Topics in Comparative Religion (379-0-20)
Topic
Religion, Culture, and Resistance in the Caribbean
Instructors
Kijan A Bloomfield
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 2-319: Mon, Wed 2:00PM - 3:20PM
Overview of class
The Caribbean constitutes a unique space to understand the history of resistance and social change in the Black Atlantic world. Going beyond the tropes of reggae, Rastafari, and tourism--this course provides an introduction to the diversity of religious traditions in the region, with particular focus on Afro-Caribbean religious practices and spiritual technologies. Students will explore the cosmological features and embodied expressions that characterize these traditions. Through presentations, discussions, and writing assignments students will reflect on concepts such as belonging, migration, colonialism, race, class, and gender to understand the political and cultural implications of religion in the region.
The course counts towards Religion, Law, and Politics (RLP) religious studies major concentration.
Teaching Method
Class Notes
Instructor:
Dr. KB Dennis Meade is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies with a courtesy appointment in the Department of African American Studies. Most recently, Dr. Dennis Meade was a postdoctoral fellow in Columbia University's departments of African American Studies and African Diaspora Studies and Religion. She holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Princeton University in the subfield of Religion, Ethics, and Politics, with a certificate in African American Studies. She earned her Masters of Arts from Teachers College Columbia University, and bachelor's degree in religion from Bowdoin College.
Dr. Dennis Meade is scholar of Africana Religions and Caribbean Studies. Her research areas include the study of the modern African diaspora, religious cultures and politics in the Caribbean, ethnographic methods, and the digital humanities. Dr. Dennis Meade's current book manuscript, Refuge and Deliverance: Religion, Faith, and Politics in Modern Jamaica, explores the role of religion in the history of social change in Jamaica from the late 19th century to the present. The project centers the voices and experiences of her interlocutors living within an inner-city community in Kingston, Jamaica. Through ethnographic fieldwork and archival research, her study analyzes the salience of religion in shaping national politics and everyday life. Her findings prompt scholars in the fields of Religious Studies and Black Studies to attend to the impact of antiblackness, globalization, colonialism, and violence on African diasporic religious communities and practices.
https://kijanbloomfield.com/
Class Attributes
Ethics & Values Distro Area