Course Description
This course explores how Christ-followers and Christians in the first seven centuries imagined embodiment: their own bodies as sites of sin and redemption; the bodies of living and dead saints; the bodies of angels and demons; and the body of God. We locate these bodies in their historical and social contexts, but also use these bodies to consider broader theoretical questions in the study of religion: asceticism and elitism; materiality and spirituality; society and sexuality; humanities and divinity; gender and identity.

While we will be reading key secondary sources and theoretical texts, our primary focus in this course will be on exploring the possibilities and complications of our surviving primary sources.

No previous expertise in studies of the body or early Christianity required.


Course Outcomes
By the end of this course students will be able to:

1. Explain diverse possibilities of early Christian embodiment through close examination of primary sources;
2. Identify the diverse contexts (social, political, personal) in which early Christians expressed bodily identities;
3. Apply critical theoretical models to early Christian bodily expressions.


Course Materials
The following books have been ordered for the course to the Harvard COOP (direct link to book orders here: https://tinyurl.com/300-F19-HDS-2011-1) and should also be available on three-hour reserve at Andover Harvard Theological Library:

Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity, 2d. ed. (Columbia, 2008)
The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity / Edition 20
 
Teresa Shaw, The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity (Fortress, 1995)
The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity
 
Gay Byron, Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference in Early Christian Literature (Routledge, 2002)

 

One book is available digitally through HOLLIS:
 
Jennifer Glancy, Corporal Knowledge: Early Christian Bodies (Oxford, 2010)
(NB: You must be logged in to Hollis for that link to work)
Corporal Knowledge: Early Christian Bodies
 
Additional primary source readings and secondary sources can be found on Canvas, with direct links from the course website.


Course Requirements
All written work will be turned in and returned through the "Assignments" function on Canvas.

Participation: 20%. This course will be conducted as a guided discussion (with context provided by me when necessary), and so you should come to having done the readings and fully prepared to participate in discussion. Discussion forums for each week will also be available if you are more comfortable posting your initial comments online.

Class facilitation: 15%. Each student (in groups, depending on the size of the class) will facilitate class discussion for part of each class meeting. You will prepare a list of questions, topics, ideas, and/or activities around the text of your choice (in consultation with me). Creative approaches to class readings are encouraged; should you choose, you may also introduce outside resources to your discussion

Response papers: 20% (5% each). You will choose four weeks in which to complete brief response papers following one of the formats details on the course website (analytic; comparative; or creative). Responses papers may be turned in at any point in the semester; all response papers are due by the last day of class.

Midterm essay: 20%. A directed analysis of a primary source not read for class will be posted in week four and due by class time in week six. Details of the assignment will be posted on the course website.

Final paper/project: 25%. Students have three options for a final assignment:

1. A take-home final exam, consisting of extended essays analyzing and comparing texts from the semester.

2. A focused research paper taking as its point of departure a topic or theme covered in class. Students interested in completing a research paper should meet with me early in the semester to discuss this option.

3. An annotated bibliography of a topic or theme you would have liked to see covered in class. Students interested in completing an annotated bibliography should meet with me early in the semester to discuss this option.


Student Accommodations
Students requesting accommodations or with accessibility needs for this course should contact Steph Gauchel, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs, as soon as possible (Divinity 204, sgauchel@hds.harvard.edu, 617-496-3091). You will need to provide them with a request of the accommodations sought and documentation of the functional limitations due to medical circumstances or a disability that substantiates your request. Students who are registered in GSAS or FAS should contact the Accessible Education Office, AEO@fas.harvard.edu, 617-496-8707. 

I also encourage you to contact me directly with whatever accommodations you feel are necessary to make this class fully accessible to you.


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