REL 511 - Seminar in Study of Religion - Intro to Political Theology

Campus: Urbana-Champaign

Description:

Intensive study of select topics or issues in the study of religion. Course Information: May be repeated in the same or separates terms as topics vary.

Special Instructions:

The study of political theology is focused on the concept of sovereignty as both a human and a divine institution. The course examines its roots in the Hebrew Bible and traces how it changes from antiquity to modernity, especially in the context of the racialized post-1492 nation state. Readings include (whole or selections): Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution; John Gager, Community and Kingdom; Ernst Kantorowitz, The King-s Two Bodies; Baruch Spinoza, Political-Theological Treatise; Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan; Max Stirner, The Ego and its Own; Karl Marx, The German Ideology; Carl Schmitt, Political Theology and Land and Sea; Michel Foucault, Society Must be Defended; Sylvia Wynter, Unsettling the Coloniality of Being.

Option 1

Course Level: Graduate

Credit: 4