Paul: His Letters, His Cities, and His Legacy | |
Greek Exegesis of John | |
Gospel Parables in their Social Context | |
Sacrifice: Christian Theology, Discourse and Practices in the Landscape of Ancient MediterraneanReligion | |
Joseph and Esther: Seminar | |
Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible: Seminar | |
New Testament Ethics and Theology: Seminar | |
Readings in Christian Latin: Preaching and the Sermon in the Middle Ages |
East Asian Religions
No courses are offered in this category for the time period selected.
Hinduism
Introduction to the Hindu Traditions of India | |
Yoga Sutras in a Comparative Perspective |
Islam
The Word(s) of the Prophet: Prophetic Traditions through History |
Judaism
Introduction to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament 1: Pentateuch and Former Prophets | |
Introduction to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament 2: Latter Prophets and Writings | |
Job and the Problem of Suffering | |
Law in the World of the Bible | |
Scriptural Interpretation in Ancient Israel: Inner-Biblical Exegesis | |
Ancient Jewish Wisdom Literature | |
Genesis: Narrative Artistry and Theological Meanings | |
The History and Archaeology of Jerusalem | |
History of the Study of the Hebrew Bible: From the Renaissance to the Present: Seminar | |
History and Historiography in the Ancient Near East | |
Joseph and Esther: Seminar | |
The Binding of Isaac (Aqedah): Seminar | |
Problems in the Literature, History, and Religion of Israel: Seminar |
South Asian Religions
Buddhist Psychology: Theory and Practice | |
Introduction to the Hindu Traditions of India | |
Yoga Sutras in a Comparative Perspective |

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