Ways of Understanding Religion

Religion 361
Prof. Laura Ammon
MWF 11-11:50
Science 304
Office: Platner 120
Ext.: 4339
Office hours:  Monday and Wednesday 9-10 and 2:30-3:30
Or by appointment
email:  LauraAmmon@linkline.com
Course home pages can be found here: www.trickster.org/basilica

Reading schedule

Myers-Briggs Personality Typology

citing an internet source : http://www.usc.edu/isd/locations/ssh/vkc/intcite.htm

Course description and goals

      This course is designed to introduce students to various scholarly tools for understanding religious movements and groups. Students will explore several approaches to the study of religion
a.      historical
b.      psychological
c.       anthropological/sociological
      Students will examine the relationship between religion and various theories from the above categories and the implications of that analysis for both society and the scholarly community. The result will be that students will be able to apply theoretical models and understandings to historical and contemporary religious communities. The class will create a forum in which the students can begin critically to analyze the social- political implications of religion in their own contexts.
      The course will introduce the methods of academic conversation about religion and religious communities, enabling students to formulate responses within that conversation. We will focus on the construction of academic discourse about the study of religion and engage in experiments in studying religion.  Using those skills discussed in class, students will formulate their own analysis of  a religious movement through argument and presentation. Theories are tools and students will begin to use those tools in a constructive manner to explain an aspect of a religious movement.

Requirements and assessment:

      Attendance and participation.  Students are expected to attend class and come prepared to discuss the readings. There will be weekly short presentations on the reading material. This class is what you make it, so please come prepared to participate. Volunteer presentations. Students must volunteer to make a short introduction to one topic on the syllabus. This will be done with 1 or 2 other people and will constitute 5% of your participation grade. Participation is 35% of your grade.
      Internet project. You will have to do an Internet research project comparing  3 sites about your final project topic. This is 15% of your grade.
      Project and Presentation. During the course you will be working on a major project that will include several smaller projects. The result will be an 8-10 page research paper on a religious group, movement or theorist. This major project has two components:
      1. Class presentation on your topic — short introduction to your topic
      2. Research paper that is the culmination of your internet project and research bringing together the theory of your choice with the group of your choice. This entire project is worth 40% of your grade.
      Quizzes. There will be short, in class pop quizzes  that  cover theoretical materials from the text book. These will comprise 10% of your grade.
      Volunteer presentations. Students must volunteer to make a short introduction to one topic on the syllabus. This will be done with 1 or 2 other people.

Texts:

Gary Kessler, Studying Religion: An Introduction Through Cases
James Forsyth, Psychological Theories of Religion
The Religious Movements Homepage: http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/

Feb 10 Kessler, chapter 1 (3-17)

Feb 12 Kessler, chapter 2 (18-31)

Feb 14 Write your own definition of religion (2+ paragraphs and bring to class; do not put your name on this, we will distribute and discuss them in relation to the chapter)
Kessler, chapter 3 (33-49)
http://camden-www.rutgers.edu/dept-pages/philosreligion/resource.html

Feb 17 Kessler, chapter 4 (53-77)
Volunteers for Taoism tao.org
Volunteers for Anselm

Feb 19 Kessler, chapter 5, partial (78-89)

Feb 21 - No Class
start looking for your group: http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/profiles/listalpha.htm

Feb 24 Kessler, chapter 5 (89-100) (short video: Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers)

Feb 26 Kessler, 101-120

Feb 28 Kessler, 125-147

Mar 3 Kessler, pp. 153-170
Volunteers for Muhammad
Volunteers for Buddha

Mar 5 Kessler, pp. 171-187
Volunteers for Teresa of Avila

Mar 7 Forsyth, pp. 1-28
Volunteers for pp. 28-46

Mar 10 Forsyth, pp. 59-88
Volunteers for pp. 88-98 (Moyers Jung Video)

Mar 12 Kessler, pp. 189-215

Mar 14 in class conversation about http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/profiles/profiles.htm
Please read all the materials on this page.

Mar 17 Forsyth, pp. 223-238

Mar 19 Kessler, pp. 218-235
Volunteers Max Weber
Must have chosen a group/movement/theorist by this date

Mar 21 Forsyth, pp. 103-105; 115-126

Mar 24-28 Spring Break (And there was much rejoicing)

Mar 31 Kessler, pp. 235-256
Volunteers for Zen Buddhism

Apr 2 Kessler, pp. 259-276

Apr 3 Kessler pp. 276-291
Volunteers for Jainism

Apr 7 Internet projects due
Discussion of projects and thinking about the final paper

Apr 9 Kessler, pp. 292-309
Jonestown images and information: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~remoore/jonestown/

Apr 11 David Chidester, Epilogue from Salvation and Suicide (on-line) pp. 160-169

Apr 14 Kessler, pp. 309-330

Apr 16 Paul Stoller, Rationality (on-line) pp.239-254
Volunteers for Stoller

Apr 18 Kessler, pp. 341-354

Apr 21 Kessler, pp. 354-372

Apr 23 Bruce Lawrence, Transformation (on-line) pp. 334-346
Volunteers for Lawrence

Apr 25 Presentations

Apr 28 Presentations

Apr 30 Presentations

May 2 Presentations

May 5 Presentations

May 7 Presentations

May 9 Presentations

May 12 Presentations

May 14 Reading Day

May 19 8-10 am Final