RELI 10: What is Religion?
Fall 2008
T TH 12:45 - 2:10

Dr. Ann Burlein
104 Heger Hall
office hours: TTh 2:15-3:15
Ann.Burlein@Hofstra.edu
516-463-7238
 

The Psalter map* accompanied a 13th century book of Psalms. Legend says that medieval mapmakers wrote "here be dragons"
at the edge of their known world. Here they drew dragons at the base of the map, below the world.

J.Z. Smith used to say that the only place one could find religion was in the scholar's study. But this he meant that no one ever does 'religion' in the sense that the course title uses the term. If you do religion, you do a particular one (and even then, you do not practice all forms of Judaism at once, but Conservative or Reform or whatever). The wager of religious studies is that you learn something worthwhile if you stand back and study, not just particular religions, but 'religion.' That said (and despite the class title), scholars long ago gave up trying to come up with a definition of religion that fit all forms of religiosity across all time and space: religions have been, are, and will be just too diverse!  

The purpose of this class is to introduce you to the study of 'religion' by looking briefly at Judaism, Christianity and Islam. By the end of this class you will be able to describe some basic aspects of their historical contexts, as well as be able to relate that history to key texts and  practices/rituals.

But religious studies is about more than description. As part of our investigation of why it might be worthwhile to think about 'religion,' by the end of the class you will be able to analyze:

• ritual communication: how do embodied practices communicate religious beliefs and feelings, perceptions and ideas? This is the 'logic' (which can be contradictory, just like life) by which a worldview is formed and transmitted, resisted and changed. (This is departmental learning goal #1: knowledge).
• episteme: The notion of episteme argues that beneath different worldviews there might be shared rules by which worldviews are formed. Foucault called the shared rules by which different logics or worldviews get formed an 'episteme.' It is the fact that different worldviews can share a common episteme that enables us to agree to disagree; we recognize another point of view as true or false. When you come up against an episteme that differs from yours, you encounter what Foucault described as 'the stark impossibility of thinking that!' The primary episteme that we will ponder in this class is that between the ancient and the modern. Is religion different from philosophy, style of life, science? When we say we live in a secular world, just what do we mean? (This is departmental learning goal #3 -- analysis; but morphing into goal # 5: evaluation).  

But studying religion is about more than analysis and evaluation.  The point of standing in the scholar's place and thinking about religion in general (which no one lives) is to ask questions that you could not ask if you stand within the situated perspective of an actual life (either inside a religion as a believer or beside that religion as someone who studies it and only it). The wager of religious studies is that thinking through difference enables you to ask larger questions. The primary way we as a class will learn to do this is through our overall theme of Religion and its Monsters. What is religion, really? Who knows ... really? What kind of thing can you learn if you try to understand different worldviews and maybe even different epistemes? Asking these questions propels you (and me) into the dimension of un-knowing, of opening a space of freedom beyond the known answers: what if religion was that? This not-knowing is part of what it means to think comparatively and thus, to theorize religion in general: to open up a space where you think analogously, migrating back and forth between different concrete situations. The wager of religious studies is that thinking through difference is productive.  

Required materials to be purchased: 

• Timothy Beal, Religion and its Monsters (New York: Routledge, 2002). 
• Plato, Phaedo.  
• Selected readings to be accessed (as PDFs) through Blackboard by section only. 

You MUST bring a copy of whatever material is assigned for the day to class!
 

Studying religion is both an academic and a personal exercise. In your written assignments you will be graded on thinking and argumentation. I will not grade your personal beliefs or non-belief.  Nor will I grade or the particular position you take. I will grade how well you articulate why you (or someone) thinks this way as well as your ability to reflect critically on the position you take.

Academic Dishonesty: This course is dedicated to helping you develop your own thinking about what religion is. Thus I regard plagiarism as a serious violation of the academic compact, because it involves passing off someone else's thought as your own. This can happen by copying someone else's words or re-phrasing someone else's ideas in your words. Neither is your own thought: If through conversation with you I determine that you have committed an academic violation, you will receive a zero for the assignment and I will file a report to the Provost and Dean (as per University policy). I regard cheating on a test similarly: you are encouraged to work and study with others before the test, but when you are in a test you are on your own, without notes or cell.   

How I convert letter grades into numbers

In order to return your work to you promptly with detailed and constructive feedback, I do not accept late work. You will earn an F, and will forfeit your right to my feedback. If there is an emergency or a tragedy in your life and you need an exception, you must communicate with me BEFORE the due-date. This includes tests: if you are too sick to attend class on a day when we are scheduled to take a test, you must call and let me know BEFORE class begins that you will not be able to take the test and arrange time for a make-up. 

• There is no one textbook that holds this class together. As a result, attendance in class and in your discussion sections is crucial. To reflect this, 20% of your grade will come from your participation. You are expected to 1) attend ALL classes, 2) have read and prepared ALL assignments before coming to class and 3) DISCUSS relevant issues, in class and especially in your section.  If you are someone who rarely speaks, then this will be an opportunity for you to work with me to find ways to help you feel more comfortable speaking in class. If you are someone who often speaks in class, then this will be an opportunity for you to learn how to monitor your speaking by limiting your contributions so that others have a chance to jump in.  

Because there is no one textbook that holds this class together, absences in this class work like karma. You have two days to be absent without consequences. On your third day of absence, you lose all benefit of the doubt when it comes to your final grade. For every absence thereafter, you lose 1/3 of a letter grade from your final grade. (This means you have two cuts. You do not. If you cut class twice in the beginning of the semester, and then become sick at the end, karma will take effect).

When you are absent, YOU are responsible to find out from another student what went on in class and for making up the work that you missed.  MAKE FRIENDS. If you are absent on a day when we are scheduled to take a test, see the above policy on late work.
 

• 55% of your grade will come from 3 tests, designed to test both a) your mastery of content and b) your mastery of interpretive and analytical skills through short answer questions and/or essays. (The first test is worth 15%; the others 20%).  

• 25% of your grade will come from a think and do piece in which you test what I think is the central of wager of religious studies: thinking through difference is productive in the sense that it can get you to think outside of your own box of what religion is. I will not grade you on what you do, or on its outcome (this is life, after all): I will grade you on the un-learning and thinking you do as a result. So what might you do? You could sponsor an event (speaker, film, you name it) in your dorm (or some group that you belong to) that gets people to engage with the issues of this class (religion and difference; religion and suffering; religion and science). Students often tell me that they deliberately avoid talking about these issues with their friends or family: you could get 'your people' together and do that. You could write something for the school paper. You could teach a class at your mosque, temple, church, synagogue -- whatever you do. You could visit a religion we study and analyze the ritual using Carey's ritual communication. You could blog. You could learn about religious hate crimes in your place (campus; neighborhood -- wherever feels like 'home' to you). You could learn about the power of ritual communication by breaking it in your own home community (don't go visit somewhere and do this!). You could do something totally outrageous that I could not even dream of, being an old boring professor who thinks reading theory is a good time. Do something fun! Whatever you do, it must be something that really engages you... and pushes you (just a bit) out of your comfort zone vis-a-vis the issues we are discussing in this class.
  *** Your proposal is due Tuesday Oct 14. You must write one page (300 words) telling me what you will do; and one page (300 words) explaining why you think that doing this will spur you to reflect upon what you think religion is. 
  *** THEN: You will write a 5 page think piece reflecting on how whatever it is you did helped you: 1) to take the wager of getting out of a particular situation and stand in the scholar's place of regarding 'religion in general'; and 2) to think through difference in a productive way by questioning the very category of religion. NOTE: You MUST engage with at least one of our course readings. Due December 9 at the beginning of class.

Course Schedule

• Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception, 70.
• Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morality, 92.
  
  Intro to key concepts: religion as lived/ in general; ritual communication, episteme and the 3 equations.

1) Beal, Introduction, 1-10. Reading guide.
2) View contemporary map of Middle East
3) View a contemporary map of Muslim Distribution across the globe
4) View a map of Ancient Near East.

1) Beal, chp one, 13-22. Reading Guide.
2) Beal, chp two, 23-33. Reading Guide
3) Enuma Elish
4) Genesis One (The reading I gave you includes more chapters: they are for later!).
5) Exodus 15 

1) Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions, "Torah," "Sacred Practices," "Holy Days," and "Contemporary Judaism," in Living Religions, 90-106.
2) Robert Goldenberg, "A Talmudic Glossary," from Back to the Sources, ed. Barry Holtz, 132-top of 144.
 

Samuel Heilman, When a Jew Dies, 80-83, 92-100, 119-128, 134-135, 153-60, 162-181.
NOTE: In Blackboard, you must read Parts A and B (the pdf split the file.)
Listen to the Kaddish.
Optional: pages 31-42 and 53-69. 

1) View the Beginner's Guide to Arabic Prayers.
2) Cleary, The Essential Koran, 1-18, and 43.
3) Click to see the first chapter of the Quran, which is called the Fatihah. If you are at a computer with speakers, you can hear it in Arabic.
4) View calligraphy by clicking here and here.

 

Michael Wolfe, The Hadj: An American's Pilgrimage to Mecca, chp 9, chp 11, chp 18 and chp 19.
NOTE: In Blackboard, you must read Parts A and B (the pdf split the file.)

Listen to the Talbiya.

Review for test
Study Guide #1 (thru Judaism)
Study Guide #1 (thru Judaism) -- in Word 2003

Plato, Phaedo, 57-69e (these are the line numbers that are on the margins of your page)
Note: If you have the Jowett translation, there are no line numbers on the side. Sigh! So: Your reading is regular pages 69-83.
Phaedrus  lines 49 a-d.

Connolly, "Pluralism and Evil," from Pluralism (Durham: Duke, 2005), 11-37.