Spring 2023

What Is Religion Anyway?: Theories and Methods in Religious Studies

Listed in: Religion, as RELI-210

Faculty

Rebecca Stephens Falcasantos (Section 01)

Description

What does religious studies study? How do its investigations proceed? Can a religion only be truly understood from within, by those who share its beliefs and values? Or, on the contrary, is only the person who stands “outside” religion equipped to study and truly understand it? Is there a generic “something” that we can properly call “religion” at all or is the concept of religion, which emerged from European Enlightenment, inapplicable to other cultural contexts? This course will explore several of the most influential efforts to develop theories of religion and methods for its study. We will consider psychological, sociological, anthropological, and phenomenological theories of religion, along with recent challenges to such theories from thinkers associated with feminist, post-modern and post-colonial perspectives.

Spring semester. Professor Falcasantos.

How to handle overenrollment: null

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Close reading and analysis of unfamiliar texts; brief written reflections; classroom discussions and presentations; formally written papers.

RELI 210 - LEC

Section 01
M 12:30 PM - 1:50 PM CHAP 204
W 12:30 PM - 1:50 PM CHAP 204

ISBN Title Publisher Author(s) Comment Book Store Price
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012 Fediman, Anne Required Amherst Books TBD

These books are available locally at Amherst Books.

Offerings

Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2023, Spring 2025