5584RS Sacred Narratives And Texts (3)
This course will study the "social lives" of sacred narratives and texts as
they circulate within religious communities. Among the topics to be studied are
methods of exegesis in different religious traditions, orality and literacy
(including the reoralization of written texts), the canonization process, the
emergence of interpretive specialists, text as amulets, reading and meditative
practices and techniques, and narratives and the arts. The course is
comparative, cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary in nature.