Religion: Interpretation of Religion

Examination of major theories and methods used in studying and interpreting religious phenomena. Prerequisite: Three hours in Religion.

Prerequisite: Three hours in Religion PACE students by permission and override.

What is religion? Who gets to define it and where do those definitions come from anyway? What happens when a person or thing is described as religious? And what does it mean to assert that one is not religious--or even that one is “spiritual, not religious”? “Religion” is a word that is used everywhere and every day. It is a part of politics, popular culture, and used by scholars across all disciplines--from biology to music to psychology to literature. While it seems clear what it means, religion is actually an unstable category used to explain, interpret, justify, and condemn a variety of positions towards human communities, institutions, practices, and identities. As we will explore in this class, the history of the concept is entangled with the modern history of Europe and the United States and is a central aspect of the globalizations of both imperialism and nationalism. This course is about the history of the category “religion” and how scholars and others have talked about and deployed the category. We will also examine how uses (and abuses) of the concept of “religion” affect people's lives in significant ways, whether they identify as religious or not.

This course is a seminar that will include both lecture and active participation in discussion. Students are expected to have read and annotated texts before class, and come prepared to discuss materials together with the professor and other students.

Grades will be based on participation, short response papers, and a final project.