RELG 290 - Religion, Reason, and Empire

FC ARHU CD WINT

4 credits
This course introduces students to fundamental texts and topics in the philosophy of religions through an exploration of the relationship between religion, reason, and empire in the modern world. Ranging from the early Spanish empire to the War on Terror, we will contextualize critical debates in modern thought in relation to ideologies and practices of colonialism, the development of secular democracy, and the renewal of imperial dynamics in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In the process, students will consider questions including: what is the relationship between faith and knowledge? How were ideas of reason and religion shaped by the practices of European empire? How did debates over religion and reason intersect with modern ideas of racial difference? Course readings will include canonical thinkers such as Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Marx, and Mendelssohn alongside colonial legal documents, missionary reports, and contemporary scholarship in the study of religion.