Arts, Sciences, and Engineering Religion and Classics
Course Section Listing Course Course Title Term Credits Status
COURSE_SECTION-3-171078 RELC 228-1 The Body in Early Christianity Spring 2024 4.0 Open
Schedule:
Day Begin End Location Start Date End Date
MW 200 PM 315 PM Lechase Room 143 01/17/2024 05/11/2024
Enrollment: Enrolled     
18
Capacity     
20
Co-Located: CLST 243-1 (P), GSWS 228-1, RELC 228-1
Instructors: Anne Merideth
Delivery Mode: In-Person
Description: Though we often assume that religion deals with the spirit or the soul, the earliest Christians were deeply and primarily concerned with the body. In this course, we examine the multiple and various early Christian debates and practices relating to the body focusing in particular on issues related to physical suffering, death, sexuality, identity, and asceticism. Topics include: early Christian debates over the nature of the body and its relationship to personal identity and the nature of the self; conflicting ideas about the nature of Jesus incarnated, crucified, and resurrected body; gender, sexuality, and the bodies of men and women; Christian valorization of physical suffering and the bodies of the ill; the cult of the martyrs and the cult of the relics; the rise of asceticism and the bodies of saints.
Offered: Fall Spring Summer