Religion 108: Meditation Across Religious Traditions

This course offers an in-depth exploration of how meditation has been conceptualized across religious traditions. It will address major issues in the study of meditation, exposing students to a wide variety of religious thinkers and practice traditions, while simultaneously interrogating the usefulness of the term "meditation" to describe such a wide array of practices. We will examine the texts with an eye to historical and socio-cultural context together with the intellectual traditions in which these discussions are embedded. The class will be structured as a series of units around each tradition studied. Along the way, we will also consider charisma; theories of practice; mysticism and social formation; and the "science" of meditation. May be taken for credit toward the South Asia and Humanistic Inquiry requirements of the South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies major.