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Courses - Spring 2023
RELS
Religious Studies
RELS319E
Special Topics in Religious Studies; Islam and the Body
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F, Aud
Cross-listed with HIST319D and WGSS379E. Credit only granted for RELS319E, HIST319D, or WGSS379E.

The body is central to enacting facets of Islamic culture across history: worshippers ritually wash, mystical mendicants dance, love poets starve themselves, and pilgrims walk well-trodden routes. This course will thus explore why and how bodies matter: how are bodily norms created and enforced? How have people tried to transcend their individual, mortal, embodied selves, and why? How does religion help people make sense of their bodily experiences? How does it deal with bodily differences?