The Variety of Religious Expressions: Movements, Mediation, and Embodiment in an Anthro. Perspective
RELI 306
Spring 2013 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
ANTH 313 |
This course takes as its point of departure today's global proliferation of religious movements and media and explores the following questions: What are the similarities and differences among India's Hindutva movement, Christian Evangelical groups in the United States, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East, and protests led by Buddhist monks in Myanmar? What role do various forms of mediation--including the body and embodied practice--and religious texts, cassette sermons, television serials, documentaries, the Internet, and blog sites play in promoting, shaping, spreading, and containing religious practices and belief? A seminar designed for mid- to upper-year undergraduate students who want to learn about the myriad forms of religious expression in today's world, this course consists of three thematic sections. In the first section we will explore various theorists' attempts to carve out a universal category of religion and the ways in which this categorization has been problematized. In the second thematic section, our class will examine how "religion" comes to be separated analytically from other categories of experience such as politics, economics, and the secular, and we examine how interrelations between these categories are reestablished. In the third and final thematic section, students will bring their sharpened analytic faculties to bear on contemporary religious expressions and examine a variety of contemporary religious media and movements. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS RELI |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (RELI) |
Major Readings:
William James, THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
Emile Durkheim, ELEMENTARY FORMS OF RELIGIOUS LIFE
Clifford Geertz, INTERPRETATIONS OF CULTURE
Talal Asad, GENEALOGIES OF RELIGION
Tomoko Masuzawa, THE INVENTION OF WORLD RELIGIONS
Rosalind Shaw & Charles Stewart (ed.s), SYNCRETISM/ANTI-SYNCRETISM: THE POLITICS OF RELIGIOUS SYNTHESIS
Susan Bayly, SAINTS, GODDESSES, AND KINGS: MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS IN SOUTH INDIAN SOCIETY, 1700-1900
Jose Casanova, PUBLIC RELIGIONS IN THE MODERN WORLD
Charles Taylor, A SECULAR AGE
Max Weber, THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM
John Comaroff & Jean Comaroff, MILLENIAL CAPITALISM AND THE CULTURE OF NEOLIBERALISM
Purnima Mankekar, SCREENING CULTURE, VIEWING POLITICS
Charles Hirschkind, THE ETHICAL SOUNDSCAPE: CASSETTE SERMONS AND ISLAMIC COUNTERPUBLICS
Birgit Meyer, RELIGIOUS REVELATION, SECRECY AND THE LIMITS OF VISUAL REPRESENTATION
Susan Harding, THE BOOK OF JERRY FALWELL
John Jackson, work in progress on his research on Black Hebrew Israelites in New York and Israel
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Examinations and Assignments:
- Reading responses
- Seminar presentations
- Final paper |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course fulfills the "Method & Theory" requirement for the Religion Department major. |
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