[課目] ANTHROPOLOGY OF RELIGION
ANTHROPOLOGY OF RELIGION
Goldsmiths college, UoL
Course Overview
This course challenges you to rethink what we mean by ‘religion’ in anthropological theory and ethnography. In the contemporary world, religion has sprung back to the anthropological agenda, largely because ethnographic evidence shows that people find it immensely important in the conduct of their lives. This questions earlier assumptions about the relation of modernity to secularization. Why has religion been especially prevalent in the former conflict zones of the Cold War, such as Africa or Latin America; or places where religion was repressed by the state until recently, such as in Eastern Europe or Central Asia?
This is not a course trying to answer the universal question, ‘What is religion?’ The aim is rather more far reaching, asking what a focus on religion can tell us about other, broader aspects of the 21st century world; of the relationship between science and religion; the historically changing contexts of belief and religious practice; of the growing post-Cold War politicization of religion and nationalism; of the rise of new religious identities and marketplaces worldwide. Lectures are organized in two parts: the first essentially theoretical and speculative; the second more ethnographic and substantive. The course makes the argument that anthropology is particularly well positioned to study religion and its manifestations in the contemporary world.
Recommended Texts
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 1965. Theories of Primitive Religion. Oxford University Press.
Lewis, I.M. 1986. Religion in Context: Cults and Charisma. Cambridge University Press.
Morris, Brian. 1987. Anthropological Studies of Religion: An Introductory Text. Cambridge University Press.
Morris, Brian. 2006. Religion and Anthropology: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge University Press.
Tambiah, Stanley. 1990. Magic, Science, Religion and the Scope of Rationality. Cambridge University Press.
1
WEEK 1 Introduction: anthropology and religion
NB: We will be having two lectures in each of the first two weeks, followed by seminars as normally scheduled.
Lecture 1: Religion in context: a view from anthropology
In this introductory lecture, we examine Evans-Pritchard’s mid-twentieth century claim that the anthropological theories of the Victorian era were “dead as mutton” and apply this critique to the so-called ‘resurgence of religion’ thesis of the 21st century. Has how we understand ‘religion’ changed in recent decades? If so, how can anthropologists approach such diverse and diffuse beliefs and practices using the universalizing concept of religion; and, what specific epistemological and methodological problems arise from doing so?
Readings:
*Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 1956. ‘Preface’ and ‘God’ in Nuer Religion. Clarendon: Oxford University Press.
*Morris, Brian. 2006. ‘Introduction’ in Religion and Anthropology: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lecture 2: The ‘What is Religion?’ Problem
Is a universal definition of religion possible, or even desirable? Can such a definition ever escape from its European theological premises? To cover these questions, we will examine Clifford Geertz’s (1966) famous discussion about religion as a ‘cultural system’ in light of the debate instigated by Talal Asad’s (1983) critique of Geertz’s interpretivist and phenomenological project. In conclusion, we will examine some of the shortfalls in both positions and suggest that further debate on such questions needs to tackle both power and meaning in some synthesis of these two approaches.
Readings:
*Geertz, Clifford. 1973. ‘Religion as a Cultural System’, in The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. [Goldsmiths Library - ] [C RP]
*Asad, Talal. 1993. ‘The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category’, in Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. [CRP]
Cannell, Fennella. 2005. ‘The Christianity of Anthropology’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 11 (2): 335-356. [Goldsmiths Library – 301. 205] [Course Reader Pack]
Seminar question(s):
Why might anthropologists be interested in looking at the ‘Christianity of Anthropology’, rather than the ‘Anthropology of Christianity’?
What assumptions do we make when we speak of something as ‘religious’? Cannell 2005 PDFFile Geertz 2005 PDFFile WEEK ONE SLIDESFile Asad 1983File Morris 2006File Evans-Pritchard 1956File Bell 2006
2
WEEK 2 Belief and the Empirical Tradition
Lecture 3: Belief and Anthropological Atheism
This lecture principally addresses problems associated with defining belief. How do anthropologists present evidence of ‘belief’? Precisely because religious experiences cannot be conceptually cordoned off from social life, how can anthropologists approach the religious through language and experience? Based on such questions, this lecture addresses the epistemological and methodological problems in studying religion based on the works and lives of E.E. Evans-Pritchard and Victor Turner, two well-known anthropologists who converted to Catholicism in later life (Engleke 2002). Epistemological, ethical, and methodological issues come to bear on these questions with one learning outcome that you should recognize the relationship between ‘belief’ and the ‘opacity of other people’s minds’ (see Robbins 2008).
Readings:
*Blanes, Ruy Llera. 2006. ‘The atheist anthropologist: believers and non-believers in anthropological fieldwork’, Social Anthropology 14(2): 223-234.
*Engleke, Matthew. 2002. ‘The Problem of Belief: Evans-Pritchard and Victor Turner on the ‘Inner Life’, Anthropology Today, 18(6): 3-8
*Ewing, Katherine. 1994. ‘Dreams from a Saint: Anthropological Atheism and the Temptation to Believe’, American Ethnologist, (96) 3: 571-583.
Harding, Susan. 1994. ‘Convicted by the Holy Spirit: the Rhetoric of Fundamental Baptist Conversion’, American Ethnologist, 14: 167-182.
Ruel, Malcolm. 1992. ‘Christians as Believers’, in Religious Organization and Religious Experience. London: Academic Press.
Southwold, Martin. 1979. ‘Religious Belief’, Man 14 (4): 628-44.
Lecture 4: Science and Cognition: the Problem of Ultimate Reality
Tied to the hegemony of anthropological atheism is the status of science as an authorizing method of experimental-logical thought. Anthropologists of religion have long insisted that religious conceptions and practices are incommensurable with the aims and methods of science, such that comparison is impossible. In this lecture, we delve into the so-called ‘rationality debates’ within anthropology and ask whether the anthropology of religion has generated any insights that might prove useful to the anthropology of science. Have recent cognitive studies of religion and ritual shed light on this set of problems? Is research into evolutionary biology and cognitive psychology inimical to the aims of social anthropology?
Readings:
*Boyer, Pascal and Brian Bergstrom. 2008. ‘Evolutionary Perspectives on Religion’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 37: 111-130.
*Atran, Scott. 2002. ‘Introduction: An Evolutionary Riddle’, in In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rappaport, Roy. 1999. ‘Introduction’, in Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Latour, Bruno. 2009. ‘Can non-humans be saved? An argument in ecotheology’,JRAI, (NS) 15: 459-475.
*Quijada, Justine Buck. 2012. ‘Soviet Science and post-Soviet faith: Etigelov’s imperishable body’, American Ethnologist 39(1): 138-154.
Coleman, Simon. 2008. ‘The Abominations of Anthropology: Christianity, Ethnographic Taboos and the Meanings of ‘Science’, in On the Margins of Religion
SEMINAR
Tying in with the lecture theme on ‘belief’, you will read an ethnographic passage by Evans-Pritchard (Azande) and work in groups to answer specific questions about ‘evidence’ and the ethnographic problem of the ‘opacity of other’s minds’.
Seminar reading(s):
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 1976 [1937]. Excerpt from Chapter 1, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande, section v, pp. 10-13.
Leach, Edmund. 1966. ‘Virgin Birth’, Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 1966: 39-49.
Seminar question(s):
In what ways does the category, ‘belief’, pose special problems for anthropologists? In answering, please refer to either: (1) Evans-Pritchard’s Azande material; or, (2) Leach’s engagement with the ‘Virgin Birth’ debate.
Does personal ‘faith’ make a difference in an anthropologist’s interpretation of religion? Discuss with reference to Engleke (2002).
Is research into evolutionary biology and cognitive psychology inimical to the aims of social anthropology? Southwold 1979 PDFFile Saethre 2007 PDFFile Matthew Engelke on "Belief"File Week Two SlidesFile Ewing 1994File Blanes 2006File Harding 1987File Quijada 2012
3
WEEK 3 Ritual, symbolic action, and transformative experience
Anthropologists have repeatedly argued that ritual, as a form of symbolic action, is one means through which to control and transform experience. Yet, studies of ritual often blur the boundaries of ‘religion’, forcing us to consider medico-therapeutic, moral, and life-course transition rituals within broader anthropological theory. Often thought of as a kind of theatre, or dramaturgy, we will examine Turner’s concepts of liminality and communitas in the ritual process and compare his ethnographic work among the Ndembu (Zambia) to rituals of transformation within a US military college. These are examined with reference to questions about social and personal transformation and religion as a ‘state of emergence.’ One learning outcome is that you will be able to see how ‘ritual’ supercedes our assumed conceptual boundaries around the religious.
Readings:
*Turner, Victor. 2002. ‘Liminality and Communitas’, in A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion [Goldsmiths Library – 306. 6 REA]
Lienhardt, Godfrey. 2002. ‘The Control of Experience: Symbolic Action’, in A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion [Goldsmiths Library – 306. 6 REA]
*Adams, Abigail. 1993. ‘Dyke to Dyke: Ritual Reproduction at a U.S. Men’s Military College’, Anthropology Today, 9(5): 3-6.
SEMINAR
In this seminar, we examine symbolic action through reading short ethnographic descriptions of spirit possession (Swahili-East Africa) and shamanism (Jivaro-Amazonia). You will read excerpts describing a possession séance and shamanistic practices to appreciate some of the problems anthropologist face when dealing with and writing about ‘extraordinary experience’.
Readings:
Larsen, Kjersti. 2008. excerpt from ‘The fieldwork: ritual participation’, Chapter 1, Where Spirits and Humans Meet: the politics of rituals and identified spirits in Zanzibar, pp. 9-14. [e-VLE and CRP]
Harner, Michael. 1974. ‘The Sound of Rushing Water’, in Native South Americans: Ethnology of the Least Known Continent. Boston & Toronto: Little, Brown and Company. [e-VLE and CRP]
Seminar question(s):
Using either an example of possession or shamanism, please explain why anthropologists insist that the effect of ritual is to transform experience. Are there examples where experience is maintained by ritual? Provide a convincing context for your discussions.
How do Victor Turner’s concepts of liminality and communitas expose how ritual ‘works’? Provide an example from your own experiences where you can identify these concepts and how they might have been transformative of your experience.
Larsen 2008File Turner (Liminality/Communitas)File Harner (Shamanism)File Liminality (Key concepts)File WEEK 3 Slides
4
WEEK 4 Religions of the Book: religious texts, media, and authority
Books like the Torah, Bible, or Qu’ran are commonly thought to authorize ultimate realities. This lecture asks what roles religious texts and other media play in establishing authority in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. How are texts used and by whom? Who reproduces and interprets liturgical knowledge? How is religious knowledge circulated? And, importantly, how are challenges to textual authority enunciated? Drawing on ethnography, we will also examine the mediation of religious ‘text’ through cassettes, film, and globally circulated literature such as the Jehovah Witnesses’ Watchtower.
Readings:
*Lambek, Michael. 1990. ‘Certain knowledge, contestable authority: power and practice on the Islamic periphery’, American Ethnologist, 17 (1): 23-40.
*Hirschkind, Charles. 2006. ‘Cassette Ethics: Public Piety and Popular Media in Egypt’, in Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere.
SEMINAR
Reading Thomas Kirsch’s (2008) ‘Literate Cultures in a Material World’, this seminar is designed to get you to formulate critical theoretical questions about a specific ethnographic text. Working in groups, you will discuss how the author employs the concept of ‘materiality’ in his discussion of Bibles and Gwembe literacy practices.
Readings:
Kirsch, Thomas (2008). ‘Literate Cultures in a Material World’, in Spirit and Letters: Reading, writing and Charisma in African Christianity. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Seminar question(s):
In which ways might textual authority be challenged by new religious media? Provide ethnographic examples.
How might the authorization of ultimate realities within religious texts be linked to the social reproduction of hierarchies? Defend your position with examples.
Engelke 2004File Kirsch 2007File Lambek 1990File Kirsch 2008File Hirschkind 2001File Week 4 Slides
5
WEEK 5 Colonialism, millenarian movements and capitalist cosmologies
The topic of millenarian movements and Melanesian ‘cargo cults’ provokes us to rethink the anthropological meanings of conversion under colonial conditions, on the one hand, and the historiography of indigenous response to capitalist cosmology on the other. The ethnographic descriptions of Melanesian ‘Cargo cults’, in the 1950s and 1960s, sparked debate within anthropology about the place of materiality in the remaking of cosmology in colonized societies.
Readings:
*Morris, Brian. 2006. ‘Religions in Melanesia’, pp. 232-70, in Brian Morris, Religion and Anthropology: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge University
Press.Bianco, Barbara. 1996. 'Songs of Mobility in West Pokot', American Ethnologist, 23(1): 25-42.
*Burridge, Kenelm. 1969. 'Introduction', 'Opening the Problem', and 'Polynesian Illustrations' in New Heaven, New Earth: A Study of Millenarian Activities. Basil Blackwell.
*Worsley, Peter. 1968. The Trumpet Will Sound. New York: Schocken Books.
Cohn, Norman. 1957. The Pursuit of the Millennium. London: Paladin.
Seminar:
· We will be discussing millennialism and millenarian movements.
Seminar question(s):
Does the term “Cargo Cult” reveal more about Euro-American cultural evaluations of the ‘economy’ and materiality than about shifts in Melanesian cosmologies under the conditions of colonial capitalism?
In what ways might putting the concepts ‘cargo’ and ‘cult’ together provoke us to think about our separation of economy (cargo) and religion (cult) as distinct cultural domains? Discuss whether ‘cargoism’ is ‘good to think with’ or whether the term should be abandoned as ethnocentric.
Burridge 1969File Bianco 1996File Cohn 1956File WorsleyFile LindstromFile Week 5 Slides
7
WEEK 7 Islamism: contests over modernity in the Muslim world
Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Islamic activism has differentiated between being Muslim, as a religious identity, and being Islamist, as a political project. Does Islamism envision an alternative cultural pathway to power at the intersection of modernity and globality that ‘clashes’ with Western notions of secularism? This lecture focuses on the ambivalences of Islamism, not only in Euro-American discourse, but also within the Muslim world, prompting us to conceptually reconsider how Islamism is represented in Euro-American media and public culture, as well as within the secular Arab nation-states. Should Islamism be considered a form of globalism and/or nationalism? Or, does the anthropology of religion require new methodological approaches to study ‘fundamentalism’ in Islamic contexts? What does Islamism, as a political movement, tell us about the construction of modernity? How has Islamism been conceptualized in China and in multicultural Europe?
Readings:
*Ahmad, Irfan. 2009. ‘Genealogy of the Islamic state: reflections on Maududi’s political thought and Islamism’, JRAI, (NS): S145-S196.
*Soares, Benjamin and Filippo Osella. 2009. ‘Islam, politics, anthropology’, JRAI, (NS): S1-S23.
Gole, Nilufer. 2002. ‘Islam in Public: New Visibilities and New Imaginaries’, Public Culture, 14 (1): 173-190.
*Majid, Anouar. 1996. 'Can the Postcolonial Critic Speak? Orientalism and the Rushdie Affair', Cultural Critique, 32 (Winter 1995-1996): 5-42.
*Majid, Anouar. 1998. 'The Politics of Feminism in Islam', Signs 23 (2): 321-361.
McBrien, Julie. 2006. ‘Extreme Conversations: Secularism, Religious Pluralism, and the Rhetoric of Islamic Extremism in Southern Kyrgyzstan’, in The Postsocialist Religion Question: Faith and Power in Central Asian and East-Central Europe [Goldsmiths Library – 322. 1091717 POS]
Rudnyckyj, Daromir. 2009. ‘Market Islam in Indonesia’, JRAI, (NS): S183-S201.
Rudnyckyj, Daromir. 2009. ‘Spiritual Economies: Islam and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Indonesia’, Cultural Anthropology, 24 (1): 104-141.
SEMINAR
We will discuss Mamdani’s notion of ‘culture talk’ with respect to media representations of Islam, Islamism, Christianity, and Christian Fundamentalism.
Seminar reading
Mamdani, Mahmood. 2002. ‘Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: a political perspective on culture and terrorism’, American Anthropologist, 104 (3): 766-775. [Goldsmiths Library – Periodicals 301. 205]
Seminar question(s):
Why might Americans have bought copies of the Qu’ran in the wake of the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the United States? Equally, why do you think that residents of Fallujah, Iraq, did not buy copies of the Bible when they were under attack? Please avoid generalizations.
Is Islamism a form of nationalism, or is it something emergent that counters the idea of the nation-state? Provide examples from the readings.
Ahmad 2009File Gole 2002File Mamdani 2002File Rudnyckyj 2009aFile Rudnyckyj 2009bFile Soares and Osella 2009File Majid 1996File Majid 1998File Week 7 Slides
8
WEEK 8 Nationalism, violence, and the politics of religious identification in South Asia
Throughout South Asia, religious identity has been used as an analytical tool to describe the forms of communal violence that periodically explode in the various post-colonies of the region. Yet, anthropological insights point to the role of nationalism, as a bid for domination, in fostering violence between ‘communities’; nationalism that is at once: historically located in the region; continued among diasporic populations globally; and expressed through highly gendered and essentialised representations of difference. In this lecture, we will ask why religions associated with ‘peace’, like Buddhism and to a lesser extent Hinduism, should be the legitimating authorities behind highly traumatic episodes of violence over the nation-state and national identity.
Readings:
*Metcalf, Barbara. 1999. ‘Nationalism, Modernity, and Muslim Identity’, in Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia.
*Nandy, Ashis. 1996. ‘The Politics of Secularism and the Recovery of Religious Tolerance’, in Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots, and Survivors in South Asia.
Tambiah, Stanley. 1992. Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka.
Hansen, Thomas Blom. 1996. ‘Recuperating Masculinity: Hindu Nationalism, Violence and the Exorcism of the Muslim Other’, Critique of Anthropology, 16 (2): 137-172.
Ghassem-Fachandi, Parvis. 2009. ‘The Hyperbolic Vegetarian: Notes on a Fragile Subject in Gujarat’, in Borneman, Jon and Abdellah Hammoudi (eds.) Being There: The Fieldwork Encounter and the Making of Truth. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Seminar question(s):
Do conflicts explained in terms of religious difference promote more extreme forms of violence than conflicts based on other public ideology? Why might they be portrayed as a more transgressive violence in the media and popular culture than that carried out by the nation-state?
Religious violence is always symbolic violence. Discuss critically with reference to Buddhism Betrayed?
FullerFile NandyFile Hansen 1996File Metcalf 1999File Week 8 Slides
9
WEEK 9 Charismatic Christianity in Africa and Latin America
In this lecture, we explore the vast growth of Pentecostal-charismatic churches in the southern hemisphere, mainly in Africa and Latin America, in terms of various globalization theories. Ethnographers have been struck by the overlap of Pentecostal beliefs, rituals, and church organizations in these world areas, despite the obvious cultural diversity found between and within these same regions. Is the Charismatic Christian movement a kind of ‘New Reformation’ gaining momentum in the globalised South? The study of Pentecostalism raises paradoxes of ‘difference’ and ‘uniformity’ in processes of transnationalism and globalization. Is this movement an example of Western cultural homogenization? Or, inversely, is it to be better understood as a process of indigenizing differentiation? Such questions also provoke anthropologists to reconsider some of the ‘ethnographic taboos’ implicit in the study of new forms of Christianity.
Readings:
*Cannell, Fenella. 2006. ‘The Anthropology of Christianity’, in The Anthropology of Christianity. Duke University Press.
*Hann, Chris. 2007. ‘The Anthropology of Christianity per se’, European Journal of Sociology, 48 (3): 383-410.
Howell, Brian. 2007. ‘The Repugnant Cultural Other Speaks Back: Christian Identity as Ethnographic ‘Standpoint’, Anthropological Theory, 7: 371.
*Harding, Susan. 1991. ‘Representing fundamentalism: The problem of the repugnant other’, Social Research, 58: 373-393.
Robbins, Joel. 2004. ‘The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity’, Annual Reviews in Anthropology, 33: 117-143.
Seminar question(s):
Why have some anthropologists argued that studying Pentecostal Charismatic Christianity may constitute an ‘ethnographic taboo’? Discuss what these ‘taboos’ are and account for them within social anthropology.
Why might Pentecostalism be growing in conflict zones? Discuss in terms of Pentecostal notions of time.
Compare the rise of P-C Christianity to other religious political movements such as Islamism or Hindu religious nationalism. What is similar and different between these religious movements?
Robbins 2004File Hann 2007File CannellFile Harding 1991File Howell 2007File Week 9 Slides
10
WEEK 10 Religious revival, modernity, and the question of secularism
As a penultimate discussion, we follow up on some the main questions the ‘Anthropology of Religion’ might raise in the context of public culture. One of these is the relationship between ‘religion’ and ‘secularism’, a theme already explored through ethnography introduced in earlier lectures. Yet, does this “resurgence of religion” indicate the de-privatization of religious practice, thus politically challenging the tenets of liberal secularism? Does the secularization thesis, resting on a particular concept of modernity, require rethinking to avoid further religious dispute? Has secularism reached its apogee in an increasingly multicultural and cosmopolitan world? Finally, we end the lectures by questioning what anthropologists might contribute to such practical debates.
Readings:
Asad, Talal. 1999. ‘Religion, Nation-State, Secularism’, in Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia [Goldsmiths Library – 322. 109NAT]
Ozyurek, Esra. 2005. ‘The politics of cultural unification, secularism, and the place of Islam in the new Europe’, American Ethnologist, 32 (4): 509-512. [Goldsmiths Library – Periodicals 301. 205]
Seminar question(s):
Ø As it stands in the early 21st century, can the idea of ‘being’ secular also remain inclusive of novel ways of ‘being’ religious? Discuss through an example drawn from the mainstream media.
Ø Is the so-called ‘resurgence of religion’ a direct rebuke of the secularization thesis? If so, what does this suggest about modernity and modernization theory? Provide some examples.
11
WEEK 11 Wrap-up: Religion in a globalized 21st century (perspectives and debates on multiculturalism)
This final lecture sweeps over some of the major themes of interest in the anthropology of religion for future reference. In conclusion, we ask about the implications of multiculturalism – as secularist liberal policy – for some of the social conflicts explored in this course. Is multiculturalism obsolete in securing ‘freedoms’ and ‘rights’? When is ‘culture’ problematic and what implications might this have for an anthropology of religion in the 21stcentury? Can anthropology transform the ways in which it frames the religious dimension of human social lives? As a last discussion, this lecture should prepare you to think anthropologically about pervasive social debates.
Readings: see lecture notes as alternative to readings
Seminar question(s):
Ø Is multiculturalism capable of ensuring ‘religious freedoms’ to all? What might an anthropological critique of multiculturalism contribute to public debate around this question?
Ø How might the concept of ‘culture’ obscure our understandings of religious practices in the 21st century rather than assist them to be more astute. Discuss from as many points of view as possible and make use of examples. Ozyurek 2005.pdfFile WK 10 Slides (Aimee Joyce)File WK 10 Slides (Katie Aston)
Week 11 Slides
Goldsmiths college, UoL
Course Overview
This course challenges you to rethink what we mean by ‘religion’ in anthropological theory and ethnography. In the contemporary world, religion has sprung back to the anthropological agenda, largely because ethnographic evidence shows that people find it immensely important in the conduct of their lives. This questions earlier assumptions about the relation of modernity to secularization. Why has religion been especially prevalent in the former conflict zones of the Cold War, such as Africa or Latin America; or places where religion was repressed by the state until recently, such as in Eastern Europe or Central Asia?
This is not a course trying to answer the universal question, ‘What is religion?’ The aim is rather more far reaching, asking what a focus on religion can tell us about other, broader aspects of the 21st century world; of the relationship between science and religion; the historically changing contexts of belief and religious practice; of the growing post-Cold War politicization of religion and nationalism; of the rise of new religious identities and marketplaces worldwide. Lectures are organized in two parts: the first essentially theoretical and speculative; the second more ethnographic and substantive. The course makes the argument that anthropology is particularly well positioned to study religion and its manifestations in the contemporary world.
Recommended Texts
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 1965. Theories of Primitive Religion. Oxford University Press.
Lewis, I.M. 1986. Religion in Context: Cults and Charisma. Cambridge University Press.
Morris, Brian. 1987. Anthropological Studies of Religion: An Introductory Text. Cambridge University Press.
Morris, Brian. 2006. Religion and Anthropology: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge University Press.
Tambiah, Stanley. 1990. Magic, Science, Religion and the Scope of Rationality. Cambridge University Press.
1
WEEK 1 Introduction: anthropology and religion
NB: We will be having two lectures in each of the first two weeks, followed by seminars as normally scheduled.
Lecture 1: Religion in context: a view from anthropology
In this introductory lecture, we examine Evans-Pritchard’s mid-twentieth century claim that the anthropological theories of the Victorian era were “dead as mutton” and apply this critique to the so-called ‘resurgence of religion’ thesis of the 21st century. Has how we understand ‘religion’ changed in recent decades? If so, how can anthropologists approach such diverse and diffuse beliefs and practices using the universalizing concept of religion; and, what specific epistemological and methodological problems arise from doing so?
Readings:
*Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 1956. ‘Preface’ and ‘God’ in Nuer Religion. Clarendon: Oxford University Press.
*Morris, Brian. 2006. ‘Introduction’ in Religion and Anthropology: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lecture 2: The ‘What is Religion?’ Problem
Is a universal definition of religion possible, or even desirable? Can such a definition ever escape from its European theological premises? To cover these questions, we will examine Clifford Geertz’s (1966) famous discussion about religion as a ‘cultural system’ in light of the debate instigated by Talal Asad’s (1983) critique of Geertz’s interpretivist and phenomenological project. In conclusion, we will examine some of the shortfalls in both positions and suggest that further debate on such questions needs to tackle both power and meaning in some synthesis of these two approaches.
Readings:
*Geertz, Clifford. 1973. ‘Religion as a Cultural System’, in The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. [Goldsmiths Library - ] [C RP]
*Asad, Talal. 1993. ‘The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category’, in Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. [CRP]
Cannell, Fennella. 2005. ‘The Christianity of Anthropology’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 11 (2): 335-356. [Goldsmiths Library – 301. 205] [Course Reader Pack]
Seminar question(s):
Why might anthropologists be interested in looking at the ‘Christianity of Anthropology’, rather than the ‘Anthropology of Christianity’?
What assumptions do we make when we speak of something as ‘religious’? Cannell 2005 PDFFile Geertz 2005 PDFFile WEEK ONE SLIDESFile Asad 1983File Morris 2006File Evans-Pritchard 1956File Bell 2006
2
WEEK 2 Belief and the Empirical Tradition
Lecture 3: Belief and Anthropological Atheism
This lecture principally addresses problems associated with defining belief. How do anthropologists present evidence of ‘belief’? Precisely because religious experiences cannot be conceptually cordoned off from social life, how can anthropologists approach the religious through language and experience? Based on such questions, this lecture addresses the epistemological and methodological problems in studying religion based on the works and lives of E.E. Evans-Pritchard and Victor Turner, two well-known anthropologists who converted to Catholicism in later life (Engleke 2002). Epistemological, ethical, and methodological issues come to bear on these questions with one learning outcome that you should recognize the relationship between ‘belief’ and the ‘opacity of other people’s minds’ (see Robbins 2008).
Readings:
*Blanes, Ruy Llera. 2006. ‘The atheist anthropologist: believers and non-believers in anthropological fieldwork’, Social Anthropology 14(2): 223-234.
*Engleke, Matthew. 2002. ‘The Problem of Belief: Evans-Pritchard and Victor Turner on the ‘Inner Life’, Anthropology Today, 18(6): 3-8
*Ewing, Katherine. 1994. ‘Dreams from a Saint: Anthropological Atheism and the Temptation to Believe’, American Ethnologist, (96) 3: 571-583.
Harding, Susan. 1994. ‘Convicted by the Holy Spirit: the Rhetoric of Fundamental Baptist Conversion’, American Ethnologist, 14: 167-182.
Ruel, Malcolm. 1992. ‘Christians as Believers’, in Religious Organization and Religious Experience. London: Academic Press.
Southwold, Martin. 1979. ‘Religious Belief’, Man 14 (4): 628-44.
Lecture 4: Science and Cognition: the Problem of Ultimate Reality
Tied to the hegemony of anthropological atheism is the status of science as an authorizing method of experimental-logical thought. Anthropologists of religion have long insisted that religious conceptions and practices are incommensurable with the aims and methods of science, such that comparison is impossible. In this lecture, we delve into the so-called ‘rationality debates’ within anthropology and ask whether the anthropology of religion has generated any insights that might prove useful to the anthropology of science. Have recent cognitive studies of religion and ritual shed light on this set of problems? Is research into evolutionary biology and cognitive psychology inimical to the aims of social anthropology?
Readings:
*Boyer, Pascal and Brian Bergstrom. 2008. ‘Evolutionary Perspectives on Religion’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 37: 111-130.
*Atran, Scott. 2002. ‘Introduction: An Evolutionary Riddle’, in In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rappaport, Roy. 1999. ‘Introduction’, in Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Latour, Bruno. 2009. ‘Can non-humans be saved? An argument in ecotheology’,JRAI, (NS) 15: 459-475.
*Quijada, Justine Buck. 2012. ‘Soviet Science and post-Soviet faith: Etigelov’s imperishable body’, American Ethnologist 39(1): 138-154.
Coleman, Simon. 2008. ‘The Abominations of Anthropology: Christianity, Ethnographic Taboos and the Meanings of ‘Science’, in On the Margins of Religion
SEMINAR
Tying in with the lecture theme on ‘belief’, you will read an ethnographic passage by Evans-Pritchard (Azande) and work in groups to answer specific questions about ‘evidence’ and the ethnographic problem of the ‘opacity of other’s minds’.
Seminar reading(s):
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 1976 [1937]. Excerpt from Chapter 1, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande, section v, pp. 10-13.
Leach, Edmund. 1966. ‘Virgin Birth’, Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 1966: 39-49.
Seminar question(s):
In what ways does the category, ‘belief’, pose special problems for anthropologists? In answering, please refer to either: (1) Evans-Pritchard’s Azande material; or, (2) Leach’s engagement with the ‘Virgin Birth’ debate.
Does personal ‘faith’ make a difference in an anthropologist’s interpretation of religion? Discuss with reference to Engleke (2002).
Is research into evolutionary biology and cognitive psychology inimical to the aims of social anthropology? Southwold 1979 PDFFile Saethre 2007 PDFFile Matthew Engelke on "Belief"File Week Two SlidesFile Ewing 1994File Blanes 2006File Harding 1987File Quijada 2012
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WEEK 3 Ritual, symbolic action, and transformative experience
Anthropologists have repeatedly argued that ritual, as a form of symbolic action, is one means through which to control and transform experience. Yet, studies of ritual often blur the boundaries of ‘religion’, forcing us to consider medico-therapeutic, moral, and life-course transition rituals within broader anthropological theory. Often thought of as a kind of theatre, or dramaturgy, we will examine Turner’s concepts of liminality and communitas in the ritual process and compare his ethnographic work among the Ndembu (Zambia) to rituals of transformation within a US military college. These are examined with reference to questions about social and personal transformation and religion as a ‘state of emergence.’ One learning outcome is that you will be able to see how ‘ritual’ supercedes our assumed conceptual boundaries around the religious.
Readings:
*Turner, Victor. 2002. ‘Liminality and Communitas’, in A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion [Goldsmiths Library – 306. 6 REA]
Lienhardt, Godfrey. 2002. ‘The Control of Experience: Symbolic Action’, in A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion [Goldsmiths Library – 306. 6 REA]
*Adams, Abigail. 1993. ‘Dyke to Dyke: Ritual Reproduction at a U.S. Men’s Military College’, Anthropology Today, 9(5): 3-6.
SEMINAR
In this seminar, we examine symbolic action through reading short ethnographic descriptions of spirit possession (Swahili-East Africa) and shamanism (Jivaro-Amazonia). You will read excerpts describing a possession séance and shamanistic practices to appreciate some of the problems anthropologist face when dealing with and writing about ‘extraordinary experience’.
Readings:
Larsen, Kjersti. 2008. excerpt from ‘The fieldwork: ritual participation’, Chapter 1, Where Spirits and Humans Meet: the politics of rituals and identified spirits in Zanzibar, pp. 9-14. [e-VLE and CRP]
Harner, Michael. 1974. ‘The Sound of Rushing Water’, in Native South Americans: Ethnology of the Least Known Continent. Boston & Toronto: Little, Brown and Company. [e-VLE and CRP]
Seminar question(s):
Using either an example of possession or shamanism, please explain why anthropologists insist that the effect of ritual is to transform experience. Are there examples where experience is maintained by ritual? Provide a convincing context for your discussions.
How do Victor Turner’s concepts of liminality and communitas expose how ritual ‘works’? Provide an example from your own experiences where you can identify these concepts and how they might have been transformative of your experience.
Larsen 2008File Turner (Liminality/Communitas)File Harner (Shamanism)File Liminality (Key concepts)File WEEK 3 Slides
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WEEK 4 Religions of the Book: religious texts, media, and authority
Books like the Torah, Bible, or Qu’ran are commonly thought to authorize ultimate realities. This lecture asks what roles religious texts and other media play in establishing authority in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. How are texts used and by whom? Who reproduces and interprets liturgical knowledge? How is religious knowledge circulated? And, importantly, how are challenges to textual authority enunciated? Drawing on ethnography, we will also examine the mediation of religious ‘text’ through cassettes, film, and globally circulated literature such as the Jehovah Witnesses’ Watchtower.
Readings:
*Lambek, Michael. 1990. ‘Certain knowledge, contestable authority: power and practice on the Islamic periphery’, American Ethnologist, 17 (1): 23-40.
*Hirschkind, Charles. 2006. ‘Cassette Ethics: Public Piety and Popular Media in Egypt’, in Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere.
SEMINAR
Reading Thomas Kirsch’s (2008) ‘Literate Cultures in a Material World’, this seminar is designed to get you to formulate critical theoretical questions about a specific ethnographic text. Working in groups, you will discuss how the author employs the concept of ‘materiality’ in his discussion of Bibles and Gwembe literacy practices.
Readings:
Kirsch, Thomas (2008). ‘Literate Cultures in a Material World’, in Spirit and Letters: Reading, writing and Charisma in African Christianity. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Seminar question(s):
In which ways might textual authority be challenged by new religious media? Provide ethnographic examples.
How might the authorization of ultimate realities within religious texts be linked to the social reproduction of hierarchies? Defend your position with examples.
Engelke 2004File Kirsch 2007File Lambek 1990File Kirsch 2008File Hirschkind 2001File Week 4 Slides
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WEEK 5 Colonialism, millenarian movements and capitalist cosmologies
The topic of millenarian movements and Melanesian ‘cargo cults’ provokes us to rethink the anthropological meanings of conversion under colonial conditions, on the one hand, and the historiography of indigenous response to capitalist cosmology on the other. The ethnographic descriptions of Melanesian ‘Cargo cults’, in the 1950s and 1960s, sparked debate within anthropology about the place of materiality in the remaking of cosmology in colonized societies.
Readings:
*Morris, Brian. 2006. ‘Religions in Melanesia’, pp. 232-70, in Brian Morris, Religion and Anthropology: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge University
Press.Bianco, Barbara. 1996. 'Songs of Mobility in West Pokot', American Ethnologist, 23(1): 25-42.
*Burridge, Kenelm. 1969. 'Introduction', 'Opening the Problem', and 'Polynesian Illustrations' in New Heaven, New Earth: A Study of Millenarian Activities. Basil Blackwell.
*Worsley, Peter. 1968. The Trumpet Will Sound. New York: Schocken Books.
Cohn, Norman. 1957. The Pursuit of the Millennium. London: Paladin.
Seminar:
· We will be discussing millennialism and millenarian movements.
Seminar question(s):
Does the term “Cargo Cult” reveal more about Euro-American cultural evaluations of the ‘economy’ and materiality than about shifts in Melanesian cosmologies under the conditions of colonial capitalism?
In what ways might putting the concepts ‘cargo’ and ‘cult’ together provoke us to think about our separation of economy (cargo) and religion (cult) as distinct cultural domains? Discuss whether ‘cargoism’ is ‘good to think with’ or whether the term should be abandoned as ethnocentric.
Burridge 1969File Bianco 1996File Cohn 1956File WorsleyFile LindstromFile Week 5 Slides
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WEEK 7 Islamism: contests over modernity in the Muslim world
Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Islamic activism has differentiated between being Muslim, as a religious identity, and being Islamist, as a political project. Does Islamism envision an alternative cultural pathway to power at the intersection of modernity and globality that ‘clashes’ with Western notions of secularism? This lecture focuses on the ambivalences of Islamism, not only in Euro-American discourse, but also within the Muslim world, prompting us to conceptually reconsider how Islamism is represented in Euro-American media and public culture, as well as within the secular Arab nation-states. Should Islamism be considered a form of globalism and/or nationalism? Or, does the anthropology of religion require new methodological approaches to study ‘fundamentalism’ in Islamic contexts? What does Islamism, as a political movement, tell us about the construction of modernity? How has Islamism been conceptualized in China and in multicultural Europe?
Readings:
*Ahmad, Irfan. 2009. ‘Genealogy of the Islamic state: reflections on Maududi’s political thought and Islamism’, JRAI, (NS): S145-S196.
*Soares, Benjamin and Filippo Osella. 2009. ‘Islam, politics, anthropology’, JRAI, (NS): S1-S23.
Gole, Nilufer. 2002. ‘Islam in Public: New Visibilities and New Imaginaries’, Public Culture, 14 (1): 173-190.
*Majid, Anouar. 1996. 'Can the Postcolonial Critic Speak? Orientalism and the Rushdie Affair', Cultural Critique, 32 (Winter 1995-1996): 5-42.
*Majid, Anouar. 1998. 'The Politics of Feminism in Islam', Signs 23 (2): 321-361.
McBrien, Julie. 2006. ‘Extreme Conversations: Secularism, Religious Pluralism, and the Rhetoric of Islamic Extremism in Southern Kyrgyzstan’, in The Postsocialist Religion Question: Faith and Power in Central Asian and East-Central Europe [Goldsmiths Library – 322. 1091717 POS]
Rudnyckyj, Daromir. 2009. ‘Market Islam in Indonesia’, JRAI, (NS): S183-S201.
Rudnyckyj, Daromir. 2009. ‘Spiritual Economies: Islam and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Indonesia’, Cultural Anthropology, 24 (1): 104-141.
SEMINAR
We will discuss Mamdani’s notion of ‘culture talk’ with respect to media representations of Islam, Islamism, Christianity, and Christian Fundamentalism.
Seminar reading
Mamdani, Mahmood. 2002. ‘Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: a political perspective on culture and terrorism’, American Anthropologist, 104 (3): 766-775. [Goldsmiths Library – Periodicals 301. 205]
Seminar question(s):
Why might Americans have bought copies of the Qu’ran in the wake of the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the United States? Equally, why do you think that residents of Fallujah, Iraq, did not buy copies of the Bible when they were under attack? Please avoid generalizations.
Is Islamism a form of nationalism, or is it something emergent that counters the idea of the nation-state? Provide examples from the readings.
Ahmad 2009File Gole 2002File Mamdani 2002File Rudnyckyj 2009aFile Rudnyckyj 2009bFile Soares and Osella 2009File Majid 1996File Majid 1998File Week 7 Slides
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WEEK 8 Nationalism, violence, and the politics of religious identification in South Asia
Throughout South Asia, religious identity has been used as an analytical tool to describe the forms of communal violence that periodically explode in the various post-colonies of the region. Yet, anthropological insights point to the role of nationalism, as a bid for domination, in fostering violence between ‘communities’; nationalism that is at once: historically located in the region; continued among diasporic populations globally; and expressed through highly gendered and essentialised representations of difference. In this lecture, we will ask why religions associated with ‘peace’, like Buddhism and to a lesser extent Hinduism, should be the legitimating authorities behind highly traumatic episodes of violence over the nation-state and national identity.
Readings:
*Metcalf, Barbara. 1999. ‘Nationalism, Modernity, and Muslim Identity’, in Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia.
*Nandy, Ashis. 1996. ‘The Politics of Secularism and the Recovery of Religious Tolerance’, in Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots, and Survivors in South Asia.
Tambiah, Stanley. 1992. Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka.
Hansen, Thomas Blom. 1996. ‘Recuperating Masculinity: Hindu Nationalism, Violence and the Exorcism of the Muslim Other’, Critique of Anthropology, 16 (2): 137-172.
Ghassem-Fachandi, Parvis. 2009. ‘The Hyperbolic Vegetarian: Notes on a Fragile Subject in Gujarat’, in Borneman, Jon and Abdellah Hammoudi (eds.) Being There: The Fieldwork Encounter and the Making of Truth. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Seminar question(s):
Do conflicts explained in terms of religious difference promote more extreme forms of violence than conflicts based on other public ideology? Why might they be portrayed as a more transgressive violence in the media and popular culture than that carried out by the nation-state?
Religious violence is always symbolic violence. Discuss critically with reference to Buddhism Betrayed?
FullerFile NandyFile Hansen 1996File Metcalf 1999File Week 8 Slides
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WEEK 9 Charismatic Christianity in Africa and Latin America
In this lecture, we explore the vast growth of Pentecostal-charismatic churches in the southern hemisphere, mainly in Africa and Latin America, in terms of various globalization theories. Ethnographers have been struck by the overlap of Pentecostal beliefs, rituals, and church organizations in these world areas, despite the obvious cultural diversity found between and within these same regions. Is the Charismatic Christian movement a kind of ‘New Reformation’ gaining momentum in the globalised South? The study of Pentecostalism raises paradoxes of ‘difference’ and ‘uniformity’ in processes of transnationalism and globalization. Is this movement an example of Western cultural homogenization? Or, inversely, is it to be better understood as a process of indigenizing differentiation? Such questions also provoke anthropologists to reconsider some of the ‘ethnographic taboos’ implicit in the study of new forms of Christianity.
Readings:
*Cannell, Fenella. 2006. ‘The Anthropology of Christianity’, in The Anthropology of Christianity. Duke University Press.
*Hann, Chris. 2007. ‘The Anthropology of Christianity per se’, European Journal of Sociology, 48 (3): 383-410.
Howell, Brian. 2007. ‘The Repugnant Cultural Other Speaks Back: Christian Identity as Ethnographic ‘Standpoint’, Anthropological Theory, 7: 371.
*Harding, Susan. 1991. ‘Representing fundamentalism: The problem of the repugnant other’, Social Research, 58: 373-393.
Robbins, Joel. 2004. ‘The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity’, Annual Reviews in Anthropology, 33: 117-143.
Seminar question(s):
Why have some anthropologists argued that studying Pentecostal Charismatic Christianity may constitute an ‘ethnographic taboo’? Discuss what these ‘taboos’ are and account for them within social anthropology.
Why might Pentecostalism be growing in conflict zones? Discuss in terms of Pentecostal notions of time.
Compare the rise of P-C Christianity to other religious political movements such as Islamism or Hindu religious nationalism. What is similar and different between these religious movements?
Robbins 2004File Hann 2007File CannellFile Harding 1991File Howell 2007File Week 9 Slides
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WEEK 10 Religious revival, modernity, and the question of secularism
As a penultimate discussion, we follow up on some the main questions the ‘Anthropology of Religion’ might raise in the context of public culture. One of these is the relationship between ‘religion’ and ‘secularism’, a theme already explored through ethnography introduced in earlier lectures. Yet, does this “resurgence of religion” indicate the de-privatization of religious practice, thus politically challenging the tenets of liberal secularism? Does the secularization thesis, resting on a particular concept of modernity, require rethinking to avoid further religious dispute? Has secularism reached its apogee in an increasingly multicultural and cosmopolitan world? Finally, we end the lectures by questioning what anthropologists might contribute to such practical debates.
Readings:
Asad, Talal. 1999. ‘Religion, Nation-State, Secularism’, in Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia [Goldsmiths Library – 322. 109NAT]
Ozyurek, Esra. 2005. ‘The politics of cultural unification, secularism, and the place of Islam in the new Europe’, American Ethnologist, 32 (4): 509-512. [Goldsmiths Library – Periodicals 301. 205]
Seminar question(s):
Ø As it stands in the early 21st century, can the idea of ‘being’ secular also remain inclusive of novel ways of ‘being’ religious? Discuss through an example drawn from the mainstream media.
Ø Is the so-called ‘resurgence of religion’ a direct rebuke of the secularization thesis? If so, what does this suggest about modernity and modernization theory? Provide some examples.
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WEEK 11 Wrap-up: Religion in a globalized 21st century (perspectives and debates on multiculturalism)
This final lecture sweeps over some of the major themes of interest in the anthropology of religion for future reference. In conclusion, we ask about the implications of multiculturalism – as secularist liberal policy – for some of the social conflicts explored in this course. Is multiculturalism obsolete in securing ‘freedoms’ and ‘rights’? When is ‘culture’ problematic and what implications might this have for an anthropology of religion in the 21stcentury? Can anthropology transform the ways in which it frames the religious dimension of human social lives? As a last discussion, this lecture should prepare you to think anthropologically about pervasive social debates.
Readings: see lecture notes as alternative to readings
Seminar question(s):
Ø Is multiculturalism capable of ensuring ‘religious freedoms’ to all? What might an anthropological critique of multiculturalism contribute to public debate around this question?
Ø How might the concept of ‘culture’ obscure our understandings of religious practices in the 21st century rather than assist them to be more astute. Discuss from as many points of view as possible and make use of examples. Ozyurek 2005.pdfFile WK 10 Slides (Aimee Joyce)File WK 10 Slides (Katie Aston)
Week 11 Slides
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