Invoking the Earth Mother: Ecofeminisms and Indigenous Spiritual Ecologies (FYS)
RELI 173F
Fall 2023
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01
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Over the past 50 years, a radical reshaping of our relationship to the organic world has infused national economic strategies, United Nations discourses, indigenous land rights movements, and environmental legal frameworks with language that invokes the Mother Earth. This seminar will explore the social, legal, and metaphysical aspects of eco-feminist and indigenous spiritual ecologies. We will explore these worldviews and ritual practices from animist, pantheist, monist and panentheist perspectives, with a particular focus on gender constructs, implicit and explicit, within these movements. What is the relationship between the 1970s environmental movement and the rise of Goddess worship in the U.S.? Between the United Nations and Amazonian ayahuasca practitioners? Legally, Should Trees Have Standing (Stone 1972)? Politically, Is the Goddess a Feminist (Hiltebeitel & Erndl 2000)? Is Mother Earth, ultimately, empowering for LGBTQ2S foks? Engaging emerging podcasts, shamanic documentaries, social manifestos, and provocative religious studies texts, students will wrestle with a profound set of humanistic questions that may prove crucial to our survival as a species, namely: under what circumstances do we successfully invoke Mother Earth, the Pachamama, or the Goddess to self-regulate the ecologically destructive practices of our late-stage capitalism? |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS RELI |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (RELI-MN)(RELI) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 | | Special Attributes: FYS |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Major readings
Bacigalupo, THUNDER SHAMAN, 2016 (required)
Grim and Tucker, ECOLOGY AND RELIGION, 2014 (required)
Harner, HALLUCINOGENS AND SHAMANISM, 1973 (selections)
Hiltebetl & Erndl, IS THE GODDESS A FEMINIST? 2004 (selections)
Starhawk, THE EARTH PATH, 2004 (selections)
Stone, "Should Trees Have Standing?" 1972
Ortner, "Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?" 1972
United Nations, "Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples" , 2007
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Examinations and Assignments:
3 brief papers on class readings in relation to extant events, midterm is an assigned podcast episode involving research, one ethnographic case study presented in pairs, and a final project |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course fulfills the Thematic Approach for the Religion Major/Minor |
| Instructor(s): Cavagnaro,Kellie Times: ..T.R.. 08:50AM-10:10AM; Location: FISK404; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: X | JR major: X | | |
| Seats Available: 0 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: X | JR non-major: X | SO: X | FR: 15 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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