Religious Dimensions in Human Experience: Apocalypse, Sports, Music, Home, Sacrifice, and Medicine

Harvard Extension School

RELI E-1060

Section 1

CRN 17391

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What is religion? Why does it show up everywhere? Using archaeology, religious studies, and social thought, this course studies the major themes in the history of religions including encountering the holy, sports and ritual, crossing borders, sacrifice as creation, pilgrimage and sacred place, suffering and the quest for wisdom, music and social change, and violence and cosmic law. Readings originate from Native American, African American, Latinx/+, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian, and Hindu traditions. The course focuses on the tension between individual encounters with the holy and the social construction of religion. Readings include works by Gloria Anzaldúa, Toni Morrison, Judith Sherman, Arthur Kleinman, the Popul Vuj, Mircea Eliade, and Michael D. Jackson.

Registration Closes: August 28, 2025
Credits: 4

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Term

Fall Term 2025

Part of Term

Full Term

Format

Online

Credit Status

Graduate, Noncredit, Undergraduate

Section Status

Open

Instructor Info

David Carrasco, PhD

Neil L. Rudenstine Professor for the Study of Latin America, Harvard University


Meeting Info

9/2 to 12/20

Participation Option: Online Asynchronous

In online asynchronous courses, you are not required to attend class at a particular time. Instead you can complete the course work on your own schedule each week.

Deadlines

Last day to register: August 28, 2025

Additional Time Commitments

Required sections to be arranged.

Notes

The recorded lectures are from the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences companion course Anthropology 1475. Registered students can ordinarily live stream the lectures Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:30-11:45 am starting September 2 or they can watch them on demand. The recorded sessions are typically available within a few hours of the end of class and no later than the following business day. Class sessions for this course may include students enrolled in the FAS companion course. Accordingly, when you participate in live class sessions, you will do so alongside both Division of Continuing Education (DCE) and FAS students. If you participate in a way that causes you to appear in recordings of the class, those recordings may be shown to DCE students enrolled in this course or FAS students enrolled in the companion course, according to the policies of the two schools on accessing recordings of class sessions.

Tuition

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All Sections of this Course

CRN Section # Participation Option(s) Instructor Section Status Meets Term Dates
17391 1 Online Asynchronous David Carrasco Open Sep 2 to Dec 20

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