RELG 030. The Power of Images: Icons and Iconoclasts

This course is a cross-cultural, comparative study of the use and critique of sacred images in biblical Judaism; Eastern Christianity; and the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions of India. Students will explore differing attitudes toward the physical embodiment of divinity, including issues of divine “presence” and “absence”; icons, aniconism, and “idolatry”; and distinctions drawn in some traditions between different types of images and different devotional attitudes toward sacred images, from Yahweh’s back and bleeding icons to Jain worship of “absent” saints.
Humanities.
1 credit.
Eligible for ASIA, MDST
Catalog chapter: Religion
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/religion

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