Courses

Spring Quarter offerings are now available and bring new courses like “Jainism and Gender”, “Religion and Reason in Public” and “Religion and the Quest for Happiness”, in addition to perennial favorites, like “Women, Gender and Religion”, “Jesus of Nazareth in Historical Research”, and “Religion and Liberation.” Curious about all of the offerings? Click here to take a look at all of the course offerings for the current academic year which fulfill Study of Religion requirements.

Have questions? Contact College Advisor/Counselor, Beth Kraemer.

For information about specific section times and locations, please view the UCLA Schedule of Classes.

Click here to see a full list of courses with their numbers and short names which fulfill requirements for the Study of Religion major and minor.

Spring 2025

  • RELIGN M20 - Introduction to Islam

    Instructor(s): Asma Sayeed

    (Same as Islamic Studies M20.) Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Genesis of Islam, its doctrines, and practices, with readings from Qur'an and Hadith; schools of law and theology; piety and Sufism; reform and modernism. P/NP or letter grading.

  • RELIGN M40 - Christianities East and West

    Instructor(s): Ronald Vroon

    (Same as Slavic M40.) Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Survey of three major historical branches of Christianity--Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism, contrasting how history, dogma, culture, and community structures develop in those three traditions. P/NP or letter grading.

  • RELIGN M118B - Kierkegaard and Philosophy of Religion

    Instructor(s): Mark Johnson

    (Same as Philosophy M118B.) Lecture, three to four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Preparation: one philosophy course. Study of selected works of Kierkegaard on philosophy of religion, with emphasis on interpretation of texts. P/NP or letter grading.

  • RELIGN M135 - Religion in Ancient Israel

    Instructor(s): Jeremy Smoak

    (Same as Ancient Near East M135.) Lecture, three hours. Introductory survey of various ancient Israelite religious beliefs and practices, their origin, and development, with special attention to diversity of religious practice in ancient Israel and Canaan during 1st millennium BCE. P/NP or letter grading.

  • RELIGN 150 - Women, Gender, and Religion

    Instructor(s): Karen Muldoon-hules

    Lecture, four hours. Investigation and consideration of roles, status, and representations of women and gender in one or more religious traditions. Examination of how cultural conceptions of gender as well as social realities (as far as they can be known) for women and men in particular historical periods shape and are shaped by these religious traditions, including discussions regarding ritual practices, spirituality, sexuality, sexual renunciation, religious authority, marriage and family life, fertility, conceptions of body, public life, and/or literary representations of gender (including those of divine). Variety of approaches to be employed, including feminist, literary, historical, sociological, and anthropological. P/NP or letter grading.

  • RELIGN 156 - Religion and Liberation

    Instructor(s): Eric Martin

    Lecture, two hours; discussion, 30 minutes. Study traces ways religion and liberation have been understood to connect in the later 20th-century phenomenon called liberation theology. Started by James Cone's embrace of Christian Black Power movement in the U.S. and Gustavo Gutiérrez's Latin American theology against poverty, this method of religious interpretation spread across world and sacred traditions. Reading of central texts that sparked the movement, and sampling of various ways movement was picked up and adapted by people of other identities: queer, South African, Islamic, Palestinian, etc. Highlights key issues of the relationship between religion and liberation, political-religious theory, utopia, oppression, justice, and hope. P/NP or letter grading.

  • RELIGN 177 - Variable Topics in Religion

    Instructor(s): Anahita Hoose, Anahita Hoose, Ryan Gillespie

    Sacrifice has long played crucial role in widespread religions. Introductory survey of sacrifice theories. Concentration primarily on South Asia, region where sacrifice has long, influential, and controversial history. Vedic worship attested more than 3,000 years ago (earliest phase of what became modern Hinduism) involved elaborate sacrifice (including animal sacrifice). Religions now known as Jainism and Buddhism, which emerged in first millennium BCE, vigorously rejected blood sacrifice; but sacrifice as concept retained enormous power in these traditions. In addition to historical developments, consideration of controversial practice of animal sacrifice in modern South Asia.

  • RELIGN 177 - Variable Topics in Religion: Religion and Quest for Happiness

    Instructor(s): Joshua Waugh

    Happiness is elusive concept. It is always striven for, but one often does not know exactly what one is striving for. Religion is one way people try to find structured understanding of how best to live. Sometimes, religion can even offer understanding of what it means to be happy. This is usually understood in terms such as inner peace in popular religious thought; but way in which religion offers understanding of how best to live one's life goes much further than that. Examination of wide range of views from ancient Greek philosophers, to Indian and Christian mystics, to German idealists and existentialists. While examining these different thinkers, study asks how different views of religion affect ways in which it is possible to achieve good life, and what that good life looks like at all. Does good life come in form of happiness--or must happiness be sacrificed for sake of something larger than oneself?

  • RELIGN M186C - Jesus of Nazareth in Historical Research

    Instructor(s): Simon Joseph

    (Same as History M185I.) Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Recommended preparation: course M185F. Designed for juniors/seniors. Stimulated by significant post-Enlightenment historical evaluations, students are led into firsthand knowledge (in translation) of various multilayered sources for reconstruction of life, teaching, and initial impact of Jesus of Nazareth in his social, economic, political, and religious contexts. P/NP or letter grading.

  • RELIGN 191 - Variable Topics Research Seminars: Study of Religion

    Instructor(s): Carol Bakhos

    Seminar, four hours. Preparation: completion of preparation for major courses and at least half of upper-division courses required for major (including theory and method courses). Designed for senior majors. Seminar on central method and/or theme in study of religion. Refinement and integration of this knowledge by means of close reading and analysis of primary documents, debating contested issues, and researching and writing original paper. P/NP or letter grading.

  • RELIGN 19 - Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars: Intersections between Science and Religion

    Instructor(s): Jared Diamond, Carol Bakhos

    Study probes questions such as what relationship between religion and science is; to what extent modern scientific advances impact religious beliefs and practices; and how hyperconnectivity and AI impact religion. These complexly interrelated queries create opportunity to explore more fundamentally what it means to be religious in 21st century, while also considering animal life and vastness of universe. Class meets April 1, 15, 29, May 13, 27.