Course Offerings
Spring 2026 Course
CCTS 32000 / RLST 26306 / CHST 26306 / HIP 26306 / HLTH 26306 / HMRT 26306
Religion, Medicine, and Human Flourishing on the South Side of Chicago
Spring 2026 (100 units), The University of Chicago
Date/Time: Fridays 9:30AM-12:00PM
Course Description: Historically, medicine has promoted health as central to the good life. The contemporary turn in the medical and social sciences to the more capacious concept of human flourishing, however, presses these disciplines into conversation with longer traditions of inquiry–more specifically religious traditions–on the nature of the good life for individuals and communities. How might religious traditions reveal the possibilities and limits of contemporary views of human flourishing? How might they add elements to discourses of health such as forgiveness, dignity, and character, that might otherwise be missing from medical conversations? How might they challenge assumptions around our understanding not only of the health of the person (human flourishing) but also the health of the body?
Just as medicine is understood best in its practice, so too this course seeks to understand religious traditions as embedded within and responsive to the communities they serve through religious nonprofits and congregations. How does the on-the-ground experience of these community organizations seeking to advance human flourishing on the south side of Chicago challenge these categories?
Sponsored by the Program on Medicine and Religion, the Hyde Park Institute, the Lumen Christi Institute, InterFaith America, and the Chicago Collective on Faith & Flourishing, this course is an innovative experiential course open to all undergraduates in the College. In partnership with Chicago Studies, this course takes the city as our classroom. Students will meet weekly with organizations on the forefront of health and human flourishing in Chicago, addressing issues such as food insecurity, bodily well-being, violence and community, economic well-being, migration, and death.
Through this seminar, students will engage texts to better understand the context of institutional religious action towards human flourishing, and will walk away with a more robust understanding of the bricolage of health among underserved communities on the South and West Side of Chicago.
Course Instructor: John Yoon MD Email: jdyoon@uchicago.edu
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RLST 29020 – Reproductive Futures (autumn 2025)
What is the future of human reproduction? What do religious and literary narratives tell us about when, how, why, and with whom we should (and should not) be reproducing? What do alien pregnancies, magical births, forced surrogacy, and artificial wombs have to do with the landscape of contemporary religions? And what can religion, science fiction, and fantasy—as (sometimes inter-related) modes of speculation about what is possible in an uncertain world—help us to understand about the conditions under which the human species might persist or perish?
In this course, we will address these and other questions by putting theories about/from the areas of religion, reproductive politics, and science fiction into conversation with novels, poetry, music, film, and other forms of popular culture. Along the way, we’ll learn how gender, race, migration, the law, and the environment are implicated in the stories and technologies that shape human reproduction. Emily D. Crews
RLST 27804 – Living our Bodies with Technology (winter 2026)
We live with and in our bodies, and we cannot experience the world without them. Yet, most of the time, we remain unaware of our bodies and how they are shaped by the technological infrastructures we inhabit. This course explores the complex ways in which technologies—broadly understood—mediate and shape our experience of the body. We will engage with philosophical and anthropological perspectives on the various conditions of the human body and examine how these conditions are influenced by technology and the modern configurations of our lived environments. We will explore questions such as: How do brain scans and real-time ultrasounds shape our experience of our inner selves? Is ADHD a timeless condition, or is it a product of new ways of being and knowing the world? How are organ transplants reshaping our understanding of what makes a person whole? How do artists use virtual reality to tell stories of living with such conditions? How do fitness trackers alter our understanding of well-being? Through critical reflection on different modes of knowing our bodies and communicating lived experiences, we will examine how technologies both reinforce and challenge traditional conceptions of the body, as well as create entirely new ways of living within them. Readings will be drawn from medical anthropology, phenomenology, media theory, and the philosophy of science. Desiree Foerster and Elham Mireshghi
BIBL 42245 / RLST 22245 – New Testament Readings: Disability, Healing, and Ancient Medicine (spring 2026)
Within New Testament literature, one encounters numerous narratives of healing and embodied difference. How do these narratives inform our understanding of ancient discourses around the body? What interpretative insights do we gain from reading these texts alongside Greco-Roman discourses of medicine and healing? How have the insights of Disability Studies enriched our understanding of these texts? This Greek exegesis course will introduce students to modern historical, textual, and rhetorical-critical approaches in conversation with the history of interpretation. Students will engage in close readings of the Greek text of representative examples drawn from the canonical gospels. We will examine each passage’s composition, structure, and theology. Through lectures and assignments, students will gain familiarity with the major interpretative trajectories of these narratives within the history of Christian thought. At the beginning of the quarter every student will choose an interpreter or interpretative approach – ancient, medieval, modern, or post-modern – to represent in class discussions. PQ: Undergraduate and Graduate students who have completed classes I and II of the Koine Greek sequence or equivalent. Various levels can be accommodated; please feel free to consult with instructor. Erin Walsh
RLST 22500 – Death (spring 2026)
“We die. That may be the meaning of life.” – Toni Morrison
This course is an exploration of death as understood by various religious traditions as depicted in popular culture. Through an exploration of primary and secondary materials, we will explore and discuss topics such as heaven, hell, ghosts, personifications of death and death rituals–comparing contemporary American rituals and narratives about dying with those from ancient China, the Indian subcontinent, Latin America, South Africa, Viking-era Northern Europe, and ancient Egypt.Along the way, we will consider questions like whether it would be preferable to live forever and what role death plays in giving life meaning. Marielle Harrison