Religion: Blood, Heathens, & Pagan Lands

Exploration of aspects of the relationship between race and religion in the United States. May be repeated for credit with different content. Topics vary by offering; periodic offering at intervals that may exceed four years. Prerequisite: Three hours in Religion. Cross-listed with: CRES 2841.

Pre reqs: Three hours in Religion Cross-listed with: CRES 2841 A. total combined enrollment = 40 PACE students by permission and override.

What do race and religion have to do with each other? Both terms structure society, justify hierarchies, and rationalize relational asymmetries. But as identities, race has been assumed to be a modern category that names innate differences while religion continues to be treated as a matter of personal and individual choice. This course explores how concepts like “blood,” “heathens,” and “pagan lands” blurs these lines. We will examine how they were deployed, contested, and negotiated through sources on European colonial encounters with enslaved Africans, indigenous peoples in the Americas, and migrant peoples from Asia, and we will track how racialization and religious othering functioned in tandem to make claims about lands and bodies. We will grapple with the insufficiency of conversion for shaping religious belonging, how racialized bodies are mapped onto religious categories, and the political opportunities for marginalized groups to subvert colonial scripts. By the end of the semester, students will be able to trace how the intertwining relationship between race and religion continues to shape discourses about civilizing, modernizing, and developing non-White peoples and non-Christianized peoples and nations today.

Students are expected to attend regularly. Class sessions expound on the themes from the readings by drawing connections to contemporary examples, provide some historical context for the figures and events in the texts, and prepare students for any upcoming class deliverables.

It will be based on class participation; quality of weekly discussion posts; performance on short quizzes; and final assignment.