REL 480 (Seminar in Religion)
Dr. Jeff Richey, Instructor (x 3186) and Ms. Kelli Burton, Teaching Assistant (502-744-7598)
Berea College, Fall 2005 MWF 10, Draper 202
COURSE DESCRIPTION
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
COURSE CALENDAR
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This seminar will enable religion majors to reflect on and integrate their studies within the department and the broad requirements of the core curriculum. The course will also provide opportunities for the student to take part in the interdisciplinary exploration of issues in religious studies by examining three broad sets of issues in the field: (1) debates about how the field is defined, (2) explanatory accounts of religion in terms of naturalistic, social-scientific, and postmodern categories, and (3) expectations regarding the future of religion as a scholarly subject and as a global phenomenon. In addition, a significant portion of the seminar will be devoted to student research based on individual interests and in light of these three sets of issues.
Course Goals
• An advanced understanding of religious studies as a contemporary academic discipline
• An advanced competence in speaking, listening, reading, and writing about religion
• An advanced facility with library resources for the study of religion
Course Materials
1. Mark Juergensmeyer, ed., Global Religions: An Introduction (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) (GR)
2. Loyal Rue, Religion Is Not About God: How Spiritual Traditions Nurture Our Biological Nature and What To Expect When They Fail (New Brunswick, NJ, and London: Rutgers University Press, 2005) (RNG)
3. Rodney Stark, One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003) (OTG)
4. Gianni Vattimo, Belief (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999)
5. Readings available from Hutchins Library 2-hour closed reserve (R) or instructor (handout) BACK TO TOP
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
• Participation
in all class sessions. The instructor reserves the right to reduce the final grades of students who miss class. Excuses for absences may be sought, but may not necessarily be granted.
• Submission of weekly responses to assigned readings, e-mailed
to the instructor most Thursdays beginning on September 8, and consisting of questions and concerns raised
for you by each week’s assigned readings. Do not summarize the assigned readings. In order to receive full credit,
the text of each e-mailed response must be no less than 250 words, and should
be composed in clear standard English prose without any mechanical
errors. Each response will be graded pass/fail, and cannot be made up
at a later date.
• Oral presentation of 2 agendas. Classroom discussion at the end of each unit will be facilitated by the oral presentation
of an agenda by one student, as assigned in the course calendar below.
• 1 presentation of your research in progress toward completion of the essay assignment (see below), to be delivered in class as assigned on the course calendar below.
• Completion of 1 research essay, to be e-mailed to the instructor as an attached Microsoft Word document by December 12. Your abstract of this essay is due by e-mail to the instructor on October 28. Further guidelines
for this assignment are available here.
Course Assessment
Reading responses = 20% of course grade
Agenda presentations = 40% of course grade (20% each)
Research presentation = 20% of course grade
Research essay = 20% of course grade BACK TO TOP
Course Calendar
I. MAKING MAPS
The map is not the territory. -- Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950 CE)
Week 1
8/31 Introduction to the course
9/2 Lecture on Sam Gill, “The Academic Study of Religion,” in Theory and Method in the Study of Religion: A Selection of Critical Readings, ed. Carl Olson (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003), 20-25 (R 200.71 T396)
Week 2
9/5 Seminar: Timothy K. Beal, “Seeking Out Lives of Faith, in All Their Awesome Absurdity,” in The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 15, 2005 (B6-B10) (handout)
9/7 Seminar on Stephen Prothero, “Belief Unbracketed: A Case for the Religion Scholar to Reveal More of Where He or She Is Coming From,” in Harvard Divinity Bulletin 32/2 (Winter/Spring 2004): 10-11 (handout)
9/8 READING RESPONSE DUE!
9/9 Bibliographic instruction in Hutchins Library, Room 107
II. MARKING TERRITORY: “Religion Is Not About God”
God is a latecomer in the history of religion. -- Gerardus van der Leeuw (1890-1950 CE)
He was a wise man who invented God. -- Plato (427-347 BCE)
Week 3
9/12 Seminar on Loyal Rue, “Introduction: Religion Generalized and Naturalized” (RNG 1-17)
9/14 Seminar on Loyal Rue, “The Nature of Religion” (RNG 125-164)
9/15 READING RESPONSE DUE!
9/16 Respondent: Kelli B.
Week 4
9/19 Seminar on Loyal Rue, “Christianity” (RNG 194-223)
9/21 Seminar on Harvey Cox, “Christianity” (GR 17-27)
9/22 READING RESPONSE DUE!
9/23 Respondent: Ari P.
Week 5
9/26 Seminar on Loyal Rue, “Islam” (RNG 224-251)
9/28 Seminar on Said Amir Arjomand, “Islam” (GR 28-39)
9/29 READING RESPONSE DUE!
9/30 Respondent: Gabrielle G.
Week 6
10/3 Seminar on Loyal Rue, “Buddhism” (RNG 279-310)
10/5 Seminar on Gananath Obeyeskere, “Buddhism” (GR 63-77)
10/6 READING RESPONSE DUE!
10/7 Respondent: Shoshana G.
How would man exist if God did not need him, and how would you exist? You need God in order to be, and God needs you -- for that is the meaning of your life. -- Martin Buber (1878-1965 CE)
Religious intolerance was inevitably born with the belief in one God. -- Sigmund Freud (1856-1939 CE)
Week 7
10/10 NO CLASS -- MIDTERM READING PERIOD
10/12 Seminar on Rodney Stark, “God’s Nature: A Theory of Gods” (OTG 9-30)
10/13 READING RESPONSE DUE!
10/14 Respondent: Shoshana G.
Week 8
10/17 Seminar on Rodney Stark, “God’s Chosen: Monotheism and Mission” (OTG 31-113)
10/19 NO CLASS -- MOUNTAIN DAY
10/20 READING RESPONSE DUE!
10/21 Respondent: Ari P.
Week 9
10/24 Seminar on Rodney Stark, “God’s Wrath: Religious Conflict” (OTG 115-172)
10/26 Seminar on Rodney Stark, “God’s Grace: Pluralism and Civility” (OTG 219-260)
10/27 READING RESPONSE DUE!
10/28 Respondent: Gabrielle G.
ESSAY ABSTRACTS DUE!
The remarkable thing about the way in which people talk about God, or about their relation to God, is that it seems to escape them completely that God hears what they are saying. -- Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855 CE)
God is a sea of infinite substance. -- John of Damascus (675-749 CE)
Week 10
10/31 Seminar on Gianni Vattimo, Belief, 20-55
11/2 Seminar on Gianni Vattimo, Belief, 56-98
11/3 Meet at 9 a.m. (Respondent: Kelli B.) + READING RESPONSE DUE!
11/4 NO CLASS – INSTRUCTOR AWAY
That which we call sin in others, is experiment for us. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882 CE)
Week 11
11/7 NO CLASS – MEET WITH INSTRUCTOR AS NEEDED
11/9 NO CLASS – MEET WITH INSTRUCTOR AS NEEDED
11/11 NO CLASS – MEET WITH INSTRUCTOR AS NEEDED
Week 12
11/14 Research presenter: Kelli B.
11/16 Research presenter: Ari P.
11/18 Research presenter: Gabrielle G.
Week 13
11/21 Research presenter: Shoshana G.
11/23 NO CLASS -- THANKSGIVING VACATION
11/25 NO CLASS -- THANKSGIVING VACATION
Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know. -- Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592 CE)
Week 14
11/28 Seminar on Loyal Rue, “The Crisis of Influence” (RNG 315-340) with guest Dr. James H. Dontje
11/30 Seminar on Gregory S. Paul, “Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies: A First Look” (Journal of Religion & Society 7 [2005]) with guest Dr. David B. Porter
12/1 READING RESPONSE DUE!
12/2 Seminar on Benjamin R. Barber, “Beyond Jihad vs. McWorld” (The Nation, January 21, 2002) with guest Dr. Scott R. Steele
Week 15
12/5 NO CLASS – MEET WITH INSTRUCTOR AS NEEDED
12/6 Dinner with faculty in religion (6 p.m., Draper 307)
12/7 Concluding conversations and course evaluations
12/12 RESEARCH ESSAY DUE!