Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion

Fall 2006

V90.0001.001.FA06     194 Mercer Street, Room 307

Course Logic

In the wake of the Reformation, discovery of the new world, the Wars of Religion, and the growth of the Enlightenment, religion became a problem as never before.  This class will trace the effects of these events from the early modern period through the present. We will focus on two wide-ranging narratives. The first of these concerns the declining authority of God and the reciprocal ascent of the individual as it develops through Luther's theology, Descartes' epistemology, and Locke's liberalism and finally arrives in the consumer technologies of contemporary cosmopolises.  The second concerns the birth and growth of the academic study of religion alongside the disciplines of anthropology, psychology, and sociology.

The course is divided into three main sections.  In the first we examine how the academic study of religion emerges from Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment critiques of religion.  How, for example, do Hume's critique of miracles and Nietzsche's devaluation of values open the possibility of understanding religion as one object of inquiry among others?  In the next section we will examine how religion becomes an object of study for the newly founded academic study of religion. We will ask, for example, how some of the most important figures of this discipline defined religion, where they located its origin, and what they thought about its future.  It is important that we understand these theories on their own terms.  We cannot simply dismiss Tyler or Muller because they show the imprint of their time. Only by understanding, as Ivan Strenski has said, why these theorists thought they were right can we hope to gain insight into our own problems.  Armed with these tools, we will move into the final section of the course that addresses some of the most pressing issues of our day, including neoliberalism, secularization, postcoloniality, and media.

This class draws into question many of the unreflective conceptions of religion that circulate today, from new-age assumptions about the difference between religion and spirituality to those that guide our foreign and domestic policy.  First and foremost, this is a class about learning to ask probing questions. In a world where religion is both the guarantor of mass murder and unbounded generosity, such questions have rarely been more important. 

Required Texts

Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. (Recommended)

Carrette, Jeremy R., and Richard King. 2005. Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion. London; New York: Routledge.

Eliade, Mircea. 1961. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harper.

Freud, Sigmund, James Strachey, and Peter Gay. 1989. The Future of an Illusion. New York: Norton.

Foucault, Michel, and Paul Rabinow. 1984. The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon Books.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Walter Arnold Kaufmann. 1982. The Portable Nietzsche. New York: Penguin Books.

Weber, Max. 1998. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Los Angeles, Calif.: Roxbury Pub.

Note on Readings

Readings marked as EOR are drawn from the following source:

Jones, Lindsay. Encyclopedia of Religion. 2nd ed. 15 vols. Detroit, Mich.: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005.

Readings marked as EOP are drawn from the following source:

Craig, Edward, and Routledge (Firm). Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 10 vols. London ; New York: Routledge, 1998. Available online at: http://www.rep.routledge.com/index.html

Required readings are available on Blackboard and as a reader from University Copy

Center at 11 Waverly Place between Mercer and Greene.

All required and recommended readings are available on Blackboard.

Course Requirements and Grading

This course is difficult.  There is a lot of reading, and most of it is very dense. You should complete all assigned readings before class and be preparedto discuss them.  Class participation (not simply attendance) will constitute 10% of your final grade.  You are also required to complete five response papers and two take home exams.

Grade Breakdown

Participation: 10%

Five response papers:  25%

Take home midterm: 25%

Take home final: 40%

Assistance

Additional assistance for this class is available to you free of charge at the College Learning Center located on the 1st Floor of Weinstein Hall (right behind Java City).  For information on one-on-one and group peer tutoring, please stop by the CLC or go to their website: http://www.nyu.edu/cas/clc

Topics and Readings

Part 1 The Problem of Religion

Week 1 Religion, Religions, and Religious Studies (Sept. 5, 7)

Required

1)      Gill, Sam. 'The Academic Study of Religion'. In Journal of the American Academy of Religion LXII:4, 201-211.

2)      Fitzgerald, Timothy. 2000. The Ideology of Religious Studies. New York: Oxford University Press. 1-32.

3)      Lincoln, Bruce. "Theses on Method." Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, Volume 17, Number 1, 2005, pp. 8-10(3).

4)      Alles, Gregory. D. "Religion [Further Considerations]." in EOR .

Recommended

1)      Bayly, C. A. The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914: Global Connections and Comparisons. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2004. 325365.

2)      Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. 1963. The Meaning and End of Religion; a New Approach to the Religious Traditions of Mankind. New York,: Macmillan. 1-50.

3)      Masuzawa, Tomoko. "World Religions." in EOR .

Week 2 Natural Reason and the limits of (European) visibility  (Sept. 12, 14)

Required

1)      Kant, Immanuel "An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?" (1784).

2)      Hume, David. 1955. An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company Inc. "Of Miracles."

3)      Hume, David, J. C. A. Gaskin, and David Hume. 1998. Principal writings on religion including Dialogues concerning natural religion ; and, The natural history of religion. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. 134-85.

4)      Lord Herbert of Cherbury. "Common notions concerning Religion." (1624).

Recommended

1)      Strenski, Ivan. Thinking About Religion: An Historical Introduction to Theories of Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2006. 1-32.

2)       Wood, Allen. W. "The Enlightenment." in EOR.

Week 3 Have you seen my god? Nietzsche's Illuminating Madness  (Sept. 19, 21)

Required

1)      Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Walter Arnold Kaufmann. 1982. The Portable Nietzsche. Viking Portable Library. New York: Penguin Books. 115-191.

2)      Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1967. The will to power. Translated by W. Kaufmann. New York: Random House. Selections.

Recommended

1)      Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Walter Arnold Kaufmann. 1982. The Portable Nietzsche. Viking Portable Library. New York: Penguin Books. 1-17, 565-656.

2)      Kaufmann, Walter Arnold. 1974. Nietzsche: philosopher, psychologist, antichrist. 4th ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Selections. 

3)      Altizer, Thomas. "Eternal Recurrence and Kingdom of God." in Allison, David B. 1985. The new Nietzsche: contemporary styles of interpretation. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Part 2 The Birth of the Academic Study of Religion

Week 4 Your Inner Primitive 

Required

1)      Tyler, Edward Burnett. 1866. "The religion of the Savages." Selections.

2)       Tyler, Edward Burnett. 1891. Primitive Culture. Selections.

3)      Müller, F. Max. 1867. Chips from a German workshop. London: Longmans, Green. Selections.

4)      Durkheim, Émile. 1965. The elementary forms of the religious life. New York: Free Press. 1-63.

Recommended

1)      Strenski, Ivan. "Emile Durkheim." in EOR. 

2)      Morris, Brian. 1987. Anthropological studies of religion: an introductory text. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. 91-140.

Week 5 "What! Would you have the Lord find me idle when He comes?": Weber's Thesis (Oct. 3, 5)

Required

1)      Weber, Max. 1998. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 2nd Roxbury edition. Los Angeles, Calif.: Roxbury Pub. 

Recommended

1)      Brinbaum, Norman. "Max Weber" in EOR. 

2)      Strenski, Ivan. Thinking About Religion: An Historical Introduction to Theories of Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2006. 233-259.

Week 6 It's Getting Dark in Here: Freud (Sept. 26, 28)

Required

1)      Freud, Sigmund, James Strachey, and Peter Gay. 1989. The Future of an Illusion. New York: Norton.

2)      Freud, Sigmund.1964. "Obsessive Actions and Religious Practices," in The Origins of Religion. London: Penguin. 31-41.

Recommended

1)      Strenski, Ivan. Thinking About Religion: An Historical Introduction to Theories of Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2006. 198-232.

2)       Homans, Peter. "Sigmund Freud." in EOR.

Week 7 Where should I put this Axis Mundi? Eliade (Oct. 10, 12)

Required

1)      Eliade, Mircea. 1961. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harper. 8-68.

2)      Smith, Jonathan Z. 1993. Map is not territory: studies in the history of religions. University of Chicago Press ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 289-309.

3)      Gill, Sam. "No place to Stand: Jonathan Z. Smith as Homo ludens, The Academics Study of Religion sub specie ludi" Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 66/2 (1998): 283-312.

Recommended

1)      Eliade, Mircea. 1961. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harper. 68-113; 162-213.

2)      Kitagawa, Joseph. "Mircea Eliade"EOR.  

3)      Rennie, Brian "Mircea Eliade [Further Considerations]." EOR. 

Week 8 Soft on the Inside: Geertz (Oct. 17, 19)

Required

1)      Geertz, Clifford. 2000. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, 2000 edition. New York: Basic Books. 3-30, 87-126.

2)      Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 27-54

Recommended

1)      Chidester, David "The Church of Baseball, the Fetish of Baseball and the Potlatch of Rock 'n' Roll: Theoretical Models for the Study of Religion in American Popular Culture" JAAR v.64 n.4 p. 743.

2)      Pals, Daniel L., and Daniel L. Pals. 2005. Eight theories of religion. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. 260-291.

Week 9 Radical History: Michel Foucault Brings the Power (Oct. 24, 26)

Required

1)      Foucault, Michel, and Paul Rabinow. 1984. The Foucault reader. 1st ed. New York: Pantheon Books. 31-75, 170-213.

2)      Hacking, Ian. 2002. Historical Ontology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 73-86, 99-120.

Recommended

1)      Foucault, Michel, and Paul Rabinow. 1984. The Foucault reader. 1st ed. New York: Pantheon Books. 1-30, 76-100, 340-372, 381-390. 

2)      Foucault, Michel, Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller. 1991. The Foucault effect : studies in governmentality : with two lectures by and an interview with Michel Foucault. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. 87-104.

Part 3 Religion in the Present

Week 10 Oh! There's my god: Secular, Secularism, Secularization (Nov. 7, 9)

Required

1)      Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. 1-17.

2)      Casanova, José. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1-66.

Recommended

1)      Fox, Judith. "Secularization." in Hinnells, John R. 2005. The Routledge companion to the study of religion. New York, NY: Routledge. 

2)      Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. 20-66, 181-256.

3)      Mitchell, Timothy. 1991. 'The Limits of State: Beyond Statist Approaches Their Critics'. In The American Political Science Review 85:1, 77-96.

Week 11 Managing Religion on the Frontiers of Empire (Nov. 14, 16)

Required

1)      Chidester, David. 1996. Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion in Southern Africa. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. 1-30.

2)      King Richard.  "Orientalism and the study of religions." in Hinnells, John R. 2005. The Routledge companion to the study of religion. New York, NY: Routledge.

3)      Cohn, Bernard S. 1996. 'The Command of Language and the Language of Command,' in (ed), Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 19-56.

Recommended

1)      King, Richard. 1999. Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and 'the Mystic East'. London; New York: Routledge. 82-117.

Week 12  Thanksgiving Break

1)      Movie

Week 13 Bottle that Aura! (Nov. 28, 30)

Required

1)      Benjamin, Walter, and Hannah Arendt. 1986. Illuminations. New York: Schocken Books. 217-252.

2)      Certeau, Michel de, Luce Giard, and Pierre Mayol. 1998. The Practice of Everyday Life. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 177-190.

3)      Heidegger, Martin. 1977. "The Age of the World Picture." The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. New York: Harper and Row. 115-154.

Recommended

1)      Morgan, David. 2005. The sacred gaze: religious visual culture in theory and practice. Berkeley: University of California Press. Selections.

Week 14. The Benjamins: Spirituality and the Price of your Soul (Dec. 5, 7)

Required

1)      Carrette, Jeremy R., and Richard King. 2005. Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion. London; New York: Routledge.

Week 15 Wrap it up (Dec. 12)