Religious Worlds: Making Meaning
First Year Program (FYPR102)
College of the Holy Cross
Smith 422
Phone: Office, 793-3467; Home: 854-1004
e-mail: fmurphy@holycross.edu
web site: www.holycross.edu/departments/religiousstudies/fmurphy/homefjm.html
Office Hours: Wed. and Fri., 11:00-12:00; Mon., 1:45-2:45
Other times by appointment
Since many
worlds must share one world, how then shall we live?
First Year Program Theme
NOTE:
Please read this syllabus thoroughly.
You are responsible for all the information here, all information
conveyed in class, and all information conveyed via e-mail.
This course is part of the First Year Program (FYP), whose theme appears above. This course is therefore different from other courses you will take at Holy Cross, in ways we will discuss in class. Differences from other classes include common readings shared by all courses within the program, events on and off campus which you are required to attend and reflect on, and a theme that ties this course to all others in the program. Everything we do both within the course and in our participation in out-of-class activities will contribute in some way to our exploration of the theme of the existence of many different “worlds” within our one “world.” Our particular approach to the theme will have to do with the study of religion, so our subject is “religious worlds.” We will find that each of the FYP common readings relates to our subject, even when religion is not its main concern.
This is the first semester of what amounts to a two-semester course. What we learn in the first semester will feed into what we study in the second. To the degree that we leave many questions and topics unfinished in the first semester, we can take them up in the second. The first semester will deal primarily with the comparative study of religion, using examples from religions without attempting to study any one religion in depth. In the second semester, we will pay closer attention to specific religions. In the second semester we will give special attention to the way that people from different religious traditions have looked at each other – ways in which their worlds have clashed and in which they have lived in creative peace.
The goals of the first semester are at least threefold. First, we want to understand the academic study of religion. Such study is inherently comparative. It does not deny divine causation in religion, but it takes as its subject matter religion as a human phenomenon. The ways in which religion can be studied in academe are many, but in studying religion as religion, we do not start from the premise that one religion is “true” and all others “false.” Rather, we treat all religions with great respect as ways of making sense of the world and of life, and we learn from each and every religion something of the nature of religion in general. This study does not require that one be a religious “believer,” nor does it preclude it. During the course of the term, we will have ample opportunity to reflect on how our own personal and communal points of view affect how we see the religions of others as well as religion itself as an object of study.
Our second goal is to learn some of the specifics of some religions. In the first semester we will look most closely at Judaism, Christianity, and Native American religions. We will learn more about other religions in the second semester. We will try to do justice both to how religions are similar and how they are different. We do not wish to reduce all religions to some shared “essence,” nor do we wish to deny commonalities shared by different religions.
Our third goal will be to learn something about the various ways in which religion has been thought of in the past by some major figures in the study of religion. We will try to understand how these ways of thinking have contributed to the study of religion and how they have been limited in their usefulness. We will begin this in the first semester and continue it in the second
Although at times I will lecture, in general I want this to be a discussion course. One of the advantages of the FYP is that the class size is small, about the size of a large seminar. We will take advantage of this by emphasizing discussion in classes. For this reason, I have not designated particular sessions for discussion groups. The discussion format demands that each of you take responsibility for your own learning process and for the success of the class as a whole. You must come prepared, not only by having done the readings, but also by having thought about them in depth. You must bring to class comments, clarifications, questions, challenges to the readings, and so on. I am looking not just for your active participation in the class, but for your informed participation. I realize that your personalities and styles differ and that some will be more willing to talk more than others, and I respect that. Nonetheless, as time goes on and we become more familiar with each other, I expect that the supportive and relaxed environment of the class will make it possible for everyone to participate fully.
Each of you must keep an academic journal for the course. I prefer that the journal be in the form of a Microsoft Word file, but if you wish to keep it in a one-course spiral notebook, you may do so. Keeping it as a file will allow for my easy “collection” and “return” of the journal by e-mail. I will collect the journals regularly and make comments on them in a format that will distinguish them from your entries.
You must make entries at least three times a week in your journal. The entries can be as short as a sentence or as long as a page or two. I will be looking for thoughtfulness, for a critical sense of what we are doing in the course and in the program, and for evidence that you are engaging our subject matter in detail. Entries can concern the readings or videos, class discussion, common readings, other FYP activities, ways in which your thoughts about the theme have or have not grown over time, connections you can make with other courses, with current events, with news items, or with conversations with your peers or other professors.
One day a week we will begin class with a short discussion of some news item that you have noticed that relates in some way to our theme. We will begin by designating a specific topic to follow in the news, perhaps the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. This is not a heavy time commitment from you. I am asking only that you read one article on this per week and bring your information on it to class. If you notice something else in the news that is particularly interesting for our purposes, bring that instead. This exercise is meant to keep you making connections between our study and the “real world,” and to encourage you to pay attention to world events beyond Holy Cross. It can also help to give substance to the second part of the formulation of the theme – “How then shall we live” – by making us aware that ideas have consequences and that specific ways of seeing the world can lead to concrete action and results.
I have ordered some books that we will not use until the second semester.
Many of the readings are available on the web site, in handouts, or by other means. Included in the following list are just those you should buy from the bookstore.
The New Oxford Annotated Bible With the Apocrypha. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Berger, Peter. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Anchor Books, 1990.
William E. Paden. Religious Worlds: The Comparative Study of Religion. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994. This will serve as a basic textbook of the course and will help to structure our approach to the study of religion.
Daniel L. Pals. Seven Theories of Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Chinua Achebe. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books, 1994 (1959).
Bill McKibben. The End of Nature. New York: Anchor Books, 1999 (1989).
Leslie Marmon Silko. Ceremony. New York: Penguin, 1986 (1977).
Academic Journal
and
Class Participation |
20% |
|
|
|
|
First
Paper |
10% |
|
Second
Paper |
15% |
|
Third
Paper |
10% |
|
Fourth
Paper |
10% |
|
Fifth
Paper |
15% |
|
Sixth
Paper |
20% |
Details on each of these categories will be discussed in class.
USE OF THE COLLEGE COMPUTER NETWORK
I use the College computer network a great deal for communication. It is very important that you know how to use the network. If you do not, then take steps to learn it. I would be glad to help you do so. In addition its benefits for communication within the course, the network makes available to you a number of resources for research, writing, and so on.
I use e-mail extensively to make announcements to the whole class, to contact individual students, to distribute course materials such as handouts, and to respond to your questions. I also maintain a website on campus, where I post a lot of course materials. To get to my website, go to the Holy Cross home page, then to departments, then to Religious Studies, then to faculty. You should then bookmark my page.
It would also be very helpful to you if you learned to use the electronic resources provided by the library for research purposes. If you do not know how to use those, take some time to explore them to see what is available. Note that using internet sources (other than those supplied or referenced by the library or my links page) for papers needs to be done with great caution, since it is often difficult to know their origin and to judge their reliability. If you plan to use such sources, it would be a good idea to tell me about them so that I can take a look at them myself.
You are responsible for checking your email at least once daily for class announcements, handouts, etc. If I am unable to make it to campus during a storm, I will e-mail the class as soon as I know as I cannot make it.
Please Note: Although I usually stick fairly closely to the syllabus, there is always the possibility that it may change somewhat. You are responsible to know about all changes to the syllabus whether mentioned in class or announced through e-mail.
Sept. 4 W Introduction. General introduction to the course and to the First Year Program.
Sept. 6 F The Study of Religion. What we will do and how we will do it. How religions have been compared in the past: Christian comparisons, rationalism, universalism. For this class, come prepared to offer an answer to the question, “What is religion?”
Reading: Paden, “Introduction”; chapter 1: “Some Traditional Strategies of Comparison.”
Sept. 9 M Common Reading: Things Fall Apart.
Reading: For this entire week the main reading is the
novel Things Fall Apart, a common reading for the whole FYP. You will find some useful internet
materials on my site for the study of this book.
Sept. 11
W Things Fall Apart. Today is the first anniversary of the attack
on the World Trade Center in New York, an event that influenced our choice of
this year’s FYP theme.
Assignment: Come to class prepared to say
how you think the attack on the WTC changed our world. Also think about whether the novel we have
read has anything at all in it that relates to these changes and helps us to
understand them.
Sept. 13
F Things Fall Apart.
Sept. 16
M Rules of the Road. Rules for comparing religions and respecting
the worlds inhabited by others. The
power of language in shaping and expressing our thoughts and attitudes.
Reading: Handouts: “Guidelines
for Inclusive Language” from the Lutheran Church in America; “Rules
for Doing Comparative Religion.”
Sept. 18
W Religion as Making Meaning for Society. The work of Peter Berger has
been very influential in the study of religion. In this session and the next we try to understand his assumptions
and methods.
Reading: Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy, chapter 1: “Religion and World-Construction.”
Sept.
20 F Religion as
Maintaining the Worldview of a Society. Berger’s first chapter
explains how he sees religion as a “world” produced by society. In this chapter, he explains how a society
maintains this “world.”
Reading: Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy, chapter 2: “Religion and World-Maintenance.”
Sept. 23
M Tribal Religion. In traditional tribal societies we can
sometimes see aspects of religion more clearly than in more familiar “world”
religions. On the other hand, we can
easily distort and misinterpret cultures quite different from our own. In this session we will discuss the world of
the Dani of western New Guinea (Irian Jaya).
Viewing: “Dead Birds,” video.
Sept. 25
W More on Tribal Societies. A written description of the beliefs and
life of the Dani. Relationships with
the animal world (American Indians).
Irish tales.
Reading: “Ghosts”
on the web site.
“Hunting
Ethics” on web site.
“Irish
Tales” on web site.
Sept. 27
F The “Scientific” Study of Religion. Beginnings of a new method for
studying religion.
Reading: Daniel Pals, Introduction and chapter
1: “Animism and Magic: E. B. Tylor and J. G. Frazer.”
Sept. 30
M Religion as a Subject Matter. What does it mean to study religion in an
academic context? How has this been
done in the past? How is it done now? What are the pitfalls we need to avoid. What are the presuppositions of such study?
Reading:
William Paden, chapter 2:
“Religion as a Subject Matter.”
Oct. 2
W “Worlds” as an Interpretive Category. An analysis of the concept of
“world” and of how that helps to understand religion.
Reading:
William Paden, chapter 3:
“Worlds.”
Oct. 4 F Religion and Society. Durkheim’s theories of the relation of religion and society.
Oct. 7 M Religion and Society. Biblical examples of the relation of religion and society.
Reading: Jeremiah 7, 26; Deuteronomy 15; Isaiah 58; 1 Corinthians 5-6.
Oct. 9 W Sacred Space. Sacredness localized in specific places and structures.
Reading: Reading from Eliade on web site.
Biblical reading on the Jerusalem Temple: 1 Kings 1-8.
Oct. 11 F Medieval Cathedrals. What does a cathedral mean?
Viewing: the film “Cathedral”
Oct. 14 M
*COLUMBUS DAY HOLIDAY*
Oct. 16 W Common Reading. “Nature” as a world. Human alteration of nature and its result in human “worlds.”
Reading: The End of Nature by Bill McKibben.
Oct. 18 F Common Reading Continued.
Reading: The End of Nature.
Oct. 21 M Myth. Defining myth. Myth as an essential element of religion.
Reading: William Paden, chapter 4: “Myth.”
Ancient Israelite Myth: Genesis 1-11.
Oct. 23 W Israel’s Story as Myth. Israel’s sacred narrative as the foundation of a religion.
Reading: Murphy on the web site.
Oct. 25 F Torah in Judaism. Judaism’s central, expanding symbol.
Reading: Exodus 19; Sirach 24; Proverbs 8-9; Psalm 119; Reading from Dead Sea Scrolls.
Oct. 28 M Christ in Christianity. Christ and creation; Christianity’s adaptation of the Jewish creation myth.
Reading: John 1:1-18; Colossians 1; Romans 5; 1 Corinthians 15; Philippians 2.
Oct. 30 W An Overview of Christianity. An attempt to see the shape of Christianity as a whole.
Reading: Sandra Frankiel, “The Structures of Christian Life,” on the web site.
Nov. 1 F Ritual: Sacred Action and Sacred Time. Defining ritual and determining its functions and relation to other aspects of religion.
Readings: William Paden, chapter 5: “Ritual and Time”
Nov. 4 M Biblical Examples of Ritual. Ancient Israel and priestly religion.
Readings: Sacrifice: Leviticus 1-7; Ordination of sacred persons: Leviticus 8-9; Day of Atonement: Leviticus 16.
Nov. 6 W Early Christian Ritual. Eucharist and baptism.
Readings: Mark 14:12-26 and parallels in Matthew 26 and Luke 22; John 13; 1 Corinthians 11, 14; Justin Martyr’s description of the eucharist; eucharist in the Didache (the last two are on the web site); Matthew 28:16-20; Romans 6.
Nov. 8 F American ritual. American civil religion. The Super Bowl.
Reading: Robert Bellah: “Civil Religion” (on the web site).
Football (on the web site).
Nov. 11 M Gods. Male and female deities in all their variety.
Reading: William Paden, chapter 6: “Gods.”
Nov. 13 W Native American Religion: Myths.
Reading: TBA
Nov. 15 F Native
American Religion: Ritual.
Reading: TBA
Nov. 18 M Common Reading. Native Americans in a white world, mid-20th century.
Reading: Ceremony by Leslie Silko.
Nov. 20 W Common
Reading Continued.
Nov. 22 F Common
Reading Continued.
Nov. 25 M Purity. Categories, boundaries, encoded values.
Reading: William Paden, chapter 7: “Systems of Purity.”
Dec. 2 M Biblical Examples of Purity. Ancient Israelite and Jewish religion. Jesus the reformer addresses purity.
Reading: Murphy on priestly religion on web site.
Mark 2-3; 7.
Dec. 4 W Israel’s Dietary Rules. Mary Douglas’s interpretation of Israel’s dietary rules as a symbolic system.
Reading: Mary Douglas, “The Abominations of Leviticus,” on web site.
Leviticus 11.
Dec. 6 F Pilgrimage. The role of pilgrimage in religion.
Viewing: Mecca: “No God but God”
Deuteronomy 16
Dec. 9 M Recapitulation and Reflection. Here we discuss the “So what?” question of our study. What have we gained by trying to develop a comparative view of religion? What are the limitations in what we have done? Where can we go from here?
Reading: William Paden, chapter 8: “Comparative Perspective: Some Concluding Points.”