 |
|
|
|
 |
|
At Colgate, the section of the first-year course on "Religion and the Quest for Meaning" featured here is part of a linked pair of courses. Students are co-enrolled in two separate courses in order to increase the level of dialogue and conversation between two distinct disciplines and to foster the students' awareness of course relationships. Religion 202, taught by religion professor Christopher Vecsey, is linked to political science professor Tim Byrnes's first-year seminar on politics and world religions. In 2001, Professor Vecsey's course on "American Religion in These Times" was also linked to Professor Byrnes's "America as a Democracy," and THE NEW YORK TIMES served as one of the texts for class discussions.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
"To explore religion is to seek to understand humanity's diverse ways of expressing meaning in symbols, myths, rituals, beliefs, and communities. This course investigates the religious dimensions of being human through such lenses as history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, theology, and philosophy. This kind of study engages a constellation of issues and experiences that recur in different religious traditions - in this term Lakota, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic, particularly within the religious culture of the United States."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In this course we shall investigate religious developments in contemporary America and around the world. We shall read THE NEW YORK TIMES every day during the term to learn what is new and newsworthy in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and the many other world religious traditions in their diversity; in the interplay between churches and states within that realm sometimes referred to as "civil religion"; in emerging forms of spirituality, community, and ethical discourse; and in the relationships between religiousness and the arts, sports, ethnicity, sexuality, secularism, etc. and, of course, politics.
|
|
|
|
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Barbara Myerhoff, NUMBER OUR DAYS
(Simon & Schuster Touchstone, 1980)
John G. Neihardt, BLACK ELK SPEAKS
(University of Nebraska, 2000)
Stephen Prothero, AMERICAN JESUS
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003)
Michael Sells, APPROACHING THE QU'RAN
(White Cloud Press, 1999)
Huston Smith, THE WORLD'S RELIGIONS
(Harper San Francisco, 1998)
Shunryu Suzuki, ZEN MIND, BEGINNER'S MIND
(Weatherhill, 1970)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| Session 1: |
Introduction and Syllabus |
| Sessions 2-6: |
Black Elk Speaks (all) |
| Session 7: |
The World's Religions, 1-11, 365-383 (Point of Departure, The Primal Religions) |
| Sessions 8-10: |
The World's Religions, 12-81 (Hinduism) |
| Sessions 11-13: |
The World's Religion, 82-153 (Buddhism) |
| Sessions 14-16: |
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (all) |
 |
| Session 17: |
Mid-Term Examination |
| Sessions 18-19: |
The World's Religions, 221-270 (Islam) |
| Sessions 20-23: |
Approaching the Qu'ran (all) |
| Sessions 24-26: |
The World's Religions, 271-316 (Judaism) |
| Sessions 27-32: |
Number Our Days, 1-156, 195-268 |
| Sessions 33-36: |
The World's Religions, 317-364 (Christianity) |
| Sessions 37-41: |
American Jesus (all) |
| Session 42: |
The World's Religions, 384-391 (A Final Examination) |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Please answer all three questions, each with an essay of a page or two. Be specific.
- Two of the most prominent NEW YORK TIMES articles on religion that have appeared during the
semester so far have appeared in the Sunday Magazine: "Is Buddhism Good for Your Health?" by Stephen S. Hall, September 14, 2003, pp 46-49, and "Waiting for the Messiah of Eastern Parkway" by Jonathan Mahler, September 21, 2003, pp 42-47. Summarize either one (but not both) of the articles and tell what you learned from it about the nature of religion.
- In THE FUTURE OF AN ILLUSION (1927), Sigmund Freud makes several theoretical assertions about the nature of religion. Review those assertions and tell what supporting evidence you can find for them in the pages of John G. Neihardt's BLACK ELK SPEAKS.
- Based upon your reading of Huston Smith's THE WORLD'S RELIGIONS, depict the similarities between Hindu and Buddhist traditions.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Answer both questions with essays that are synthetic, comparative and detailed:
- Clifford Geertz has defined religion as a "cultural system·" During the semester, both in the classroom and in readings, we have encountered Geertz's full definition repeatedly. Show how Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism (or only two of these religious traditions, if you wish) illustrate Geertz's definition in its full range of aspects.
- Toward the end of the term it was suggested that one thing religions have in common is that they are all concerned, in their particular ways, with "soteriology" (the means of "salvation," variously conceived.) Describe and compare the soteriological content of the Christian, Lakota Sioux, and Buddhist traditions (or only two of these religions, if you wish).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Christopher Vecsey is the Charles A. Dana Professor of the Humanities and Native American Studies at Colgate University and the author and editor of many books on North American Indian religions. Most recently, he is co-editor of THE CROSSING OF TWO ROADS: BEING CATHOLIC AND NATIVE IN THE UNITED STATES (Orbis Books, 2003).
Timothy A. Byrnes is professor of political science at Colgate University. He is co-editor of RELIGION IN AN EXPANDING EUROPE (Cambridge University Press, 2006) and author of CATHOLIC BISHOPS IN AMERICAN POLITICS (Princeton University Press, 1991).
|
|
|
|
