Religious Studies News

One of our most successful split-level classes is “Early Christian Literature and Religion: An Advanced Research Seminar for Undergraduates and Graduate Students” (REL 430/530, instructor James Hanges). The course is designed for students who have taken courses in biblical studies, especially those with some exposure to early Christianity. In addition, the class offers students with majors outside religious studies an opportunity to apply methodologies from other disciplines — such as sociology and anthropology — to the religious phenomena of the early Christian world. Students with backgrounds in classics often thrive in the class due to their familiarity with the histories and cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world.

The central learning goal of the class is the identification of a critical scholarly problem in early Christianity and the formulation of an appropriate historical hypothesis to respond to the problem. In order to help students achieve this central task, Hanges has designed assignments that teach students to navigate the various databases used in the study of religion, to ascertain the most relevant and high quality sources (primary and secondary) that will be useful for the student’s project, and to select the most compelling forms of primary evidence to be used in support of the writers’ hypothesis. Each student is required to meet individually with Hanges to discuss his or her background in the subject matter and to identify possible disciplinary and subdisciplinary approaches to the student’s potential research question. Students also discuss with the instructor any foreign languages that could be useful in conducting research.

Students collaborate at various points in the semester. For example, they complete peer-reviews of their fellow students’ research papers (second drafts) with the help of a guideline document that asks such questions as whether the writer has chosen sources adequate to the task, whether the writer has provided adequate support for the claims made, and the like. As they develop their drafts, students also master the appropriate format for the presentation of their research as a short, scholarly article. A crucial feature of the seminar is the research symposium, a public venue held at the end of the semester. Students present a distilled version of their findings in the form of a scholarly paper and respond to questions and critiques from an audience of faculty and students.

The class has served as an excellent capstone experience for many of our majors and minors, as well as graduate students from our department and cognate departments. The work produced in the class has been strong, and the research symposia have offered students opportunities for professional development that they might otherwise have had to travel off campus to obtain.