FALL 2001
This information effective for Fall 2001.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.
Instructor: Gary Lease
Weeks 1 and 2: Nietzsche: "The Anti-Christ" (religion and public polemic)
Weeks 3 and 4: Huntington: "Clash of Civilizations" (religion as cultural studies)
Week 5: Scientology (public relations booklets from them on why/how they are a religion) (religion and the question of who decides: scholars or government or ...? )
Week 6: Steve Wasserstrom: "Religion after Religion" (how moralistic can/must the study of religion be?)
Week 7: Legislation: US law against persecution of religions (Mark Silk's booklet and symposium) (who decides?)
Week 8: Germany: current constitutional case over the State of Brandenburg's school laws) (religion and the issue of a pseudo-state church)
Week 9: Faith-based government action/support: the Bush program (should the scholar speak publicly? If so, what can the scholar say? what can a scholar contribute? If not a normative conclusion, what's the point?)
Week 10: Russell McCutcheon: "Critics, not Caretakers" (should the scholar speak publicly, etc.?) (also: McCutcheon: "Manufacturing Religion"; Timothy Fitzgerald: "The Ideology of Religious Studies")