New Honors Class for Fall 2024: “Honors: Intro. to the Study of Religion”

Fall 2024, Honors: Introduction to the Study of Religion

Professor Charles Townsend

Online Mix (Online Asynch with once weekly Online Synch meetings) M 7:00-8:15PM

Register for PHL 110 HC1 (CRN: 31584)

Gen Eds: Humanities, Global Studies

Concentrations: Global Studies

Description: Are you interested in understanding: How religious beliefs inform people’s decisions? Why religion is too often a motivation for violence? What makes a book a ‘scripture’? The roles and rules religions prescribe surrounding gender and sexuality? What some of the commonalities are among various religions?

Introduction to the Study of Religion introduces the academic study of religion(s) and examines the impacts and relevance of religion across the globe today. This  introductory level class fulfills both Oakton’s ‘Area E’ (Humanities) and ‘Area F’ (Global Studies) General Education Requirements and is transferrable to Illinois Colleges and Universities through the Illinois Articulation Agreement (IAI: H5900). It can be part of the Religious Studies pre-major as well as many other pre-major plans. The class pairs well if you have taken or plan to take “World Religions” (Area E) or “Religious Diversity in America” (Area G) but you do not need to have any prior knowledge or prerequisites.

This is the first time the class is being offered as a dedicated Honors class!

The class will be in an ‘online mix’ format; mostly online asynchronous, with once weekly Zoom meetings to discuss readings together and help each other prepare for assignments. The assignments are structured to offer flexible options for fulfilling the course requirements (e.g., you can tailor a mixture of different kinds of response papers, and/or thematic papers, and/or creative papers). Students will finish the course with an individually guided final project on a current topic of their choice in the academic study of religions.

Contact Dr. Charles Townsend for any questions.