Introduction to Religion (170-0-20)
Instructors
J Michelle Molina
847 4612620
Crowe Hall, 4-142
Meeting Info
University Hall 102: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM
Overview of class
Religion: we think we recognize it when we see it, and yet it is always changing. How does one study a moving target?
In the first weeks of the course, we look back in time to understand how the ideas about religion that are familiar to us today are rooted in history. The emergence of the concept of "religion" as an object of comparison and study grew out of early modern European sectarian violence and colonial overseas expansion. We then turn to study some thinkers from the 19th and 20th centuries who developed theories about the best ways to study religion. These scholars developed and honed the fields of sociology, anthropology, and psychology by testing their methods on case studies about religion. To know this history is to know our present, as well as to understand the methodologies that shape the university curriculum. What do we do with this legacy? Are these methods adequate to understanding religion today?
In the second half of this class, we critically evaluate these methods by putting them to work to analyze religion in the world, both past and present. We will focus on how religion moves people. People are rooted in space and place by their religious practices, while simultaneously being moved by religion. As will have become clear in the first half of the course, religion is a moving target because people themselves do not stay the same. Throughout the course, we track the tension between rootedness and mobility by examining three themes: "conversion," "borderlands," and "death/afterlives."
Learning Objectives
To understand, compare, and practice an academic approach to the study of religion in a global context.
Teaching Method
Class Materials (Required)
Book That Changed Europe, by Lynn Hunt, Publisher : TRILITERAL, ISBN 13 : 9780674049284
Class Attributes
Ethics & Values Distro Area
Associated Classes
DIS - Kresge Centennial Hall 4-410: Fri 11:00AM - 11:50AM
DIS - Kresge Centennial Hall 4-410: Fri 12:00PM - 12:50PM
DIS - Kresge Centennial Hall 2-435: Fri 2:00PM - 2:50PM
DIS - Kresge Cent. Hall 2-380 Kaplan: Fri 1:00PM - 1:50PM