Students in Religious Studies 101 take notes during a lecture by Assistant Professor Kim Haines-Eitzen in Martha Van Rensselaer Hall. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography
After a moment of introspection, Professor Jane Marie Law stands before hundreds of silent and attentive students and makes the transition from professor to Jewish storyteller.
"Well, let me tell you about this guy. He lives down the river. You probably know where he's from," said the director of Cornell's Religious Studies Program and the H. Stanley Krusen Professor of World Religions. Law evokes characters ranging from the Prophet Elijah to old beggars and survivors of a pogrom. And so the unit on modern Judaism begins.
Welcome to Religious Studies 101.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:10 a.m. more than 250 students, from a variety disciplines, gather in a large lecture hall in Martha Van Rensselaer Hall for Religious Studies 101, the foundation course for the Religious Studies major.
The major was approved by the university in 1990, and it has since grown in popularity. The number of students majoring in Religious Studies grew from 10 to more than 25 in just in the past year, with many more students expressing interest in the program, Law says. Moreover it now offers more than 65 courses, all but one of which is cross-listed in other departments.
Law has taught the popular 101 course for two years and says she plans to continue doing so for many more to come. Her commitment to the academic study of religion is, she said, "bone deep," and she feels that every student -- whatever his or her background -- needs to understand and appreciate the nuances and complexity of religion and religious life.
Religious Studies 101 teaches students two important lessons, Law said: First, it shows them just how complex and intricate religious life is and, second, it teaches them how to ask intelligent questions about religion. It is "fundamentally a comparative course," she explains, that highlights and contrasts a variety of religious traditions and practices.
"We not only introduce major religious traditions, but also the various disciplines within the academic study of religion and focus on how religious studies questions are formulated," she said.
The course examines five major religious traditions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaisim, Christianity and Islam, with brief attention to Confucianism. Kim Haines-Eitzen, assistant professor of early Christianity in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, teaches the early Jewish and Christian sections of the course. Students examine these traditions' doctrines, fundamental texts, mythologies, rituals and history.
And each year, the course focuses on a new theme.
"I tear the syllabus up ever year and start from scratch," Law explained.
This year the course's theme is religious biography and autobiography. Each student has had the task of doing a semester-long interview with a person, who defines him- or herself as religious, and then writing a paper based on these interviews. Students also select three religious autobiographies to read, from a list including those of St. Teresa, the Baal Shem Tov, Malcolm X and the Dalai Lama.
History major Adam Skumawitz '01 praises this approach, saying examining religions from a personal perspective has pushed him further intellectually, helping him to realize how religion touches the lives of individuals and how it affects the choices they make.
Next year Law plans to explore the intersection between religion and human rights.
Students who take Religious Studies 101 range from majors in the program, for whom the course is required, to students in engineering and pre-med.
Law emphasizes that the critical analytical skills the study of religion gives students can not only help them ask meaningful and intelligent questions about religion, but also help them in other areas of their lives.
"Religious Studies 101 is in many ways a broad foundation for critical thinking in many later intellectual endeavors including law, medicine, education, academia and ministry," she said.
Biology major Olivia Duran '01 agrees. "Religious Studies 101 is a great survey course," she said. "It really gets to the heart of the religions it looks at."
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