Religion and Politics

L57 RelPol 120A Religious Freedom in America

The intersection of religion and law in American society has sparked some of the fiercest cultural engagements in recent memory: Should a for-profit religious corporation have a right not to fund birth control for its employees? Can a public college expel campus religious groups whose membership is not open to all students? May a Muslim in prison grow a beard for religious reasons? Should a cake baker or a florist be permitted to refuse services for a gay wedding? Can a church hire and fire its ministers for any reason? These current debates and the issues that frame them are interwoven in the American story. This course introduces students to the major texts and historical arguments underlying that story. Drawing from the respective expertise of the instructors, the course will expose students to a variety of scholarly methods related to the issue: legal history and case law, intellectual history and canonical texts, social history and narrative accounts, and political philosophy and contemporary analyses. This course is for first-year (non-transfer) students only.
Same as I60 BEYOND 120

Credit 3 units. EN: H

L57 RelPol 201 Religion and American Society

This course explores religious life in the United States. We will focus our study on groups and movements that highlight distinctive ways of being both "religious" and "American," including the Americanization of global religions in the U.S. context. Major themes will include religious encounter and conflict; secularization, resurgent traditionalism, and new religious establishments; experimentalism, eclecticism, and so-called "spiritual" countercultures; the relationship between religious change and broader social and political currents (including clashes over race, class, gender and sexuality); and the challenges of religious multiplicity in the U.S. Students will: 1) acquire knowledge of the disparate religions practiced in North America during the 20th century and beyond; 2) examine some of the chief conflicts as well as alliances between religion and the American social order in a global context; and 3) develop interpretive tools for understanding religion's present and enduring role in the U.S. and the world.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD BU: ETH EN: H

L57 RelPol 203 Religions of St. Louis: The Intersection of Faith and Politics Across the Region

The St. Louis region is home to a diverse array of global religious communities, many with strong political leanings. This course directly introduces students to some of this religious and political variety by coordinating weekly fieldtrips to living institutions and interacting with religious leaders across traditions. In any given semester, our visits may include organizations that identify as Catholic, mainline Protestant, Evangelical, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Vedantist, Scientological, progressive Baptist, or secular humanist, among others. We will also visit the International Institute of St. Louis and study the politics of immigration and refugee resettlement that have helped shape the city. Through our visits and conversations, the multiplicity of each religious community will become apparent as we encounter adherents across the political spectrum, embodying different ethnicities and committed to different degrees of "orthodoxy" or traditional belief and practice. Students should emerge from the course able to analyze the complex intersections of religion and politics in the St. Louis metropolitan area, illustrative of the United States as a whole. Note: All required site visits will take place during the regular class time.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD BU: ETH EN: H

L57 RelPol 209 Scriptures and Cultural Traditions: America's Bible

When we think of the word "scripture" in antiquity, we might think of the texts that have been compiled in the different holy books that we currently have today. Yet the function of "scriptures" within a community, and the status given to different texts treated as "scriptural," has changed in different times and places. In this course, we will consider texts that would eventually come to be part of the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and the Qu'ran as well as several of the exegetes and reading communities that shaped their various interpretations. We will explore how non-canonical sources played a role in the formation of the various canons we have today, comparing the authoritative status given to these texts to that given to other works from antiquity, such as the epics of Homer. Special attention will be played to the role of the receiving community in the development of "scripture," and the variety of the contexts in which scripture can function in the construction of and opposition to religious authority.
Same as L93 IPH 209

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH EN: H

L57 RelPol 210 The Good Life Between Religion and Politics

What constitutes a life well lived? How do we imagine answers to that question? Who gets to answer that question for us? Do we ask it as an "us" or as an individual? This course considers the way religious and political thought has shaped considerations of the classical ethical question of how we should live and the way that ethics has often served to connect religion and politics in thought and practice. Do we need a religious basis to answer ethical questions, or can we determine how to live without religious sources of authority? Is ethics a project of an individual or of communities? If the latter, are these political communities, religious ones, or something else? On what basis or with what capacities can we imagine new answers to ethical questions, either in community or on our own? We will discuss these questions and more through a consideration of a range of answers to the question of how we should live.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH EN: H

L57 RelPol 215 Performing Religion, Ritualizing Gender

What's the difference between a wink and a blink? What the difference between graduation, a sacrament, and the electric slide? We make fine-grained distinctions every day in our own enactment and interpretation of these different kinds of practices. This class will introduce students to key academic approaches to "ritual," "practice" and "performance," and will ask whether these distinctions are important or arbitrary. Ritual studies (based in religious studies) also happens to center around the very same questions that gave birth to gender and queer studies (is gender a performance?), thus a parallel examination of ritual and performance studies necessarily brings religious identity into conversation with broader questions of identity (gender, race, class).

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H

L57 RelPol 225 Religion and Politics in American History

The United States has often been imagined as both a deeply Christian nation and a thoroughly secular republic. These competing visions of the nation have created conflict throughout American history and have made the relationship between religion and politics quite contentious. This course surveys the complex entanglements of religion and public life from the colonial era through the contemporary landscape. Topics covered include: religious liberty and toleration, secularization, the rise of African-American churches, the Civil War, national identity and the Protestant establishment, the religious politics of women's rights, religion and the presidency, the Cold War, the religious left and right, and debates over church-state separation.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H

L57 RelPol 230 Black-Jewish Relations in the United States

The relationship of blacks and Jews in the United States is at once intimate and strained, mutually beneficial and antagonistic. This course examines this uneasy alliance from a number of perspectives including anthropology, politics and identity politics, history, religion and class. Beginning with American anthropology's Jewish founding father, Franz Boas, challenging the concept of race, the course traces the relations of blacks and Jews throughout the 20th century and in our contemporary moment. We will pay particular attention to the civil rights era, which is commonly upheld as the golden age of black-Jewish relations, as well as to this alliance's unraveling in the post-civil rights era. The course then moves to a unit focused on more recent ruptures and collaborations including the 1991 Crown Heights race riots, during which Orthodox Jews clashed with their black neighbors, and Jewish involvement in the Black Lives Matter movement. The course concludes with a unit on identity and identity politics focused on the complexity and fluidity of the categories "white," "black" and "Jewish."

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD BU: BA EN: H

L57 RelPol 235 Puritans and Revolutionaries: Religion and the Making of America

This course introduces students to the history of religion and politics in America from the English settlements of Virginia and Massachusetts Bay during the early 17th century through the constitutional debates of the 1780s. It pays attention to both formal legal issues regarding religious establishments and wider matters concerning political sentiments and their relationship to religious ideas or values. The course does not advocate a defining argument or single ideological "point"; rather, it facilitates a series of observations of how different positions on the role of religion in early America made sense in their respective historical contexts. Social, political, and intellectual variables made for shifting understandings of what religious ideas mattered to public life in America and how those ideas ought to shape civil affairs.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: BA EN: H

L57 RelPol 240 Jewish Political Thought

This course uses the concepts of political theory to explore the diverse Jewish political tradition. While this tradition includes writing from and about the three historical periods of Jewish self-rule (including the modern state of Israel), most of the Jewish political tradition comes from the understanding of politics as viewed from outsiders to mainstream communities. Additionally, Jewish political thought can be found through a Jewish community's self-understanding based on its interpretation of Jewish text and law by which it bound itself. Because we span over 2,000 years of recorded history, we will not attempt to discern a single "Jewish political thought" but rather look at JPT through the lens of familiar concepts of political theory. The fundamental questions we will explore are the relationship of the Jewish tradition to concepts such as authority, law, consent, sovereignty and justice. We will ask how the Jewish tradition views government and the relationship between the authority of God and the authority of temporal powers. We will explore these questions through a range of materials that include both primary and secondary literature.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: BA EN: H

L57 RelPol 245 Love and Reason

Love often seems dramatically unreasonable, and reason can seem coldly rational in a way that excludes any emotion, passion, or affiliation even akin to love. The supposed opposition between love and reason has been used by Christian and secular thinkers throughout modernity to organize ways of knowing and judging, and to criticize claims of faith, belief, and desire. But are love and reason really so distinct? What does it mean to say so, and why might someone make this claim? Can love be reasoned, and even reasonable? Can reason be aided by love, and even driven by it? How might different answers to these questions affect our understanding of other possibly unreasoned categories like faith, belief, and piety? This course offers an introduction to modern Christian thought and Western philosophy through these questions and themes.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH, HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 250 Zionism

Zionism is often thought of as a commitment to the principle that the Jewish People, as a distinct "people," has a right to self-determination in its own historical land of the biblical Palestine. Yet the history of the term and the set of ideologies show a much more complex understanding. In this course we trace the emergence of a number of different "Zionisms" that would lead to the creation of the modern state of Israel. And we explore how the political principles at the core of these ideologies have fared in the 65 years since the founding of the modern Jewish state. The course is at its heart applied political theory: a case study of the way that ideas emerge from historical events, take on a life of their own, and then shape real outcomes in the world. The readings will weave together history, philosophy, literature and government.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: LCD, SSC Arch: SSC Art: SSC BU: BA EN: S

L57 RelPol 255 Religion, Environmentalism, and Politics

This course explores the intersections of anthropology, theology, economic interests, and activism. We will draw on a range of sources including social-scientific theories about religion and ritual, discussions of disenchantment and re-enchantment, and indigenous claims to land. These theoretical frameworks will provide context for discussing contemporary religious responses to ecological disaster, including both environmentalist and anti-environmentalist movements.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H

L57 RelPol 260 Religion in the African-American Experience: A Historical Survey

This course introduces students to important themes in the history of African-American, and thus in American, religious history, among them slavery, emancipation, urbanization, migration, consumer culture, sexuality, politics and media technologies. Primary attention is given to Afro-Protestantism in North America and the cultural, social and religious practices and traditions of these black communities. However, students will also be introduced to specific expressions of religious diversity and varying religious traditions and practices in African-American communities.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD BU: ETH EN: H

L57 RelPol 280 African-American Religions

This course is an introduction to African-American religions, and it attends to the changes wrought in indigenous African religions by enslavement, the adoption of Christianity by slaves themselves, the building of African-American denominations, the rise of new black religious movements, and the role of religion in contemporary African-American life. The course begins with a brief introduction to key themes and problems in the study of African-American religions. The second part, which makes up the bulk of the course, moves chronologically and situates African and African-American religions in their shifting cultural and political contexts from the beginning of the European slave trade to the present. We will discuss African-Americans' practice of several religious traditions: indigenous African religions, Islam, Protestant and Catholic Christianity, and new religious movements. The final part of the course focuses on several key issues and debates that are informed by the study of African-American religions and that have important connections with contemporary American life.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, ETH, HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 285 Islam in America

In this course, we examine the notion of a religiously plural America and analyze Muslims' place within it. We consider the ways that American Muslims both shape and are shaped by U.S. society as both religious actors with autonomy and as a marginalized outgroup. In our approach to understanding Islam in America, we will use the category of race to explore three major themes: (1) the history of Muslims in the United States; (2) the lived experiences of American Muslims, including how they engage sacred texts and rituals; and (3) the phenomenon of Islamophobia.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, ETH, HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 290 Islamophobia & U.S. Politics

The presence of Muslim minorities in the West is increasingly divisive across the United States and Europe as political leaders appeal to voters' fear of the "other" to promote Islamophobic agendas that reshape immigration and asylum policies and redefine Western identity as Christian. Politicians further exploit the rise of extremist groups like ISIS to justify anti-Muslim rhetoric and to critique multiculturalism, claiming that Islam and the West are inherently antithetical. In this course, we examine the phenomenon of Islamophobia as a form of anti-Muslim racism. We explore how, although the post-9/11 context gave way to an increase in incidents of anti-Muslim violence, contemporary manifestations of Islamophobia are deeply rooted in state level anti-Black racism from the early 20th century. We also analyze public U.S. debates on the boundaries of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 305 Between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.: Race, Religion, and the Politics of Freedom

This course focuses on the political and spiritual lives of Martin and Malcolm. We will examine their personal biographies, speeches, writings, representations, FBI Files, and legacies as a way to better understand how the intersections of religion, race and politics came to bare upon the freedom struggles of people of color in the U.S. and abroad. The course also takes seriously the evolutions in both Martin and Malcolm's political approaches and intellectual development, focusing especially on the last years of their respective lives. We will also examine the critical literature that takes on the leadership styles and political philosophies of these communal leaders, as well as the very real opposition and surveillance they faced from state forces like the police and FBI. Students will gain an understanding of what social conditions, religious structures and institutions, and personal experiences led to first the emergence and then the assassinations of these two figures. We will discuss the subtleties of their political analyses, pinpointing the key differences and similarities of their philosophies, approaches and legacies, and we will apply these debates of the mid-20th century to contemporary events and social movements in terms of how their legacies are articulated and what we can learn from them in struggles for justice and recognition in 21st-century America and beyond.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H

L57 RelPol 3081 City on a Hill: The Concept and Culture of American Exceptionalism

This course examines the concept, history, and culture of American exceptionalism — the idea that America has been specially chosen, or has a special mission to the world. First, we examine the Puritan sermon that politicians quote when they describe America as a "city on a hill." This sermon has been called the "ur-text" of American literature, the foundational document of American culture; learning and drawing from multiple literary methodologies, we will re-investigate what that sermon means and how it came to tell a story about the Puritan origins of American culture — a thesis our class will reassess with the help of modern critics. In the second part of this class, we will broaden our discussion to consider the wider (and newer) meanings of American exceptionalism, theorizing the concept while looking at the way it has been revitalized, redefined and redeployed in recent years. Finally, the course ends with a careful study of American exceptionalism in modern political rhetoric, starting with JFK and proceeding through Reagan to the current day, ending with an analysis of Donald Trump and the rise of "America First." In the end, students will gain a firm grasp of the long history and continuing significance — the pervasive impact — of this concept in American culture.
Same as L98 AMCS 3081

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 310 Religion and Violence

Is religion intrinsically connected with violence or merely manipulated to justify political positions and incite supporters? How has religion been the motivation and justification behind violent conflict, aggression and persecution? Does religion have a greater power to make war or peace? People have debated these questions for centuries as believers waged war in the name of their god(s). We'll study several critical theories about religion and violence and test them on historical and recent "religious" conflicts. Our investigation will be organized around five types of violence: 1) martyrdom and redemptive suffering, 2) claims on sacred space, 3) the violence of social stratification and "othering," 4) war and 5) apocalyptic and spiritual warfare. Case studies ranging from early Christian martyrs and crusades to attacks on abortion clinics and Tokyo subways will help clarify patterns and types of religious violence.
Same as L23 Re St 3100

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: FAAM, HUM BU: ETH EN: H

L57 RelPol 315 Virtues, Vices, Values: Regulating Morality in Modern America

This course takes morality and the question of "what's right" seriously as a lens through which to understand and assess modern American history. "Morality" is, of course, a devilishly flexible rhetoric, a language invoked to tell people how to act and how to be good, or, conversely, to criticize and to shame. When the state or a community wants its citizens or members to be "good," it crafts laws and creates customs to encourage or inhibit behaviors. Yet "good" is a contested concept, especially in a diverse, multiracial society. Thus this class examines a) how state and non-state actors, including religious leaders, have attempted to regulate the lived experiences of Americans and b) the conflicts that emerge over what, exactly, is correct, or right, or good for individuals, society, and the state. To what degree does calling something moral or immoral articulate or obstruct policy solutions? What do political coalitions oriented around "values" accomplish? Is it possible to hew to moral frames and remain inclusive and tolerant? Topics may include marriage, abortion, immigration, alcohol, incarceration, disease, money, and medical care.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SD BU: ETH EN: H

L57 RelPol 321 American Religion, Gender, and Sexuality

Religious beliefs about gender and sexuality have long played a vital role in American politics, vividly evident in debates over such issues as birth control, censorship, pornography, funding for AIDS research, abortion, contraceptive access, abstinence-only sex education, sexual harassment, same-sex marriage, and more. Educated citizens need to understand the impact of these religiously inflected debates on our political culture. This course explores the centrality of sex to religion and politics in the U.S., emphasizing Christianity (both Protestant and Catholic forms) and its weighty social and political role regulating the behavior of women and men, children and teens, as well as its uses in legal and judicial decisions. Alongside scholarly readings in gender and sexuality, we will discuss popular devotional texts — on chastity, marriage, and homosexuality — with a political bent. Students will leave the course able to analyze how religious beliefs about sex shape specific gender norms central to U.S. politics.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH EN: H

L57 RelPol 330 Native American/Euro-American Encounters: Confrontations of Bodies and Beliefs

This course surveys the history and historiography of how Native Americans, Europeans and Euro-Americans reacted and adapted to one another's presence in North America from the 1600s to the mid-1800s, focusing on themes of religion and gender. We will examine the cultural and social implications of encounters between Native peoples, missionaries and other European and Euro-American Protestants and Catholics. We will pay particular attention to how bodies were a venue for encounter — through sexual contact, through the policing of gendered social and economic behaviors, and through religiously-based understandings of women's and men's duties and functions. We will also study how historians know what they know about these encounters, and what materials enable them to answer their historical questions.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 340 Pilgrims and Seekers: American Spirituality from Transcendentalism to the Present

This seminar focuses on the formation of "spirituality" in American culture from the Transcendentalist world of Ralph Waldo Emerson on through more recent expressions of the "spiritual-but-not-religious" sensibility. How did "spirituality" come to be seen as something positively distinct from "organized religion"? What are the main contours of spiritual seeking in American culture, especially among those who claim no specific religious affiliation? The course also explores the social, political, and cultural consequences of this turn to the spiritual over the religious: for example, the consecration of liberal individualism, the relationship of religious exploration to both environmentalism and consumerism, the politics of cultural appropriation, the negotiation of religious pluralism, and the pursuit of the spiritual in art.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: ETH EN: H

L57 RelPol 345 Religion and Race in the United States

Race and ethnicity are central to how religious pluralism is worked out in America. How do the categories of race and religion intersect to produce concepts of a normative American identity? In this course, we examine the construct of race across various American congregational communities in order to understand debates on American identity and belonging. We also explore the idea of an American civil religion, and we engage with the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion of particular religious groups within this category based upon racialized criteria.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, ETH, HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 354 Christian Theology and Politics in the Modern West

This course engages students in the reading and analysis of influential religious texts from the Western Christian world from the mid-16th century to the present. The course also examines these texts in their historical context, raising questions about the relationship between theology and politics in the West. The course pursues such questions chronologically, with the first weeks devoted to Catholic and Calvinist contests over revelation and political authority during the 16th century to Puritan ruminations during the 17th century on the nature of worldly calling and personal eschatology. The next weeks concern 18th-century views of reason as a critique of traditional Christianity and Protestant responses centered on true virtue as a hedge against worldly loyalties. We then examine 19th-century discussions of the relationship between ethics, tradition, and religious experience. For the 20th century, we discuss texts that address Christian conceptions of redemption to issues of hypernationalism and race. The final weeks are devoted to recent theologies that have to do with the self and one's identity and current political crises. Juniors and seniors only. Sophomores by permission.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH, HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 355 The FBI and Religion

This seminar examines the relationship between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and religion (i.e., faith communities, clerics, and religious professionals) as a way to study and understand 20th-century religion and politics. The course will investigate the history of the FBI as well as the various ways in which the FBI and religious groups have interacted. The course will pay particular attention to what the professor calls the four interrelated "modes" of FBI-religious engagement: counter-intelligence and surveillance, coordination and cooperation, censorship and publicity, and consultation.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: BA, ETH EN: H

L57 RelPol 357 God in the Courtroom

The U.S. Constitution holds a promise to secure freedom of religion through its First Amendment. Its two religion clauses declare unconstitutional any prohibition on the free exercise of religion and laws respecting the establishment of religion. The consequence is that, whenever a group demands to be recognized as religious and to be granted the right to exercise its religion, a court, a legislature, or an administrative official must determine whether the religious practice in question is legally religious. This means that law plays a uniquely important role in defining religion in the United States. In this seminar, we will explore the relation between law and religion in America. We will study the religion clauses in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the histories of their interpretations by American courts in landmark cases, and the ways that religious studies scholars have understood and critiqued these cases.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH, HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 360 Religion and the Modern Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968

The modern Civil Rights Movement is a landmark event in the nation's political, civic, cultural and social history. In many contexts, this movement for and against civil and legal equality took on a religious ethos, with activists, opponents and observers believing that the net result of the marches, demonstrations and legislative rulings would redeem and/or destroy "The Soul of the Nation." This seminar examines the modern Civil Rights Movement and its strategies and goals, with an emphasis on the prominent religious ideologies and activities that were visible and utilized in the modern movement. The course pays particular attention to the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Islamic traditions, figures and communities that were indifferent, combative, instrumental and/or supportive of Civil Rights legislation throughout the mid-20th century.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD BU: BA EN: H

L57 RelPol 362 Islam, Gender, Sexuality

The return of white nationalism and misogyny to the public sphere since the 2016 election has reinvigorated the trope of the subjugated Muslim woman as backwards and subservient to her male counterparts. Rather than devote our time to dispel stereotypes, in this course, we address the extent to which Western theories of feminism are useful to account for Muslim women's experiences across historical period and geographical region. By examining discourses of gender and sexuality, the ideals of the feminine and masculine in Islamic scriptures and jurisprudence, and subsequent encounters with Western imperialism, we investigate how gender informs social, political, religious, and family life in Islamic cultures. We employ a chronological approach to these topics, from considering the status of women in seventh-century Arabia to the period of Islamic expansion across Asia, North Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula and then to the colonial period and ending with the contemporary post-9/11 and post-2016 U.S. contexts, wherein debates over the status of Muslim women in society emerged with renewed vigor.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, LCD Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 365 Slavery, Sovereignty, Security: American Religions and the Problem of Freedom

The goal of this course is to think critically about freedom as an ideology and institution. What does it mean to be free? What are the relationships among individual liberties, national sovereignty, and civil rights? In what ways has freedom been defined in relation to -- and materially depended on -- unfreedom? At the same time, this course will treat American "religions" in a similar critical fashion: as a historically contingent category that has been forged and inflected within the same context of white Christian settler empire. Religion and freedom have intertwined throughout American history, including in the ideal of religious freedom. Our critical interrogation of freedom should help us think carefully about power, working with but also beyond tropes of domination and resistance.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA, ETH EN: H

L57 RelPol 368 Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion

What is religion, and how can we study it? Do we need an answer to the first question to pursue the second? Why, and toward what ends, might we undertake such study? This course considers these questions through the investigation of significant attempts to study religion over the past century, paying particular attention to the methods, motivations, and aims of these works. Is the study of religion an effort to disprove or debunk it, or perhaps to support it? What would each mean? Is it an effort to describe the indescribable, or perhaps to translate complex beliefs and practices into a language in which they can be discussed by others? Why would such a translation be helpful, and to whom? Is the study of religion an investigation of a social phenomenon, an organization of communities, a specific formation of individuals, or perhaps a psychosis or illusion, evidence of the workings of power on our lives and the difficulty of bearing it? What is at stake in defining religion in these ways, and then in undertaking its study?
Same as L23 Re St 368

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH EN: H

L57 RelPol 370 Religion and the Origins of Capitalism

This course explores the economic, cultural and social history of the origins of Anglo-American capitalism from 1500 to 1800. Throughout we will discuss the worldviews and day-to-day business decisions of the merchants who created England's transatlantic market order and empire. Rather than treat early capitalism only in terms of material or purely economic dynamics, it probes the intellectual constructs that combined with commercial innovations to form capitalism into a social system.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: ETH EN: H

L57 RelPol 385 Jesus, Jazz, and Gin: The 1920s and the History of Our Current Times

This course is a historical survey of the dynamic relationship between religion and politics during the 1920s. The 1920s were a tipping point for a great deal of the fundamental issues that shaped the 20th century in the U.S. This course seeks to investigate how religious activism, evangelism, discourse, practice and reinvention contributed to and was shaped by such change.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: BA EN: H

L57 RelPol 390 Mormon History in Global Context

The focus of this seminar is Mormonism, meaning, primarily, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is the largest Mormon body. Mormons in the United States have gone from being one of the most intensely persecuted religious groups in the country's history to the fourth largest religious body in the U.S., with a reputation for patriotism and conservative family values. In addition to introducing who the Mormons are, their beliefs and religious practices, this seminar will explore issues raised by Mormonism's move toward the religious mainstream alongside its continuing distinctiveness. These issues include: What is the religious "mainstream" in the U.S.? How did conflicts over Mormonism during the 19th century, especially the conflict over polygamy, help define the limits of religious tolerance in this country? How have LDS teachings about gender and race, or controversies about whether or not Mormons are Christian, positioned and repositioned Mormons within U.S. society?

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM, SC, SD Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: ETH EN: H

L57 RelPol 395 Topics in Religion and Politics

This course explores various topics in Religion and Politics.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 407 Solidarity and Silence: Religious Strategies in the Political Sphere

Although political action is often considered a problem of making oneself heard, religious practices of silence, self-effacement and withdrawal from certain worldly struggles have guided many significant political and social movements, particularly forms of nonviolent resistance. This course considers the role of religious thought and practice in such movements in the 20th century. The history of these movements presents an apparent paradox: How can political action emerge from the supposedly "private" realm of religion in the modern era, particularly its most individualistic formations in contemplative and mystical practices? Does the historical role of these practices in the political sphere complicate their portrayal in some scholarship as private, individual and depoliticizing? With these questions animating our investigations, we will consider the work of authors and activists including Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jr., Simone Weil, and William Barber, as well as the history of movements associated with their work. Toward the end of the semester, we will turn to contemporary movements against economic inequality, intimate violence, racially motivated violence, and discrimination toward transgender persons to discuss the use of religious strategies or religiously-derived strategies in current political and social activism.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 410 The FBI and Religion

This seminar examines the relationship between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and religion (i.e., faith communities, clerics, and religious professionals) as a way to study and understand 20th-century religion and politics. The course will investigate the history of the FBI as well as the various ways in which the FBI and religious groups have interacted. The course will pay particular attention to what the professor calls the four interrelated "modes" of FBI-religious engagement: counter-intelligence and surveillance, coordination and cooperation, censorship and publicity, and consultation.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM BU: HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 4121 American Religion, Politics, and Culture: Historical Foundations

This seminar offers a wide-ranging overview of the leading historical scholarship concerning the busy intersections of American religion and politics. Topics include: church-state relations, religion and foreign policy, religion and social justice, religion and the science wars, the rise of the Religious Right, and the role of religion in public life. Prerequisites: advanced undergraduate or graduate standing in a related field or permission of instructor.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 4122 American Religion, Politics & Culture: Commentary from Alexis de Tocqueville to Contemporary Pundits

This research-oriented seminar involves in-depth historiographical investigation of leading scholarship at the busy intersections of American religion, politics and culture. The second semester focuses on classic and contemporary commentaries on the American religious and political scene from Alexis de Tocqueville through today's leading pundits. Some sessions will include a visiting scholar engaged in cutting-edge research — a feature that will allow seminar members to work with important scholars from beyond the university. Possible topics include: church-state relations, religion and foreign policy, religion and civil rights, religion and the science wars, the rise of the Religious Right, and the role of religion in national elections. The seminar is taught under the auspices of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics and is offered in two complementary parts (though enrollment in either one of the two is certainly possible). Its ambition is to build up a community of inquirers engaged in the core questions that animate the Danforth Center. Prerequisites: advanced undergraduate or graduate standing in AMCS, History, or Religious Studies or permission of instructor.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM

L57 RelPol 425 Law, Religion, and Politics

What is the role of religious argument in politics and law? What kinds of arguments are advanced, and how do they differ from one another? Are some of these arguments more acceptable than others in a liberal democracy? This course will explore these questions through the work of legal scholars, theologians and political theorists. Our topics include the nature of violence and coercion in the law, constraints on public reason, the relationship between religion and government, and the nature of religious practice and tradition.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 430 Pilgrims and Seekers: American Spirituality from Transcendentalism to the Present

This seminar focuses on the formation of "spirituality" in American culture, from the Transcendentalist world of Ralph Waldo Emerson on through more recent expressions of the "spiritual-but-not-religious" sensibility. How did "spirituality" come to be seen as something positively distinct from "organized religion"? What are the main contours of spiritual seeking in American culture, especially among those who claim no specific religious affiliation? The course also explores the social, political, and cultural consequences of this turn to the spiritual over the religious: for example, the consecration of liberal individualism, the relationship of religious exploration to both environmentalism and consumerism, the politics of cultural appropriation, the negotiation of religious pluralism, and the pursuit of the spiritual in art.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 440 Religion, Politics, and the University

This course explores in depth current issues related to pluralism, difference, and belonging in matters pertaining to religion and other important issues, with a particular focus on how these play out in the university context. The instructors, John Inazu and Eboo Patel, are two of the leading national commentators on these issues. Prerequisite: Students enrolling in this class must submit a brief statement of interest to Professor John Inazu.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM BU: HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 4491 American Unbelief from the Enlightenment to the New Atheism

This seminar examines American secularism, humanism and atheism from the Enlightenment forward to the present. Topics emphasized include: the relationship between believers and nonbelievers, the civil liberties of atheists, religion in the public schools, social radicalism and women's rights, and the more recent growth of religious disaffiliation and public atheism. The course considers not only the intellectual dimensions of freethinking unbelief but also the broader politics of secularism in a nation routinely imagined as "under God."

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: SSP Art: SSP EN: H

L57 RelPol 4564 American Pragmatism

This course examines the history of American pragmatism through three of its primary founders, the philosophers Charles Peirce, William James and John Dewey. It considers pragmatism as a response to the experience of uncertainty brought on my modernity and contextualizes it amid late 19th- and early 20th-century thought and politics, namely, scientific methodology, evolutionary theory, the probabilistic revolution, Transcendentalism, the rise of secularism, slavery, Abolitionism and the Civil War. Major essays by each thinker are read as well as three intellectual biographies and one critical survey.
Same as L22 History 4564

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 480 Readings in African-American Religious History

This course is an introduction to the history and variety of African-American religions in the New World diaspora. The approach will be chronological, from the earliest years to the New World to contemporary expressions. We will also explore some of the major historiographical themes that have catalyzed current scholarship, the purpose and effectiveness of black nationalist movements, issues of class and gender, the persistence of African elements of New World religious practice, performance and popular culture.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 485 Christian Nation, Secular Republic

The United States has often been imagined as both a deeply Christian nation and a thoroughly secular republic, and those conjoined framings have created recurrent conflict throughout American history. This seminar is designed to introduce advanced undergraduates and graduate students to current discussions of religion, secularism, and unbelief in American religious and political history. The course also places a complementary emphasis on close readings of crucial primary works, say, about the rise of deistic toleration or the persisting political power of Christianity-in textual particularities. The course takes as its starting point Charles Taylor's monumental account A Secular Age and works from there through various episodes of the Enlightenment and its long aftermath.

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM EN: H

L57 RelPol 495 Religion and the State: Global Mission, Global Empire

This course explores the complex intersections among U.S. political power on a global stage, and religious institutions and identities. Readings and discussions are organized around two very broad questions. First: How has this nation's history been shaped by religious "others" both inside and outside its borders? Second: How have perceptions of those others in turn affected U.S. responses to circumstances of global consequence — including, for example, foreign policy and diplomacy, missionary activity, and economic practices?

Credit 3 units. A&S IQ: HUM Arch: HUM Art: HUM EN: H