Resources - Religion and American Culture

“Spiritual But Not Religious”: Spirituality in America

Matthew S. Hedstrom
Author

University of Virginia
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2012
Date Published

What does “spiritual but not religious” mean, and why has it become such a pervasive self-description in contemporary America? This interdisciplinary course surveys spirituality in America, with a particular eye for the relationship between spirituality and formal religion, on the one hand, and secular modes of understanding the self, such as psychology, on the other. Along the way we’ll study everything from AA to yoga to Zen meditation, with stops in Christian rock, Beat poetry, Abstract Expressionist painting, spirit photography, the feminist movement, environmentalism, and recent film. The study of spirituality forces us to confront many of the central concerns of modern American life: psychology, self-help, and therapeutic culture; global religious and cultural encounters; gender and sexuality; and consumerism and mass culture. In the end, we’ll come to see spirituality in America as a complex intermingling of the great world religions, modern therapeutic psychology, the politics of movements for social change, and a crassly commercialized, billion-dollar culture industry. Is this the fate of religion in a modern, capitalist, globalized society?

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

A word of caution on the inauguration of Vice President Kamala Harris

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Kristina Horn Sheeler (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis) discusses “A word of caution on the inauguration of Vice President Kamala Harris.” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 3, December 17, 2020.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Advanced Topics in the Sociology of Religion

Wendy Cadge
Author

Brandeis University
Institution

2012
Date Published

This graduate level course introduces you to the tools and concepts central to the sociological study of religion in the United States. It is divided into three sections. In the first section, we discuss what the social scientific study of religion is by readings works by classic and neo-classic thinkers in light of several overviews of the field. The second section focuses on key issues important for anyone trying to understand religion in the United States. The final few weeks will focus on a few (of the many) topics you are interested in as a class. I will provide reading lists for the third section of the course shortly after the semester begins. Materials throughout the course are drawn from across theoretical and methodological approaches.

Class Type: Graduate Course

African American Religions

Julius Bailey
Author

University of Redlands
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2006
Date Published

This course offers an introduction to African American religions. The class moves chronologically, examining African religions in the Americas (Santeria, Candomble, and Vodou), cultural continuities between African and African-American religions, slave religion, and the development of independent African American churches. We will examine the rise of African American new religious movements such as Father Divine and the Nation of Islam, and the religious dimensions of the Civil Rights Movement. Moving through African-American religious history, we will consider topics such as slave resistance, gender and race, and emigration to Africa.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

African American Religious History

Alison Collis Greene
Author

Mississippi State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2015
Date Published

African American Religious History is a new upper-level course in the History Department. This course provides an introduction to African American religious history from the colonial period to the present. The course textbook provides a broad overview of African American religious history, which provides a common base of knowledge for our discussions. The additional course readings, lectures, documentary viewings, and class discussion provide an opportunity to examine particular moments or movements in more depth. By the end of the course, students should have both a general knowledge of African American religious history and a more comprehensive knowledge of a few particularly rich moments and themes in that history.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Afrofuturism and Black churches

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Joseph L. Tucker Edmonds (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis) answers the question “How does Afrofuturism relate to Black churches?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 5, February 18, 2021.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Amanda Gorman & the 2021 U.S. Presidential Inauguration

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Raymond Haberski, Jr. (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis) considers “Did Amanda Gorman give us something that the president could not give us?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 3, December 17, 2020.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

American Catholic History

Michael Pasquier
Author

Louisiana State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2012
Date Published

This course provides an introduction to the historical experiences of Catholics in North America from the colonial period to the present. This course is not only an institutional history of the American Catholic Church, but also a study of popular manifestations of Catholicism which tries to uncover the diverse experiences of American Catholics in different places and times throughout the history of the United States. We will use a variety of primary and secondary sources to achieve these goals, including traditional monographs, novels, memoirs, films, papal documents, correspondences, essays, speeches, poetry, political writings, sermons, advertisements, liturgies, and works of art. Over the course of the semester we will learn about the major developments, persons, institutions, and ideas that shaped the experiences of Catholics at different moments in American history. We will also learn how to listen to and understand the voices of people from the past and the present, perspectives that are embedded in historical artifacts and available to us in the person of Catholic adherents today.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

American Christianities

Emily Clark
Author

Gonzaga University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2017
Date Published

Americans frequently debate on whether or not this is a Christian nation. Those same Americans have different understandings of what a “Christian nation” is. In America, it seems there is no one way to be Christian. From initial encounters and exchanges between European colonists and Native Americans to the serpent-handling churches in rural Appalachia, we will build a thematic and chronological framework for understanding the diversity of Christianities in American history and culture. Christianity has been a dominant force in American history, and it has been a very diverse force. During the course, we will investigate the powerful social, cultural, political, and intellectual role Christianity plays in our nation’s past.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

American Christianity

Diana Butler Bass
Author

Rhodes College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1996
Date Published

Course Goals and Objectives: 1.) Present a broad survey of the history of Christianity in the United States. 2.) Acquaint students with the contributions of the Christian tradition to American culture and the effects of American culture on Christian faith and practice. 3.) Assess the role and importance of traditionally marginalized peoples and religious traditions in American Christianity. 4.) Increase analytical and critical skills with primary and secondary sources and the ability to express those skills verbally and in writing. 5.) Understand the relevance of historical debates regarding God, nature and society to current religious, social and political issues.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

American Civil Religion

Julia M. Speller
Author

Chicago Theological Seminary
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

This course will examine the origins, structures and parameters of American Civil Religion and discuss its presence in and influence on American society and American religion. This study will focus on the speeches, addresses, sermons and essays of Benjamin Franklin, Lucretia Mott, Abraham Lincoln, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Frederick Douglass as they each responded to the issues of authority, freedom, justice and social transformation, and in so doing, reveals important aspects of this phenomenon on the issues of their time.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Graduate Course

American civil religion flattens intragroup difference

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Elaine Peña (The George Washington University) discusses how American civil religion flattens intragroup difference. This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 4, January 21, 2021.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

American Evangelicalism

Omri Elisha
Author

Queens College, City University of New York
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2015
Date Published

Evangelical Christianity is among the most powerful religious movements in the world today. Driven by the mandate to “bring new souls to Christ,” as well as the demands of born-again faith and biblical orthodoxy, evangelicals along with televangelists, revivalists, and missionaries, pursue a wide array of social, cultural, and even commercial enterprises, inspiring all manner of innovation, indoctrination, and controversy. This course takes a serious look at evangelicalism from an anthropological perspective. Covering topics such as revivalism, Biblicism, contemporary Christian media, missionization, and gender ideology, we will consider multiple dimensions of evangelicalism as lived religion, an explore its active role in shaping many of the key cultural movements, debates, and historical transformations that have defined secular modernity, from confessional notions of self and society to conflicts over religion and science and the separation of church and state. Our aim will be neither to evaluate nor justify evangelical Christianity but rather to better understand the depth and complexity of its global influence in the contemporary moment.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

American Gospels: Religion and American Literature

Danielle B. Sigler
Author

Austin College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2004
Date Published

Traditionally, religion and American literature course shave examined expressions of religious faith and practice in American fiction using American religious history as an organizational tool. This course recognizes that the relationship between American literature and religion is complex and not merely representational. Thus, we will examine a variety of works that typify four different ways American writers have combined art and religion: rewriting sacred texts, writing works of fiction and non-fiction that have inspired new religions and new religious movements, writing fiction that examines issue of faith and the supernatural, and finally critiquing American religion through fiction.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

American Indian Religions

Sarah Dees
Author

Iowa State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2019
Date Published

The purpose of this course is to teach students about histories, sources, ways of knowing, politics, and ethical considerations that are valuable when seeking to understand Native American religious traditions. The course explores historical and contemporary Native traditions in what is today the United States. We will draw on theories from Religious Studies and Indigenous Studies, and utilize a range of methods, including historical, anthropological, and cultural studies approaches. Lectures, readings, discussions, and assignments will help to illuminate features of Native American traditions and situate them within important historical and political contexts. The course covers Native North American religious diversity, history, and contemporary practices. We will consider a number of issues: ethics, politics, practice, popular culture, self-determination, cultural appropriation, land rights, relationality, and environmentalism. We will both try to gain a big-picture look at themes and issues that affect many practitioners while examining case studies from specific Native nations.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Seminar

American Jewish History and Culture

Lila Corwin Berman
Author

Pennsylvania State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2006
Date Published

As one of the earliest non-Christian immigrant populations, American Jews have struggled to explain how they could nonetheless fit into American cultural, political and social life. At the same time, many Jews have been concerned with their own survival as a distinctive group, unwilling to cede those practices, behaviors or traits that designate them as a people apart from other Americans. The student of American-Jewish history must be attuned to the multiple ways that Jewishness has been defined: as a race, a religion, a nationality, and an ethnicity. In this course, far from choosing just one of these designations, we will explore Jewish life from many different angles. Topics to be considered include religious reform, immigrant experience, political activism, popular culture, and struggles over community authority and membership.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

American Preaching: Word, Performance, and Media

M. Cooper Harriss
Author

Indiana University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2017
Date Published

A provocation: There is no more significant historical influence on the development of American language and literature, political oratory, musical/entertainment style, and
the refinement of media and technology—all of which is to say “American culture”— than preachers and their preaching. This course begins with a brief historical overview of the diversity of American preaching and some primary cultural and theoretical concerns before tracing its contributions to presumably “secular” culture considered in three categories: word (literature, rhetoric, and authority), performance (music, oratory, symbolic action, embodiment, affect), and media (pamphlets, radio, television, Internet, and other technologies). In the process we’ll consider religious dimensions of cultural production, questions of authority and identity, phenomenologies of charisma and emotion, and the critical possibilities for theology, homiletics, and other confessional “data” within the study of religion and culture.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Graduate Course

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

Other
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

These timelines allow instructors or students to interactively explore the most significant events and people in the history of American religion. The ARDA has 9 different timelines that place historical people, events, and contexts into conversation with each other.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

American Religions

Karin E. Gedge
Author

West Chester University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

Students in this course will acquire a broad overview of American religions from pre-European contact to the present with an emphasis on continuity and change over time, the remarkable variety and intensity of voluntary religion, and the sources of both conflict and consensus within and between various traditions. Since this is an advanced level history course, students will be required to demonstrate not only knowledge of course content but also skills in note-taking, inquiry, research, analysis, synthesis, and historiography. No prior knowledge of American religions or religious history is required. However, a basic working knowledge of American political and social history is an asset. This is a very demanding course, but students will have the opportunity to to acquire interesting, valuable knowledge and skills they will be able to use and apply beyond this course.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

American Religions: In Search of the Promised Land

Tracy Neal Leavelle
Author

Creighton University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2006
Date Published

Religious communities and inspired individuals have through time discovered in America a seemingly ideal place to pursue their hopeful visions of purity, truth, and salvation. We will explore in this course the vibrant, contentious, and unfinished story of this ongoing search for the Promised Land. Together, we will examine the mutual influences of religion and American culture through studies of diverse religious communities with a particular emphasis on the intersection between religion and place. Specific issues for consideration include concepts of home and sacred space, religious dimensions of the conquest of America, religion and nature, the faith and practices of exile communities, and the influence of border culture on religion. Students will also participate in an ongoing project mapping Omaha religious landscapes. The project involves site visits, interviews, research in local historical material, and the use of advanced GPS and GIS technology.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

American Religious Communities

Jennifer Graber
Author

College of Wooster
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2011
Date Published

Religious life in the United States has been marked by an ongoing tension: the power sought, and sometimes obtained, by majority religious groups and the religious pluralism that marks the population and is protected by law. In this class, we will explore this tension through a historically organized survey of majority and minority religious communities. We begin with the continent’s original pluralism in its hundreds of Native American religious traditions. We then move to powerful varieties of Protestant Christianity as they interacted with smaller groups, including colonial-era Jews, upstart Mormons, African-American Christians, newly immigrated Catholics, and more recently arrived immigrants who practice Hinduism and Islam.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

American Religious Folklife

Leonard Norman Primiano
Author

Cabrini College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

Folklife Studies refers to the scholarly discipline which cultivates a sensibility and an appreciation for the culture of everyday life in complex societies. Religious folklife means specific cultural creations that express religious attitudes and beliefs. This course in American religious folklife will examine the history and culture of religion in America with specific reference to Christian and Christian-based systems, as well as believers’ religious artifacts, art, craft, architecture, belief, customs, habits, foodways, costume, narrative, dance, song and other cultural expressions.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Spencer Fluhman
Author

Brigham Young University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2009
Date Published

Student Learning Outcomes: Students who put forth the requisite time and effort (i.e., reading, writing, speaking, listening) will be able to (1) identify the historical origins, beliefs, and practices of major religious groups in the United States, (2) identify major events,trends, and transformations in the history of American religion, (3) critically examine historical documents related to the history of American religion, and (4) offer informed perspectives on the ways scholars have understood the history of American religion.

The Course: The course engages documents relating to religious people, practices, and ideas in the American past. Together, we tackle questions about religion in American life: how has religion shaped American culture? Been shaped by it? How has religious difference influenced social development in the United States? How have Americans understoodreligion’s place in the Republic?

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

American Religious History

Anne M. Blankenship
Author

Syllabus
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Introduction to the basic issues in American history including the study of Puritans, immigration, church and state, revivalism, civil and military religion, apocalypticism, and new age religion.

We will dig beyond rituals and doctrine to discover the roles religion plays in the lives of Americans. Moving roughly chronologically, the class will give particular attention to race, immigration, and pluralism in American religion. We’ll wrestle over the meaning of religious liberty and different understandings of the separation of church and state. We will experiment with textual and visual analysis and ethnography to see what these methodological approaches offer us as scholars. Class periods will be filled with a mixture of discussion, short videos, group activities, lectures, and student presentations as we learn about new and old religious traditions in America.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Institution

Syllabus, Teaching Module, Assignment, Video, Class Readings List, Other
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Social researchers must be careful to make sure that the measures they use are valid. That is, do the questions measure what we think they measure? Sometimes we assume that attitudes and behaviors are the same, but often they are not. This learning module will use data from the General Social Survey 2014 and 2021 to explore the differences between attitudes and behaviors.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Beliefs About Life and Death

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module will explore the various attitudes in the United States about life and death. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Berman Jewish DataBank Learning Module-Exploring Jewish Identity

Harriet Hartman
Author

Rowan University
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2014
Date Published

Professor Harriet Hartman of Rowan University has created a Learning Module which is designed to introduce students and scholars to the analysis of Jewish survey data in a relatively easy-to-use format, utilizing some of the local Jewish community study and national Jewish survey data which are available at the Berman Jewish DataBank.The module is a self-learning, self-directed activity which focuses on exploring Jewish identity (religious identity and ethnic identity). The module’s exercises invite thinking about Jewish identity and exploring ways in which Jewish identity is expressed. The activities within the Learning Module are designed to help users learn how to read survey data to understand and interpret Jewish identity, to help users explore some of the differences among Jewish persons with different denominational identifications (or none at all), and to compare findings in one Jewish community study to findings from other Jewish community studies.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Biography of Rev. Mudge (Presentation)

David Migliaccio
Author

Other
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Class Type:

Black churches and the youth

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Melanie L. Harris (Texas Christian University) answers the question “What are your thoughts on Black churches and the youth?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 5, February 18, 2021.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Brummer: American Pictures of Heaven (Presentation)

Other
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Class Type:

Buddhist American History and Culture (Anthropology)

Jonathan Arbuckle
Author

Ivy Tech
Institution

Teaching Module
Resource Type

2016
Date Published

IUPUI partnered with Ivy Tech Community College to introduce fifteen community college instructors to the religious traditions of Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist communities in greater Indianapolis. With support from NEH, “World Religions in Greater Indianapolis” utilized primary and secondary humanities texts and humanities experts at several local universities, supplemented by field trips and discussions with local practitioners, to explore these five world religions, their history and life in the United States, and their presence in and contributions to cultural life in the metropolitan area. The program resulted in the production of 150 course modules that incorporate knowledge about world religions into Ivy Tech’s core humanities curriculum.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Buddhist American History and Culture (Art History)

Courtland Blade
Author

Ivy Tech
Institution

Teaching Module
Resource Type

2016
Date Published

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Buddhist American History and Culture (Art History)

Joshua Phillippe
Author

Ivy Tech
Institution

Teaching Module
Resource Type

2017
Date Published

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Buddhist American History and Culture (Composition)

Rachel Barrett-Knight
Author

Ivy Tech
Institution

Teaching Module
Resource Type

2016
Date Published

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Jennifer Caplan
Author

Towson University
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

This is a semester-long group project in which the class designs a religion, and then breaks into smaller sectarian groups to think about what brings people together and what pulls them apart.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Capitalism and American Religion

Lincoln Mullen
Author

George Mason University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

The relationship between religion and capitalism has long occupied historians of the United States, and before them it concerned the people whom historians study. In this class, you will meet many people whose religion led them to interact with capitalism in unexpected and unusual ways. You will meet the Puritans whose work ethic supposedly created capitalism, but who insisted on resting on the Sabbath; Moravian missionaries who made converts and money; slaves, slaveowners, and abolitionists who all claimed the Bible when reckoning with the capitalist system of slavery; a Protestant writer who insisted that Jesus was a businessman, and Catholics who believed Jesus called them to a kind of socialism; African American preachers who marketed their recorded sermons; Jews who mass-manufactured matzah and created Yiddish socialism; an industrialist who wrote The Gospel of Wealth, and laborers who created churches for the working class; nineteenth-century consumers who turned gift-giving into a ritual, and twenty-first-century television personalities who turned consumption into therapy; Christians whose faith turned them into environmentalists, and Christians who drilled for crude oil; converts who thought religion required poverty, and Prosperity Gospelers who thought it promised wealth. You will read primary sources from American history, secondary works in American religious history, and excerpts from theorists of religion and capitalism. Through these readings and your own writing, you are invited to make sense of this perpetual historical puzzle.

Class Type: Graduate Course, Seminar

Chosen Peoples, Chosen Nation

Henry Goldschmidt
Author

Wesleyan University
Institution

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Church and State in American History

Kathleen Flake
Author

Vanderbilt University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2004
Date Published

The objectives of this course are: to study the historical context of America’s contemporary debate over the proper relation of church and state; to analyze the seminal theories that have characterized historically the interpretation of the religion clauses of the constitution; and to become familiar with the uses of legal documents for historical research and theological reflection.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Graduate Course, Seminar

Clergy Satisfaction and Vocational Commitment

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module will focus on a variety of questions ranging from levels of commitment of religious leaders to how satisfied citizens are with their congregational leaders. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Communal Utopias in America

Matthew J. Grow
Author

University of Southern Indiana
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2011
Date Published

From one perspective, these communal religions seem marginal to the American story. They have typically existed at the fringe of society, attracted only a tiny minority of America’s population, and formed countercultures to the American mainstream. For most contemporary Americans, communalism conjures up images of Shaker historic communities, hippie communes, or the traces of communalism that remain in modern American material culture—Oneida silverware, Shaker furniture, and Amana appliances. Nevertheless, throughout American history, these groups have captivated, bemused, and infuriated the broader public. Their efforts have provoked deep controversy as they questioned some of the most fundamental ideals of society—private property, capitalism, republican government, traditional gender roles, mainstream clothing and diet mores, and monogamous marriages. This course will examine attempts to implement utopias and communal societies in the American past and present. We will pay particular attention to nearby New Harmony, the site of two utopian experiments in the early 1800s

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Comparing Two Congregations

Elfriede Wedam
Author

Loyola University Chicago
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2013
Date Published

Please take two of your observations and compare and contrast them according to the following rubric:

1) Type of ritual (what specific elements)

2) Relationship between the sacred and the profane (what indicators symbolize the difference)

3) One of the following sociological concepts:

a. Social class

b. Gender

c. Race/ethnicity

4) Conclude with one paragraph in which you explain what observing religious practices has taught you about religion in society.This paper should be approximately 3 – 4 pages.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Congregations’ Social and Community Engagement

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module will explore how congregations extend their mission beyond worship within their communities. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Contemporary Cults and New Religious Movements (NRMs) in North America

David Bromley
Author

Virginia Commonwealth University
Institution

2007
Date Published

America is the most religiously diverse nation in the world. There are more than 2,500 separate religious organizations in the U.S., and the number of groups has increased steadily through our history. This is an introductory course in contemporary religious movements in North America. The focus of the course is on groups that emerged during the last half of the twentieth century, New Religious Movements (NRMs). The overall objective of the course is to examine the diversity of these movements and to make sense of them from a sociological perspective. This project involves understanding how these movements are distinctive, what gives rise to them, how they differ from one another, and how they develop through their histories.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Contemporary Memoirs of African American Religion Syllabus

Vaughn Booker
Author

Dartmouth College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2019
Date Published

This course presents African Americans who have created religious and spiritual lives amid the variety of possibilities for religious belonging in the second half of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century. By engaging an emerging canon of autobiographies, we will take seriously the writings of theologians, religious laity, spiritual gurus, hip hop philosophers, LGBT clergy, religious minorities, and scholars of religion as foundational for considering contemporary religious authority through popular and/or institutional forms of African American religious leadership. Themes of spiritual formation and religious belonging as a process— healing, self-making, writing, growing up, renouncing, dreaming, and liberating—characterize the religious journeys of the African American writers, thinkers, and leaders whose works we will examine. Each weekly session will also incorporate relevant audiovisual religious media, including online exhibits, documentary films, recorded sermons, tv series, performance art, and music. 0

Class Type: Intro, Seminar

COVID-19 and an Epidemic of Loneliness

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Dr. Richard Gunderman (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis) answers the question “How are religious communities dealing with an epidemic of loneliness?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 3, December 17, 2020.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Caleb Elfenbein (Grinnell College) answers the question “How do teachers deal with vulnerability while also addressing emotional exhaustion?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 8, May 20, 2021.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Defining Religion in America

Tisa Wenger
Author

Yale Divinity School
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2009
Date Published

This course examines how and in whose interests American concepts of and about “religion” have been produced. What cultural sites (the courts, the media, schools, the academy) are most influential in producing ideas about religion-in-general, or about particular kinds of religion? Who has the power to determine what groups are recognized as legitimate and therefore constitutionally protected religions? What is imagined to be the appropriate scope of religion’s impact in public life—is it primarily a private concern, or is it relevant to public interests? What relationship do such concepts of religion have with the politics of race, class, gender, and colonialism?

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Graduate Course

Denominationalism in America

Lydia Huffman Hoyle
Author

Georgetown College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

This course will explore: 1.) the nature and sources of denominationalism in America; 2.) the genesis, development, theology, and practice of nine denominational families in America; 3.) the changing face of denominationalism in America today; and 4.) issues in denominationalism. Upon completion of this course, the responsible student will be able to discuss possible reasons why America was particularly well-suited for the development of multiple sects and denominations and discuss the importance of the Reformation in setting the stage for the development of denominations.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Denominations in the United States

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Class Type:

Digital projects in the classroom

Lincoln Mullen
Author

George Mason University
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2018
Date Published

This collaboratively written post at The Immanent Frame offers teaching assignments for a number of different digital projects in religious studies. The contributors are Melanie Adrian, Amélie Barras, Jennifer A. Selby, Emily Floyd, Chris Gratien, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Lincoln Mullen, Alexander van der Haven, Isaac Weiner, and Amy DeRogatis.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Disaster in American Religion & Culture Syllabus

Cooper Harriss
Author

Indiana University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

This is an upper-level course listed in the Religion in the Americas section of IU’s religious studies curriculum. Capped at 25-30 students, it usually fills with a waiting list–in no small part because it satisfies multiple general education requirements. Students who subscribe to the class range from reigious studies majors to students taking what will be their only religious studies course. This syllabus represents my first attempt at teaching the course online, though the readings and topics have not changed radically in the transition from face-to-face learning.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Online

Economics 1450r: Religion and Political Economy

Rachel McCleary
Author

Harvard University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2019
Date Published

This course looks at several different veins regarding economics and religion. Such topics include the Protestant Reformation, religiosity, secularization, economic growth and several others. Additionally the course sets out to discuss theories regarding capital accumulation, church and state, as well as social participation.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Graduate Course

Tricia Bruce
Author

Maryville College
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2013
Date Published

This assignment is designed to elicit common sociological themes across multiple religious traditions. You need to have read your ethnography in its entirety by the date of our first panel. Although others will have also read this book, this is not a group presentation: you do not need to coordinate your efforts as a group prior to the panels. If, however, you have questions regarding your reading, I would recommend finding time prior to the panels to discuss this with others who have read your ethnography. On panel days, we will rearrange our chairs to form a triangle and generate discussion around the questions posed below, applied to each of the ethnographies read by the class.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Evangelicals in the United States

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module focuses on the influence and potential growing numbers of evangelicals within the United States. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Exploring American Religious History

Kathryn Gin Lum
Author

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions.This module focuses on religious beliefs and practices and how they vary dramatically across nations.This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.0

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Evan Berry (Arizona State University) answers the question “How does the fossil fuel industry and marketing effect environmentalism?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 6, March 18, 2021.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Framing nature as a place where people are not

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Lisa H. Sideris (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis) discusses “framing nature as a place where people are not.” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 5, March 18, 2021.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Futurity and studies on race, gender and religion

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Corey Miles (Morgan State University) answers the question “How do you reflect on what futurity might offer for the work that’s been done in studies of race, gender, and religion?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 5, February 18, 2021.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Geography of American Religion

Elaine Peña
Author

George Washington University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2012
Date Published

This course combines perspectives from the fields of geography, anthropology, performance studies, and religious studies to cultivate a deeper understanding of how communities produce, maintain, and legitimize sanctified spaces. Although course readings direct our attention toward U.S.-based case studies, we will also consider their transnational dimensions—how religious groups build belief across national boundaries. We will pay particular attention to the political and economic factors that facilitate the development of transnational sacred spaces. In some cases, our starting points are actually located outside of the United States. By expanding our horizons, we will be able to critically engage the idea that American religious spaces, and notions of American religion more generally, are produced primarily within the boundaries of the U.S. nation-state.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Ghosts, UFOs, and Other Paranormal Beliefs

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Ghosts, UFOS, and Other Paranormal Beliefs

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module explores non-traditional beliefs within the United States. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Global Christianities

Angela Tarángo
Author

Trinity University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2016
Date Published

What exactly is the Christian tradition? Can we even say that one exists? This class aims to challenge how students view Christianity by taking a tour of the varieties of world Christianity
that exist in the twentieth and twenty-first century, and by sampling a wide variety of methods in how one studies the field of Christianity. These will include historical, sociographical,
ethnohistorical, anthropological, theoretical, and gender studies methods, all of which challenge traditional (meaning mainly those steeped in the field of church history) scholars of religion to expand their understandings of Christianity in the modern period. This class is not a historical overview of Christianity and its variety of theologies, but rather it focuses on how Christianity in the modern period has become entangled with politics, race, sexuality, healing, issues of gender, revolution and religious strife (among other things.) This course focuses on content, methodology, and also seeks to situate each case study within current world events. In each section of this class we will consider case studies from all over the world including the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia and the Middle East in order to both understand some of the main themes that trouble the study of modern Christianity along with the methods by which it is understood and studied.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

God and War

Raymond Haberski
Author

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Graduate Course

History of Christianity in the U.S.

Kathleen Riley
Author

Ohio Dominican College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

This course is a survey of the major thoughts, movements and personalities of American Religious History, from the colonial era to the present day. A special emphasis will be placed on Catholicism, and its place in the religious landscape of the United States. Among the topics to be explored during the course of the semester will be: the religious motives for settling the New World; Awakenings, Revivals and Reform; Immigration and Nativism (Protestant-Catholic tensions); twentieth century “Isms” (Fundamentalism, Liberalism, Modernism and the “heresy” of Americanism); the Post Work War II Religious Revival; the crisis of the Sixties and the Second Vatican Council; and “Civil Religion” (the Religion of the American Republic) as a persistent force in American life and politics.

From the particular perspective of Catholicism, two persistent and pervasive themes will predominate: Immigration and Americanization. Our focus will be on the internal evolution of American Catholicism as it met and absorbed divergent social and ethnic groups, and that of the external relations between the Catholic community and the greater Protestant national community. This focus will allow us to explore, with historical evidence, the more theoretical issues of diversity/pluralism/multiculturalism in American history, and the relations between elites and subordinates – Insiders and Outsiders. Few communities in American History have sustained in such large numbers and over such a long period of time the varieties of peoples as American Catholicism.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

History of Religion in America

Steven Epperson
Author

Brigham Young University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1996
Date Published

We intend to examine the story of the religious “experience” of the American people from the 16th century to the present. Our principal concerns are to gain a better understanding of a) the essential beliefs and practices of America’s religious communities, b) the major interpretive themes employed to make sense of the American religious story, c) aspects of the interaction between religion and American culture, and d) the role individuals play in the formation and sustenance of religious movements and institutions.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

History of Religion in America

Paul Harvey
Author

University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1996
Date Published

In this block we will probe, discuss, and analyze the multiple religious traditions in America. Each student will prepare and present a research project, which may be historical or contemporary, that will focus on a particular religious tradition. Additionally, “fieldwork” will be done in which each student will be asked to participate in a religious event of some sort which will be foreign to your experience, whether that be in a fundamentalist mega-church, a Jewish synagogue, or a New Age temple. We will make a trip to the Baca campus and visit the Carmelite monastery there, and observe their ritual day. Class time will be oriented around discussion of specific texts, with period short lectures to fill in necessary factual material. To encourage discussion of the material, students will also be asked to prepare one or two email responses a week in reaction to questions set by the moderator of our email discussion group (I will serve as the moderator).

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

History of Religion in America

Charles Israel
Author

Auburn University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2006
Date Published

In this course we will explore in both broad scope and some more focused case-studies the role religion has played in North American social, cultural, and even political history. The object is to explore religion both as an extraordinary experience or abstract idea and as an important component of individual and group social identity in the American past. We can all agree that there were churches, congregations, and denominations in the American past; but how did religion operate in American history? What was the interaction between otherworldly faiths and present, worldly, and temporal interests of humans?

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

History of Religion in America

Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp
Author

University of North Carolina
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1993
Date Published

This course is a survey of religion in America from the pre-colonial era to the present. Although this is a large class, our goal will be to explore together certain moments and themes in American religious history that have significantly shaped the development of the nation as a whole. The approach will be chronological, that is, we will move through time from the pre-colonial context to the late twentieth century; but our aim will be to connect past events to issues and problems that continue to affect the expression of religious beliefs and practices in our own culture. At times, we will employ a “case study” approach: rather than trying to cover every significant religious development and each religious group, we will analyze specific events and ideas that have a wider applicability.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

History of Religion in the U.S.

Charles F. Irons
Author

Elon University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2009
Date Published

This course offers a selective survey of American Religious History from pre-Columbian times to the present. It emphasizes the remarkable diversity of religious belief and practice in the area that became the United States. Challenging theoretical questions about the essence of religion and the scholarly study of it are an essential part of the course.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

History of Religion in the United States

Elizabeth L. Jemison
Author

Clemson University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2017
Date Published

This course offers a broad introduction to American religious history from the 1600s to today. As we travel together from the early colonial period to the present, our course will consider four
important themes in the history of religion in the United States. By the semester’s end, students will be able to describe and analyze important aspects such as church and state, race and religion, and the challenges of pluralism, as well as have a solid understanding of the historical development of American religious cultures.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

History of Religion in the United States

Evelyn Sterne
Author

University of Rhode Island
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2006
Date Published

This course will explore the history of religion in the United States from the colonial period to the present, with emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Our focus will be less on theological issues than on the political, cultural, ethnic, racial and gender dimensions of religion. Major themes will include: the diversity of religious traditions in this nation; the intersections between religion and politics; and the ways in which religion has shaped and been shaped by national, ethnic and racial identities. Throughout the course, we will bring together past and present by discussing how the study of religious history informs our understanding of current issues and debates.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

History of Religion Post-Civil War America

Richard J. Callahan
Author

University of Missouri-Columbia
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2005
Date Published

The course attempts to illustrate the dynamic and powerful role that religion has played, and continues to play, in the social, cultural, political, economic, and creative aspects of realms of American life. Because of the broad scope of the subject, a course such as this one can only survey the landscape rather than being a comprehensive account. We will pay special attention to the diversity of American traditions and cultures while we also look for patterns that emerge from their shared history as Americans. We will also explore the history of a few selected religious
issues more thoroughly. We will be attentive to issues of power that have shaped American religious history, the ways we interpret that history, and the ways we think about religion. By the end of the course, you should be familiar with a general chronological overview of historical developments and issues in American religion.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

History of Religious Life and Practice in Canada and the U.S.

Eleanor J. Stebner
Author

The University of Winnipeg
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

This course provides a study of the history of religious life and practice in Canada and the United States from the time of European colonization to the present. It includes the study of select individuals, church and state relations, and comparisons between the Canadian and U.S. nation-states. Various denominations and sects that comprise the North American religious milieu are highlighted, as are significant movements such as evangelicalism, fundamentalism, feminism, and ecumenism. Historical analysis will inevitably lead to discussions regarding Christianity within our current time and contexts. A combination of lecture and seminar format is utilized.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Graduate Course, Seminar

How has the COVID-19 pandemic permanently changed religious life?

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Dr. Ryon J. Cobb (University of Georgia) answers the question “How has the COVID-19 pandemic permanently changed religious life?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 3, December 17, 2020.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

How is environmentalism framed among scholars and religious communities?

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Amanda J. Baugh (California State University, Northridge) answers the question “How is environmentalism framed among scholars and religious communities?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 6, March 18, 2021.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

How the Clergy Differ Between Religious Traditions

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Indigenous Christianities

Brandon Bayne
Author

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2017
Date Published

This course examines diverse indigenous engagements with Christianity in the Americas from earliest contacts to the present. Topics will range from missionary contestations in colonial Mexico to the Native American Church’s fight for religious freedom in 20th Century United States, from historical revitalization movements like the Ghost Dance to postcolonial indigenous theologies in North and South America. Along the way, we will consider a variety of responses to Christian evangelism; including rejection, revitalization, revolt, and renewal. The title of the course implies multiplicity; “native and Christian” can be an opposition, tension, identification, combination, or all of the above. We will wrestle with how to appreciate cultural continuities, account for historical changes and articulate new religious combinations. At the same time, we will tackle questions of violence, asymmetrical power, colonization, and the need for decolonized methodologies. Students should come prepared for an active, lively discussion, and ready to critically investigate the readings, while I will provide short lectures on historical background. Our work together will culminate with research projects on contemporary expressions of indigenous Christianity that will apply the theoretical, historical, and methodological tools acquired in the course.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Individuals’ Religious Beliefs and Behaviors

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Class Type:

International Religious Regulation and Freedom

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions.This module focuses on regional practices of religious expression, profession and practice. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.0

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Intro to the Visual Culture of American Religions

Kristin Schwain
Author

University of Missouri-Columbia
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2004
Date Published

Due to the introductory nature of the course, we will survey a variety of objects from a number of American religious traditions. Each week we will center our attention on a different type of object and a different model of intellectual inquiry. In the first section of the course, “Tools of Art Historical Interpretation,” we will learn basic skills of visual analysis through our examination of Northwest Coast aesthetics, African-American Bible quilts, New England gravestones, and Warner Sallman’s Head of Christ. Then, we will use these interpretive tools to examine religious “ways of seeing” that characterize particular traditions and at certain historical moments. In Part III, we will analyze how objects are used by a variety of traditions to mediate different temporal moments, geographic locations, and cultural contexts. In the end, we will recognize the manifold ways objects shape religious beliefs and practices and inflect ways of seeing and knowing,

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Introduction to American Religion

Winnifred Fallers Sullivan
Author

Washington and Lee University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1996
Date Published

What is American Religion? Does it make any sense to talk about American religion? What is American about American religion and what is religious about American religion? Religion in the United States is extremely vital and diverse. It has been throughout American history. It is also a very important part of contemporary American culture and politics. It is impossible in one term to hope to canvass the depth and variety of five centuries of American religion in a complete way. This course will instead introduce the student to religion in America through the consideration of three thematic approaches to a description of American religion as a whole. These thematic approaches cut across religious traditions and attempt to characterize some of the ways in which the extraordinary variety in the American religious imagination shares characteristics by virtue of its common environment and its common history. The three thematic descriptions of American religion that we will examine are Natural Religion, Denominational Religion, and Constitutional Religion. There are of course other themes that could be chosen and we will from time to time note those other themes as they touch on our work. The object of the course is to develop in the student a beginning competence in thinking, talking and writing about American religion.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Introduction to Religion in America

D. Keith Naylor
Author

Occidental College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1993
Date Published

Participants in this survey course will examine religion in the USA from historical and socio-cultural perspectives. Our most persistent questions will be, “What is religion?” and “What is America?” We shall explore the contours of American culture and society as a setting in which various religions are imagined, established, nurtured, hindered, altered, valued, ignored, and/or abandoned. This course will include lectures, assigned readings, class discussions, student panels, and films/videos.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Investigating Race and Religion in U.S. History (Unit Plan)

Dwight Simon
Author

Teaching Module
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Class Type:

Is America a Christian Nation? Ask an Expert video

R&AC
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2003
Date Published

Video from the “Ask an Expert” series responding to the question “Is America a Christian Nation?”Produced by the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Is Barbie Jewish? “The Tribe” (video)

Laura Levitt
Author

Temple University
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

This assignment is for the first week of class. It uses the short video, “The Tribe” (available online), to get students to think about what it means to identify as Jewish. Barbie becomes the object lesson both in the film and in the question. Is she Jewish? Or not? Students need to make a case and there are no wrong answers. Having shown the film in class when I taught in person, this assignment allowed me to get to know each student and respond to them (class of 27 students) in a no pressure and playful manner. It was an ice-breaker from afar.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Online

Is climate change shaping religion?

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Evan Berry (Arizona State University) answers the question “Is climate change shaping religion?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 6, March 18, 2021.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Is the KKK a Religion? (Presentation)

Susan Yolmeh
Author

Teaching Module, Other
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Class Type:

Is the United States a Christian Nation?

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module is centered around whether the United States is indeed a Christian nation. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Is there a difference between “spiritual” and “religious”? Ask an Expert video

R&AC
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2003
Date Published

Video from the “Ask an Expert” series responding to the question “Is there a difference between “spiritual” and “religious”?” Produced by the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Islam in America

Tazeen M. Ali
Author

Rachel B. Gross
Author

San Francisco State University
Institution

Dwight Simon
Author

Teaching Module
Resource Type

2010
Date Published

Class Type:

Lived Religion, the Many Expressions of the One Religion- Religious Practices from Antiquity to Today (Lesson Plan)

Sarah Shmitt
Author

Portland High School
Institution

Teaching Module
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Class Type:

Malcom, Martin, and Masculinity

Jonathan L. Walton
Author

Harvard Divinity School
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2011
Date Published

The Civil Rights and Black Power movements (narrowly defined) were principally struggles for racial equality and economic justice. The public ministries of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X have come to signify these movements respectively and have remained at the center of debates concerning competing trajectories of response. But though the philosophies of Malcolm and Martin are often portrayed as incommensurate, their philosophical and theological commitments led them to a similar place of aligning with the poor and oppressed on a global scale. This is not their only similarity. Both Martin and Malcolm extend from religious traditions where notions of social respectability and hyper-masculinity are inextricably linked to gendered conceptions of racial progress. The aim of this course, then, is to engage the theological, philosophical and social thought of these men while unmasking normative assumptions about race, domesticity and sexuality that informed their outlooks and animated their gendered moral frameworks and masculinist organizing strategies.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Graduate Course

Media, Religion, and Culture

Eric K. Gormly
Author

Arizona State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

Among academics, there is a growing awareness of the need to examine media, religion and culture from perspectives simultaneously informed by religious studies, sociology, cultural studies, journalism, and studies in communication and mass communication. It is a nascent, cross-disciplinary field that relies on the full range of methodological approaches available to the contemporary scholar. Because the field has developed so recently, little has been done to synthesize these areas and advance the field. This course represents an early attempt at fusing these elements into one comprehensive framework.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Graduate Course

Method and Theory in the Study of Religion: An Anthropological Approach

Kevin Lewis O'Neill
Author

University of Toronto
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2012
Date Published

The anthropology of religion is a discipline-specific endeavor. British Functionalism, French Structuralism, American cultural anthropology—the history of anthropological thought can be taught through the very category of religion. But what of the study of religion’s continued rapprochement with the anthropology of religion? How might the study of religion, a discipline in its own right, draw upon anthropological approaches to religion without succumbing to discipline-specific debates? This graduate course addresses this methodological question through a reading intensive course. While its success will turn on the entire class keeping up with the readings for each week, its lasting effect will depend on the student’s ability to appreciate not so much the history of anthropological thought or the anthropology of religion but rather what this course ultimately calls “anthropological approaches to the study of religion.”

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Graduate Course

Mixed Methods Research

Samuel L. Perry
Author

University of Oklahoma
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2023
Date Published

More often than we like to acknowledge, a comprehensive understanding of social phenomena (groups, problems, processes) requires that we draw on multiple research methods beyond the vital analytic strategies we learn in our statistics classes. This graduate-level course will provide an introduction to the theoretical underpinnings, development, and application of mixed-methods research designs. Because our department currently does not offer a focused course in qualitative research methods (though that will soon change in the future and thus this course will evolve), this semester we will explore and emphasize qualitative methods initially and then begin to develop our understanding of how to integrate these methods with the quantitative methods students should already have some familiarity with by this point in their graduate training.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Graduate Course, Online, Hybrid

Modernity, Secularization, Religious Persistence, Spiritual Transformation

Christian Smith
Author

University of Notre Dame
Institution

2008
Date Published

The key question we will explore is: What happens to religion under conditions of modernity, why, and how? This exploration first requires a more fundamental consideration of the nature of “modernity” and “religion” as concepts and realities themselves. It also involves thinking about what we might mean in saying that religion is, for instance, “strong,” “growing,” “declining,” or “losing authority.” Engaging the secularization debate also necessarily raises questions about human beings and their constitutional needs and tendencies, human societies and their requirements and operations, and basic sociological concerns with historical change, causal attributions, research design, data collection methods, measurement, and analysis. Throughout this seminar I want us to attend closely not only to associations between measured variables but also to the causal mechanisms theorized as promoting or preventing secularization. Working through the specific analytical issue of secularization therefore both grounds us solidly in debates at the heart of the field sociology of religion specifically, and engages us in a variety of important concerns that are crucial to consider for the doing of any good work in sociology generally. 0

Class Type: Graduate Course

Modernity, Secularization, Religious Persistence, Spiritual Transformation

Christian Smith
Author

University of Notre Dame
Institution

2008
Date Published

This class provides an introduction to the long-standing and wide-ranging debates in sociology about secularization. The central question that we will explore from a variety of perspectives is: What happens to religion under the conditions of modernity—and why and how so? What we will be trying to figure out is whether modernity (and post-modernity) secularizes religion, strengthens religion, transforms religion, or produces some other effect. Secularization was a central concern in the thinking of the founding fathers of sociology—Weber, Durkheim, Marx, and others. It has also been the core concern of the field of sociology of religion from the start.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Morality: How Does One Decide What is Morally Right and Morally Wrong (Unit Plan)

Judith McDonald
Author

Other
Resource Type

2010
Date Published

Class Type:

Mormonism and American Culture

Peter Thuesen
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2017
Date Published

Because of its relatively recent origins, the Mormon tradition is an ideal case for studying a religion in the making. The Latter-day Saints also offer a unique window on how religions evolved under the U.S. Constitution’s system of the separation of church and state. Accordingly, this course focuses not only on the basics of Mormonism itself (its history, beliefs, and practices) but also on questions of wider significance in the study of American religion.0

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Musical Instruments in American Churches

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Teaching Module, Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Musical Instruments in Church

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module will explore the different uses of music in varying religions. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Muslim American History and Culture (Anthropology)

Jonathan Arbuckle
Author

Ivy Tech
Institution

Teaching Module
Resource Type

2016
Date Published

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Muslim American History and Culture (Art Appreciation)

Joanna Wos
Author

Ivy Tech
Institution

Teaching Module
Resource Type

2017
Date Published

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Ioana Bercea
Author

Assignment
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

New Religion Assignments

Rebecca Moore
Author

San Diego State University
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2014
Date Published

This is a combination of several assignments including an analytical paper in which students are asked to compare and contrast arguments from readings. Additionally a separate assignment revolves around visiting a Special Collections whereby students will identify an item relating to New Thought or New Age, examine it both physically and materially and write a short descriptive paper. The second section of this assignment requires that the student travel to a worship service and observe the service and it’s characteristics such as demographics, topics covered, and general ambience. The final assignment addressed in this course is about a particular new religion and how the media has covered it.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

New Religious Movements in the US Syllabus

James Bennett
Author

Santa Clara University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2019
Date Published

A syllabus of a New Religious Movements course

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

New Religious Movements, Popular Media, and Violence in American History

Stephen Taysom
Author

Cleveland State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2016
Date Published

This course explores the phenomenon of “New Religious Movements,” sometimes called “cults.” We look at how NRM is actually a category group’s move into and out of, rather than a
fixed list of religious traditions; it is a label that almost no group embraces. In the American context, nearly every religious group that has come to enjoy social approval and a “mainstream” label spent some time in the NRM category. The popular media is one of the key tools that facilitate the creation and maintenance of the NRM category. We will look at how various media outlets (pamphlets, newspapers, radio, television, and the Internet) use the NRM category, why they do so, and explore the impact this has on the broader society. Finally, this course looks at how violence, both physical and rhetorical, is an integral part of the way that the NRM category has functioned in the American context since the 17th century.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Jon Ivan Gill
Author

Syllabus
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Class Type:

Place Profile

Rachel Lindsey
Author

Saint Louis University
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

This is the second of a three-part series of “Snowball Essays” designed to guide students from reflection on race and religion in their own personal experience (Snowball Essay #1 is a Positionality Essay) to sustained reflection on race and religion in American life, history, and culture. I present this as a “process essay” that builds on course readings and incorporates distinct methodologies and forms of evidence.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Political activity in Asian American communities 2020

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Dr. Melissa Borja (University of Michigan) answers the question “What does political activity look like and how might it look different in Asian American communities?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 1, October 15, 2020.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Political Science 30028: Religion in American Politics

David Campell
Author

University of Notre Dame
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2011
Date Published

How can America be religiously devout, religiously diverse, and religiously tolerant? When we look at other nations, or even this nation at other periods in history, religious differences have led to discord and even bloodshed. And yet the United States has a remarkably high level of religious tolerance. Indeed, this tolerance is even more remarkable in light of the divisive role religion plays in our politics. This course will examine the ways in which religion is interwoven into American politics. Then it will turn to trying to solve the puzzle of America’s religious pluralism—if religion is so politically divisive, why are Americans so accepting of (most) religions other than their own? What explains the exceptions?

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Political Science 4070: Religion and American Politics

Laura Olson
Author

Clemson University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2014
Date Published

This course is designed to examine and critically analyze the nature of the relationship between religion and various aspects of politics in the United States. We analyze how religion affects American politics among the masses and in the courts, and we ask why religion and politics are so thoroughly interwoven in the United States by examining the religion-politics relationship in historical and theoretical perspective. In doing so, we will encounter a range of themes that are relevant to the study of American politics.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Political Science/Religion 325: Religion and Politics in America

Chris Gilbert
Author

Gustavus Adolphus College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2013
Date Published

This course examines the political impact of religion in the United States, both historically and today. The phrase “separation of church and state” is one (but not the only) characterization of the official relationship between U.S. governmental institutions and religious institutions; it does not begin to cover the myriad connections found between organized religion and government at all levels and in all historical periods of American society. The primary goals are first, to understand how the interrelationships between religion and politics in the United States have developed; and second, to explore how religion in various forms continues to affect American public life, the workings of key political and social institutions, and the lives of citizens.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Seminar

Politics of African American Religion in Historical Perspective

Nicole Myers Turner
Author

Virginia Commonwealth University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2017
Date Published

This course explores the history of African American religious communities from the colonial times to the present. It explores the organization and politics of these institutions and how the
various historical forces and major events of slavery, emancipation, migration, urbanization, racism, race consciousness, gender and class have shaped black religious communities across the centuries. It uses a diverse grouping of primary and secondary sources and experiential learning activities to further these aims. Course materials include scholarly monographs, chapters and articles, primary accounts of religious life and records of religious organizations. Students will come away from the course with an enhanced sense of the complexities of black religious life and the evolution of black religions as central social and political agents in black life and the black freedom struggle.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Populism and Religion (Unit Plan)

Matthew Wahlert
Author

Teaching Module
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Class Type:

POS 386: Religion and Politics in the United States

Mark Brewer
Author

University of Maine
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2012
Date Published

Many of you are probably familiar with the old saying that it is impolite to discuss religion or politics with strangers and dangerous to do so with friends. We are going to purposely ignore this advice, and spend the entire semester talking about these two subjects, devoting particular attention to how religion and politics intersect in the United States. Not long ago it was widely assumed that modernization would eventually eliminate religion as a significant force in American society. As recently as the 1970s, conventional wisdom held that religion no longer mattered in American politics. These claims have proven to be completely and utterly wrong. The United States is and always has been a religious society. Along the same lines, religion has historically played a substantial role in American politics, and continues to do so today. This interaction between religion and politics will be the focus of this course. Over the course of this semester students will be expected to engage in a thoughtful and critical examination of the many different ways that religion affects American politics, and also ways in which politics affects matters of religion. 0

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Praying for a Cure? Religion, Health, and Healing in America

Wendy Cadge
Author

Brandeis University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2007
Date Published

Does spirituality promote health as the cover of Time magazine asks? Should pharmacists be required to dispense birth control when they feel it conflicts with their religious beliefs? What have scientists learned about the influence of prayers on health? What is it like to be a hospital chaplain? Does religion or spirituality influence the work of doctors and nurses? What do Muslim community healthcare organizations do? How do leaders of local churches, synagogues, mosques and temples respond to the health needs of their congregants? This seminar investigates these questions and others by looking at the relationship between religion, health, and healing in the contemporary United States. We explore how a wide range of religious and medical organizations understand these relationships and focus specifically on contemporary tensions between religious and medical beliefs. Course materials include academic and popular writings, films and guest speakers.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Preparing to Visit a Congregation

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module will assist in choosing a congregation to visit, explore their website and learn about the larger group. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Progressive Religion in America

Grace Yukich
Author

Quinnipiac University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2016
Date Published

Many of the most important movements for social change in American history—from the abolition of slavery to civil rights to women’s rights—have been fueled in part by progressive religion. In this course, we will examine religion from a social scientific perspective. Using sociological research, we will address questions like: What do we mean we talk about “religion”? What counts as “progressive religion” and who decides? How does “progressive religion” differ from “conservative religion”? Does being part of a marginalized religious tradition make it more likely that you will fight for progressive causes? How do race, class, and gender shape people’s approaches to progressive religion? How does progressive religion shape politics, gender & sexuality, and other parts of society? We will explore these questions by focusing on a wide array of religious traditions and contemporary topics.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Prominent Religious Events and People in American History

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module explores the various events and people in the United States throughout history. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Dr. Jamil Drake (Florida State University) answers the question “What are your reactions and broader thoughts about how you saw religion at play in the campaigns, the rhetoric, and narratives up to the election?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 2, November 19, 2020.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Regional Variations in Religiosity: A Case Study of the Catholic Church

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module explores the different variations of religiosity within the same religion. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion & A.I Resources From Panelists

R&AC Staff
Author

The Center for the Study of Religion & American Culture
Institution

Syllabus, Teaching Module, Video
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

While discourses around religion and Artificial Intelligence have been with us for decades, the exponential growth of models such as GPT-3 (the basis of Chat GPT) and the ascendancy of OpenAI as a company has accelerated the conversation at both philosophical and practical levels. This panel seeks to address the question of how religious studies as a discipline can serve as a fruitful conversation partner for both perennial and emerging questions around AI. For instance: to what extent are such historically determined concepts as “soul” and “real” helpfully informed by religious studies? As the academy wrestles with incorporation of AI into both student work and scholarly research, how might religious studies as a discipline be affected? Will the landscape of the practice of religion be altered significantly by AI, or are such prognostications premature? Join us as we explore these and other salient questions surrounding this timely topic.

Panelists from this session have provided materials and resources that they use, created, or enjoy for learning and teaching the topic of this episode.

Class Type:

Religion & A.I Teaching Resources

R&AC Staff
Author

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

2022
Date Published

Find resources from panelists, show notes, teaching ideas and more through this resource.

Class Type:

Religion & Animal and Food Justice

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Religion & Animals and Food Justice

Panelists:

Christopher Carter, Assistant Professor, Assistant Chair and Department Diversity Officer of Theology and Religious Studies, University of San Diego

Lori G. Beaman, Professor and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Religious Diversity and Social Change, University of Ottawa

Cohosts:

Andrea R. Jain, Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Jonathan Sparks-Franklin, Independent Scholar

At this time of planetary crisis and pandemic, it is critical to address questions about overlapping and multispecies injustice. This episode will interrogate issues about food accessibility and the frontline communities of climate change (human and non-human animal), specifically those who are the first to bear the brunt of environmental degradation and pandemics and the industries and policies most responsible for contributing to them. These panelists illuminate the ways that religious institutions are constructed and enacted in response to these evolving social and environmental conditions, especially as they pertain to animal, food, and racial justice; the histories of activist communities; and the work of diverse coalitions, including Black vegans, radical healthcare advocates, and animal rescue efforts, that imagine and enact forms of multispecies solidarity in the midst of society’s death-dealing structures. Join humanities and social science scholars for a conversation at the intersection of religion, animal rights, and food justice.

January 20, 2022 at 3:00-4:00pm (Eastern)

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion & Climate Change

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

As the pandemic dominated Americans’ attention in 2020, another crisis—climate change—worsened with alarming speed. The year 2020 brought the most active Atlantic hurricane season ever, the West Coast’s worst fire season, and the hottest global temperatures (tied with 2016). All of this unfolded even as the Trump administration, in alliance with evangelical climate-change deniers, continued to thwart policies that would combat global warming. Now, with the election of Joe Biden, the U.S. has rejoined the Paris climate accord and environmentalism is regaining political momentum. What is religion’s role in this new environment, and how does it shape Americans’ understanding of climate change? What questions should scholars be pursuing on religion and climate? Join our expert panelists as they reflect on these and related questions.

Panelists: Amanda J. Baugh, California State University, Northridge Evan Berry, Arizona State University Cohosts: Lisa H. Sideris, Indiana University, Bloomington Peter J. Thuesen, IUPUI

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion & Colonialism

Justine Howe
Author

Case Western Reserve University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2017
Date Published

What happens to religious beliefs and practices in sites of colonial contact? How have colonial encounters shaped our knowledge of religion? These two questions will frame our semester-long inquiry into colonial religious practices and the production of knowledge about religion in colonial settings. Along the way, we will pay close attention to how religion relates to other sites of social power and organization, namely race, gender, and nation. This course focuses on various empires as they were/are constituted in Asia, Africa, and North America. Through these case studies, we will explore the institutions, texts, practices, and material cultures through which varying historical actors created and negotiated the religious in the context of modern empires. To do so, we will focus our attention on primary sources alongside secondary analysis by modern scholars.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Graduate Course

Religion & Comics Resources from Panelists

R&AC Staff
Author

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

2024
Date Published

Class Type:

Religion & Comics Teaching Resources

R&AC Staff
Author

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

2024
Date Published

Class Type:

Religion & Conspiracy

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Religion & Conspiracy

Panelists:

Candace Rondeaux, Professor of Practice at the School of Politics and Global Studies and Senior Fellow with the Center on the Future of War at Arizona State University

David Robertson, Lecturer in Religious Studies at The Open University; co-founder of the Religious Studies Project; co-editor of Implicit Religion

Cohosts:

Robert Saler, Associate Dean and Research Professor of Religion and Culture, Christian Theological Seminary; Director of the Center for Pastoral Excellence and the Lily Endowment Clergy Renewal Program

Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, Arizona State University

Religious participation in conspiracy theories has received increased attention in both scholarship and public discourse lately. As a result, a number of key questions have emerged: Why are some worldviews described as conspiratorial when others are seen as rational, or at least unthreatening? Are conspiracy theories in the body politic a problem to be solved as well as a phenomenon to be understood? What are the material, social, intellectual, and class conditions under which conspiracy theories arise and are transformed? How can religious studies understand and influence public invocations of terms like “conspiracy,” “cult,” etc.? This panel discussion will examine these and other questions in light of what many argue is a recent intensification of the connection between religion and conspiracy theories, particularly in the United States. Join humanities and social science scholars for a conversation at the intersection of religion, the state, and conspiracy.

November 18, 2021 at 3:00-4:00pm (Eastern)

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion & Disability

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Author

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Religious communities have often been at the forefront of providing services and support for parishioners with varying health, social, and economic needs. However, this attention to difference has not always translated to a thoughtful encounter with intersectionality and the ways in which ability operates differently across race, gender, and class. This panel hopes to address questions of access by examining the intersection of disability and religion through a lens that focuses on embodied religious practice and embodiment more broadly. Moreover, this panel will address how disability and religion provide a novel space to think critically about inclusion and visibility in the political arena, classrooms, and religious spaces. We ask: “How has disability theory and activism opened up new arenas for social protest and political belonging—particularly with regard to religious spaces?” This panel discussion will examine these and other topics in light of what many argue is a renewed attention to neurodiversity, varied abilities, and access in an age of social media and distance learning. Join humanities and social science scholars for a conversation at the intersection of religion, disability, and resistance.

Panelists:

Dan Bowman, Taylor University

Meredith Olivia Harris Hope, College of Wooster

Cohosts:

Kenzie Mintus, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Sarah Imhoff, Indiana University, Bloomington

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion & Disability Teaching Resources

R&AC Staff
Author

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

2024
Date Published

Class Type:

Religion & Drugs Teaching Resources

R&AC Staff
Author

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

2024
Date Published

Class Type:

Religion & Environmental Catastrophe Teaching Resources

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Author

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

2022
Date Published

Class Type:

Religion & Gender and Race in the 2020 Political Landscape

IUPUI
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

100 years after the ratification of the 19th amendment and in this moment of racial reckoning, the American political climate is still dominated by the unequal representation of women, especially women of color, in local, state, and electoral politics. For the inaugural session of “Religion &’, we will explore the intersection of gender, race, politics, and the role of religion. Specifically, this panel will analyze the role that religious traditions play in sustaining or mitigating new models of engagement, political formation, and social change. How do current works on the intersection of gender, race, religion, and political participation help us frame and anticipate this current electoral season? Furthermore, have our theoretical focus on certain groups, like white Evangelicals, and insistence on traditional constructions of topics, like climate change from the perspective of nation-states and the corporate elite, adversely impacted our ability to tell a compelling story of the American religious landscape and its resistances to the current moment? How might we tell a more comprehensive story of the American electorate and its relationship to gender, race, religion, and belonging?

Class Type:

Religion & Grief

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Given the year we’ve been through—the multiple types of losses and “sadnesses” people have struggled with—it is fitting that we consider the roles of religion in all of this. “Religion & Grief,” however, extends beyond the pandemic, and this discussion will explore the ways scholars of religion and American Studies are theorizing grief, death, suffering, and the rituals that attend to these moments. Have our understandings of grief changed or expanded in this current moment? Do new religious movements or the deeper engagement of groups (like the nones, women of color, victims of racialized or sexual violence) complicate our analysis and narration of grief? Is grief an adequately compelling and capacious term to address the loss and sadness that we theorize in our work? Join humanities and social science scholars as they explore these questions and the larger relationships between religion, ritual, and various types of grief and loss.

Panelists: Candi Cann, Baylor University Michael Brandon McCormack, University of Louisville

Cohosts: Laura Levitt, Temple University Brian Steensland, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Religion & Jackie Robinson and the Long Shadow of Integration

Panelists:

Randal Maurice Jelks, Professor of African and African American Studies at the University of Kansas

Carmen M. Nanko-Fernández, Professor of Hispanic Theology and Ministry at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago

Cohosts:

Chris Lamb, Chair of Journalism and Public Relations and Professor of Journalism at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Mike Long, Author and former Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Conflict Studies at Elizabethtown College

Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers played his first game in the major leagues on April 15, 1947, ending the “color line” in baseball and forever changing sport and society. Robinson famously promised Branch Rickey, the team’s president, that he would turn the other cheek when confronted with the hostilities of racial bigotry. How did Robinson’s faith prepare him for the trauma he endured and the sacrifices he made? Moreover, how have the presumed obligations of religious faith and nationalism haunted professional athletes, especially athletes of color, ever since? Major League Baseball will commemorate the 75^th anniversary of Robinson’s first game on April 15. However, it will do so once again within the lens of white America alongside the ways in which religion, capitalism, and sport intersect. “Turning the other cheek becomes an expectation of subsequent Black and Brown players,” Professor Carmen Nanko-Fernandez writes, “and martyrdom is a way of domesticating dangerous memories and complicated inconvenient prophets such as Jackie Robinson.” In this episode, the panelists will not only discuss the complicated history and memories of Robinson’s integration of baseball, but they also will address the ways in which American sport has been an especially compelling case to theorize the relationship between race and religion. Join humanities scholars and journalists for a timely and thoughtful conversation at the intersection of American studies, religion, and sport.

March 24, 2022 at 3:00-4:00pm (Eastern)

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion & Refugees and Immigration

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Author

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

At this very moment, thousands of Afghan refugees are arriving in the United States and other places around the world after a frenzied evacuation effort and bungled military withdrawal. This moment not only revives old debates about the United States’ relationship with Afghanistan and the Taliban regime, but it also reopens critical questions about policies on refugees, migration, and asylum. At the same time, the US continues to contend with the ongoing arrival of migrants fleeing Central America and the contested nature of a US-Mexico border policy. In this “Religion &”, panelists will address the history of refugee and migration policies and the role of religious organizations in supporting or challenging policies. Additionally, this episode will explore how scholars of religion and practitioners are employing new methods to study the movement, agency, and institution building of refugee and migrant communities. Join scholars and leaders in the field of migration policy as they explore these issues and the larger relationship between religion, refugees, and migration policy in the United States.

Panelists:

Salah Ansary, Senior District Director, Lutheran Community Services Northwest

Todd Scribner, Educational Outreach Coordinator, Department of Migration and Refugee Services, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Religion and Resettlement Project, Princeton University

Cohosts:

Melissa Borja, University of Michigan

Soulit Chacko, Postdoctoral Fellow and Affiliate Faculty, Department of Sociology, IUPUI

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion & Reimagining Black Futures

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Description: The field of Africana Religious Studies has undergone significant reappraisal in the past 10 years. Specifically, the field has begun to actively, and from an interdisciplinary perspective, engage the idea of futurity and Afro-diasporic futures. Scholars from across the spectrum are advancing new approaches to understanding the human condition and social institutions in an age of intelligent machines, social media, and technological innovation. In this panel, we will look at the emerging approaches to Black futures in the fields of religious studies and American studies and how approaches from new media, social sciences, and brain sciences have opened new models for studying Black religious futures. Join humanities and social science scholars for a conversation at the intersection of religion, technological innovation, and Black futures.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion & Secularism Resources from Panelists

R&AC Staff
Author

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Other
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Study of the secular and secularism has always been of interest to thinkers and theorists of religion. In a moment when the traditional boundaries between religion and the secular continue to be blurred, the time is ripe to return to this category, examine emerging theorists and theorizations, and explore its continued usefulness. The panel will explore its many and varied meanings and how different constructions of the secular help us narrate contemporary phenomena. They will explore the ways that secularism not only help us theorize what some have called the “losing of religion” but also the reconfiguring of traditional and new religious movements. Additionally, this panel will discuss why the current evangelical revival, discourses on Afro-pessimism, and rising political partisanship cannot be read apart from histories of and discourses on the secular. Join us as we explore these and other critical questions at the intersection of secularism, the study of religion, and American culture.

Panelists from this session have provided materials and resources that they use, created, or enjoy for learning and teaching the topic of this episode. Find books, scholars, fun facts and more!

Class Type:

Religion & Secularism Teaching Resources

R&AC Staff
Author

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

2022
Date Published

Teaching and learning resources created out of the Religion & Secularism episode.

Class Type:

Religion & Spirituality in Museums

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Religion & Spirituality in Museums

Panelists:

Eric Lewis Williams, Curator of Religion, National Museum of African American History and Culture

Yvonne Chireau, Professor of Religion, Swarthmore College

Ben Garcia, Executive Director, The American LGBTQ+ Museum

Host:

Lois H. Silverman, Professor of Museum Studies, Public Scholar of Museum Education, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

In foundational museum studies literature of the past 50 years, museums have been called “temples,” “sacred groves,” and places to connect with “something higher, more sacred, and out-of-the-ordinary.” How do museums today engage religion and spirituality, with whom, and why? Can encounters with objects and exhibits move people beyond the material world to consider the divine, the transcendent, the magical? In what ways do museums serve the growing number who consider themselves “spiritual but not religious,” those of different faiths, and those of no faith? In light of global challenges, how could museums contribute further to spiritual well-being as well as our collective future? Join four public-engaged scholar-practitioners of museum studies and/or religion to explore these intriguing questions and highlight the growing connections between religion, spirituality, and museums.

April 21, 2022 at 3:00-4:00pm (Eastern)

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion & Spirituality in Museums Teaching Resource

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Author

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Molly Bassett, Associate Professor, Georgia State University

Morgan Shipley, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Foglio Endowed Chair in Spirituality, Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies, Michigan State University

Kayla Renée Wheeler, Assistant Professor, Gender and Diversity Studies Program, Xavier University

Host:

Rachel Wheeler, Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion & the Politics of the Vote

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Religion & the Politics of the Vote

Panelists:

Besheer Mohamed, Senior Researcher, Pew Research Center

Lerone A. Martin, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Chair and Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University

Cohosts:

Joseph L. Tucker Edmonds, Professor of Africana Studies and Religious Studies, Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Leah Gunning Francis, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty, Associate Professor of Christian Education and Practical Theology, Christian Theological Seminary

On the first Monday of February 2022, the Supreme Court reinstated an Alabama congressional map that a lower court had argued diluted the power of Black voters and was a threat to equal representation for all communities. These type of challenges, court cases, and state laws are on the rise and the question of the access to the franchise to all eligible voters has come under great scrutiny during the last couple of election cycles. Who gets to vote? When do voters have opportunity and access to vote? How have and how do electoral maps shape policies, elections, and the future of the US democracy? What roles have religious organizations and emerging activists groups played in bolstering or challenging the dilution of voting rights/access across the country? There has been considerable scholarly and public attention given to the ways that religious institutions and ideologies have impacted and continue to impact the mobilization of voters and political activitsts across the country. In this episode of Religion &, we will address the long history of the Voting Rights Act and voter suppression, the relationship of religious and civil rights organizations to this act, and how current communities and activists are deploying language, protest, and direct engagement in order to re-imagine and transform the possibilities of democratic participation. Join humanities and social science scholars for a conversation at the intersection of religion, voting rights, and competing visions of democracy.

February 17, 2022 at 3:00-4:00pm (Eastern)

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion & the Public Intellectual Resources From Panelists

R&AC Staff
Author

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Syllabus, Teaching Module, Assignment, Video, Class Readings List, Other
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Over the last couple of years, the University, its curricula, and its responses to ongoing ideological debates have been under an intense microscope. This new reality has impacted every constituency on the university campus, but it has been particularly noteworthy for scholars whose work intersects with politics, activism, and community engagement. In this episode, a group of deeply engaged and outspoken scholars will address the role of being a public intellectual in politically fraught moments. Our panelists will discuss the ways that their latest works and discourse in the public sphere have placed them in an increasingly complex and unrelenting spotlight. Additionally, they will engage their process of creating more public and accessible works and the impact these works have on their relationship with the university, community partners, and the broader public.

Panelists from this session have provided materials and resources that they use, created, or enjoy for learning and teaching the topic of this episode.

Class Type:

Religion & the Supreme Court

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Religion & the Supreme Court

Panelists:

Beth Cate, Clinical Associate Professor, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington

Fred Smith Jr., Associate Professor, Emory University School of Law

Cohosts:

Arthur E. Farnsley, Senior Research Fellow, The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture

Sarah Barringer Gordon, Arlin M. Adams Professor of Constitutional Law and Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Religion and religious freedom are often key themes before the Supreme Court. A 2021 New York Times article went as far as to claim “An Extraordinary Winning Streak for Religion at the Supreme Court.” Both the current docket and the faith traditions of the sitting justices have ignited a series of questions around the issues of disestablishment, free exercise, and the ways race, class, and gender identity interact with each of these bedrock American principles. For instance, does the Supreme Court’s protection of religious freedom undermine equality before the law? Does this protection go beyond what even the Founders intended? Panelists will discuss the justices’ understanding of religion, the ways religion is changing in America, and the impact of these combined variables on American life. How can new scholarship about religion, race, gender identity, and jurisprudence help us interrogate the current moment? How can scholars in these fields help us understand the inflection points that define the relationship between Supreme Court decisions and our shared future? Join humanities and legal scholars for a conversation at the intersection of religion, equality, and the Supreme Court.

December 9, 2021 at 3:00-4:00pm (Eastern)

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion and Age

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module focuses on the religiosity of differing ages of people. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Laura Olson
Author

Clemson University
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2014
Date Published

You will complete an annotated bibliography for the topic you have chosen to study. Find at least ten sources (books, articles, news stories, opinion pieces, etc.) that relate directly to the topic you are studying. For each source, provide an accurate bibliographical citation and a few sentences summarizing the information contained in the source.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion and American Public Schools

Khyati Y. Joshi
Author

Fairleigh-Dickinson University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2004
Date Published

This course will investigate the relationship between religion and public education in the United States with a focus on issues affecting classroom practice, curriculum, and pedagogy. Based in large part on legal decisions in the area and relying primarily on a discussion format, it will be a blend of three elements: a brief examination of the historic relationship of religion and education in the United States; an analysis of historic and current legal and public policy materials related to that relationship; and an exploration of ways of balancing the relationship in curricula so as to respect the religious rights and responsibilities of teachers, administrators, students, parents, and the educational system in which they encounter each other.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Graduate Course, Seminar

Religion and Culture in Early New England

Adrian Chastain Weimer
Author

Providence College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2012
Date Published

The stories of the native Northeast, Protestant New England, and Catholic immigration are often told as separate or competing narratives. What are the webs of relationships, both real and imagined, that help us to understand the rich history of religion in early New England as an interconnected story? How is “New England” itself an unstable category, and how does the self-understanding of various groups change over time? Examining local developments alongside Atlantic world and imperial contexts, we inquire how everyday life in New England was interconnected with broader cultural, social, intellectual, and religious movements. In addition to native Americans, puritans, Baptists, Quakers, Huguenots, and French and Irish Catholics, we will also look at the significance of New England for early Mormonism, as well as the long history of Jews and Africans in the region. Special attention will be given to issues of migration, varieties of cultural prejudice and tolerance, supernaturalism, Protestant-Catholic relations, social reform, and the political and devotional decisions various groups faced as they negotiated a place on the religious landscape.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion and Culture in Post-Civil Rights Black America

Josef Sorett
Author

Columbia University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2015
Date Published

This is an advanced-level seminar on African American religion and culture open to graduate students, and advanced undergraduates with prior background in the subject. More specifically, this course centers its queries around developments during the period commonly referred to as the “post-Civil Rights era,” (but which has also often been framed through the related rhetorics of “postmodern,” “postcolonial” and “post-Soul”). To this end, readings and discussions will explore black culture—both within formal religious traditions, but also more broadly as they are revealed in the arts, politics and popular culture—during the latter half of the twentieth century. Additionally, specific attention will be paid to major themes, challenges, questions and quandaries that have shaped the inter-disciplinary study of African American religion in recent years.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Graduate Course, Seminar

Religion and Ecology (essay assignment)

Amanda Baugh
Author

California State University, Northridge
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

An “un-essay” assignment in which students serve as consultants charged with improving diversity efforts at environmental organizations.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion and Gender

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Teaching Module, Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

The ARDA Lesson Plans integrate content from the ARDA and other sources into teachable units. Each lesson has specific learning objectives, a host of relevant readings from which to choose, learning activities to utilize in class, and assessment tools to gauge students learning on the topic. Lesson plans contain links to the ARDA learning resources to make it easy for educators to use the ARDA fin their teaching. The lessons are designed for courses in a wide range of disciplines, including history, political science, psychology, religious studies, and sociology. This assignment was created for the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion and Health

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Teaching Module, Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

The ARDA Lesson Plans integrate content from the ARDA and other sources into teachable units. Each lesson has specific learning objectives, a host of relevant readings from which to choose, learning activities to utilize in class, and assessment tools to gauge students learning on the topic. Lesson plans contain links to the ARDA leaning resources to make it easy for educators to use the ARDA in their teaching. The lessons are designed for courses in a wide range of disciplines, including history, political science, psychology, religious studies, and sociology. This assignment was created for the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion and Humanitarianism in America

Rosemary R. Corbett
Author

Bard College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2015
Date Published

This class will look at the history of modern humanitarianism—an activity that is now a multimillion dollar industry and that the U.S. funds more than any other country in the world—and its origins in charity, philanthropy, and missions. By interspersing case studies of humanitarian endeavors with theoretical investigations into the nature of such work, we will explore the evolving relationships between private religious humanitarian groups and more public actors, forces, and institutions such as nation-states, international law, and the market. Our goals will be to dig past the fiction that humanitarianism is ever impartial (a seemingly necessary fiction that allows many institutions to do their work in conflict areas) to uncover the political dynamics of various humanitarian endeavors. In so doing, we will seek to understand how such work and the narratives we tell about it shapes our notions of the proper roles of religious groups and government, as well as how religious groups represent (and contest) U.S. power in the world.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Seminar

Religion and Music

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module explores the connection between religion and music. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion and Nature in America

Brett Grainger
Author

Villanova University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2017
Date Published

This course offers a survey of American religions from colonial times to the present, using the theme of “nature” and the “natural.” Using methods and theories from the academic study of religion, we will explore how American religions have made meaning out of their encounters with non-human nature, and in turn, how natural environments have shaped religious belief and practice. Rather than cover every religious movement in American history (a fool’s errand), we will look at a series of case studies that open up recurrent themes, issues, and tensions in American religious history.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion and Non-Religion Syllabus

Gerardo Martí
Author

Davidson College
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2019
Date Published

Course Description & Student Outcomes: Religion exists in a social context, and always is shaped by and shapes its social context. Furthermore, religion itself is always (at least in part) a socially constituted reality–that is, its content and structure are always formed, at least partially, out of the “stuff” of the socio-cultural world (language, symbols, groups, norms, interactions, resources, organizations, etc.). The sociology of religion pursues an understanding of both the “social-ness'” of religion itself and the mutually influencing interactions between religion and its social environment. We will analyze religious beliefs, practices, and organizations from a sociological perspective, with a primary focus on religion in contemporary American society. <p class=”MsoNormal” style=”margin: 0in 0in0

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Graduate Course, Online, Seminar

Religion and Philanthropy

David P. King
Author

Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2015
Date Published

This course explores three relationships between people’s religious traditions and their philanthropic ideas and activities: 1) how diverse religious traditions have shaped distinctive
philanthropic practices, 2) how political, economic and social forces have structured religious philanthropy, and 3) how competing visions of good lives and a good society have played out in
the give and take of religious philanthropy. In examining the normative models of giving and service through a variety of religious traditions, we will analyze how religious narratives,
practices, teachings and authorities have shaped people’s generosity and humanitarianism. In studying religious philanthropy in particular historical contexts, we will explore how religious
philanthropy has been influenced by secular states and market economies, transforming religious traditions and communities along the way. In observing the tensions between the purposes of givers and takers, we will locate religious philanthropy in the world of social action so as to assess claims about the uniquely selfless, altruistic or civic nature of religious philanthropy. The primary focus is cultural and historical, but students will also explore through research and application how the issues discussed in class affect individuals, institutions, and civil society in contemporary contexts.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module explores the relationship between politics and religion as well as what that means for various policies. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion and Politics

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Religion and Society in America

Clarence Hardy
Author

Dartmouth College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2004
Date Published

This course focuses on important currents in US religious history and culture. While the approach is very loosely chronological, it is not intended as a comprehensive survey of American religions in the United States. Our goal is to explore the relationship between religion and society by considering the interaction of society’s various participants in the shaping of a shared and often deeply contested “American” culture. Beginning with the encounters between native peoples, enslaved Africans and Europeans in the 1600s, we will look at the ways in which individual believers and various groups in the “New World” have defined their religious identities and attempted to manage their relations with one another and the state during periods of colonialism, slavery, migration, industrialization, immigration, and increasing ethnic and religious pluralism.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion and Spirituality in American History Syllabus

Vaughn Booker
Author

Dartmouth College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

This First-year Seminar introduces students to American religious history and spirituality by focusing on how humans deal with death and the dead. Encounters with immaterial human subjects in North American history are somewhat distinct from communing and communicating with deities in a religion’s pantheon. They involve religious subjects performing ritual engagement with human beings across time and space—those who have “passed on”—for familial, social, and even political purposes. Religious uses of the language of ancestors, “mystical persons,” and concepts of martyrdom and “mortuary politics” invite reflection on the material impacts of spiritual subjects in this world for various groups. This course will familiarize students with various “Spiritual” traditions in North American religious history, paying attention to the complex categories and identities of race and gender in living religious subjects as well as the deceased subjects they engage—the dead who “talk back.”

Class Type: Intro, Seminar

Religion and the City

Courtney Bender
Author

James B. Bennett
Author

Santa Clara University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2005
Date Published

This course provides an introduction to the development, character, and impact of religion in the United States from the pre-colonial era to the present. Guiding our investigation will be the ideas of “contact,” “conflict” and “combination” as ways to characterize the American religious experience. Course readings and discussions will center on the relationship between religion and the development of American culture. We will explore the variety of religious traditions and experiences that have shaped and been shaped by the American context. Given the time constraints of a quarter the course cannot be exhaustive. Instead, we will examine representative episodes in American spiritual history that highlight larger themes and major turning points. The course will proceed in a chronological order. Among the topics covered are Native American traditions; colonial religious impulses; slavery; revivalism; spiritual creativity; religion and war; immigration; race; church and state; and modern religious pluralism.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America

Jonathan Baer
Author

Wabash College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2005
Date Published

This course is an introduction to the religious history of America. We will explore the historical development of the primary religious traditions in America, especially Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism, as well as the formative influence of religion among women, African Americans, and American Indians. Principal themes include pluralism, the impact of religious disestablishment, revivalism and reform, theological movements, and religious innovation.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America

Martha L. Finch
Author

Southwest Missouri State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2004
Date Published

We cannot understand American culture and society without understanding the crucial role that religion has played—and still plays today—in the formation of American identity and values. The story of the American nation is, first and foremost, a story of religious foundations and growing religious diversity. From the first inhabitants of this land, Native Americans, to our Protestant colonial “founding fathers,” African slaves, nineteenth-century Catholic and Jewish immigrants, and the many Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and others arriving during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, religiously committed people have shaped the American social landscape and been shaped by it. Many religious movements have been born in our soil, as well, like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, charismatic Christianity, and Goddess spirituality.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America

Tracy Fessenden
Author

Arizona State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

This course focuses on important currents, representative populations, significant works, and interpretive methods in American religious history. While the direction of the course is loosely chronological, it is not intended as a comprehensive survey of American religions; much of importance is necessarily omitted. In providing a broad overview of the development of religious ideas, rituals, and forms of community from the colonial period to the present, the course gives attention to economic change, politics, immigration, gender, regionalism, and racial and ethnic diversity. Religions to be studied include those of Native Americans; Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish European Americans; Protestant, Catholic, and Muslim African Americans; and others. Each of these groups itself constitutes a diversity; a central question of the course will be on the relationship between religious and other identities (racial, national, gender, ethnic), and on the ways in which these identities are conceived, expressed, maintained, and interpreted. We will also look at the ways in which these groups have attempted to manage their relations with one another, particularly during periods of colonialism, slavery, and immigration.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America

Madeline Duntley
Author

The College of Wooster
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1993
Date Published

We will spend time charting a chronological history of religion in America using a variety of textual sources: secondary histories, primary sources, and autobiographies. We will discuss the readings in class, and the lectures will provide background to the readings and general topics we will cover. We will highlight key episodes in America religious history and focus on how and why religions and cultures tolerate, dominate, and challenge each other. By focusing on a variety of America’s religious traditions, we will see how these groups have experienced transformation and upheaval over the years, and how new religions are created. Religion is not static, it is continually changing with new times and circumstances, and religion in turn shapes history and peoples’ perspectives on life, and of each other. One of the themes running throughout the course is civil and religious liberties and limitations. This class also involves a fieldwork component.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America

Ava Chamberlain
Author

Wright State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

Among western industrialized nations, the United States is unique both in the rate of religious belief and in the diversity of religious expression. Many early European colonists came to North America in order to freely practice their strongly held religious beliefs, and the right to free exercise of religion is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. This course will explore the multiplicity of religious groups that compete in the modern religious marketplace. It will consider, first, the variety of faiths that constitute the religious consensus, and second, the even greater diversity of faiths that are found outside the consensus. It will consider such issues as: the effect of church/state separation, the difference between institutional and popular religion, the distinctive beliefs and practices of religious groups, and the historical development of the major religious traditions in America.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion in America

John M. Giggie
Author

University of Texas at San Antonio
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2005
Date Published

This is a course about religion in America. It attempts to define the nature of American religion as it developed over the past two hundred years, since the advance of capitalist industry at the end of the eighteenth century. It analyzes four distinct yet intimately related dimensions to the American religious experience that have been the subject of much of the best scholarship in the field during the last decade. They are: religion and commercial culture, devotional culture, religion and politics, and gender.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America

Laura Levitt
Author

Temple University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

This is a course on Religion in America that takes material culture as its primary focus. It is a course about the interrelationships between America as a system of beliefs and/or a place committed to nurturing various religious practices and specific locations in the United States that are for many sacred sites. By looking at religious objects, material practices, art, monuments and memorials, this course ask students to use their unique aesthetic skills to ask critical questions about Religion in America. As part of the course students will be asked to assess museum catalogues, collections, clothing, shrines, places of worship, sites of mourning and memorial as important texts in the study of Religion in America. The course will address the ongoing effects of religious rites, rituals and practices on American life in both the past and the present.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America

Thomas S. Kidd
Author

Baylor University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2005
Date Published

A study of the variety and persistence of American religious beliefs and practices from the meeting of European and Native American peoples in the 16th century to the turn of the 21st century.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America

Elizabeth McAlister
Author

Wesleyan University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

This course asks how diverse American groups have used Biblical scripture to cast themselves as God’s elect, chosen to create the New Israel in the U.S. Beginning with Native American religions, Puritans and the colonial project, we move to slave religion, the Great Awakening, Mormons and Millerites, AfroChristianity, Fundamentalism, and selected U.S. Catholicisms and Judaisms, as well as new immigrant religions (Haitian Vodou, Rastafari). We will be interested in asking how each religious group fashions both its own identity and that of the U.S. as a whole.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America

Gerald McDermott
Author

Roanoke College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1993
Date Published

The primary goal of this course is to understand the principal expressions of American religion from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries. We will examine the relationship between religion and society, and look intermittently at institutional change, but our primary focus will be on religious thought (theology). That is, we will try to comprehend how Americans have thought about God and the religious life. A secondary goal of this course is for students to begin to think as historians. That is, they should learn to regard primary texts both as interpretations and as documents requiring interpretation. They should learn to restrict their interpretations to what can be discerned from textual evidence, and to seek to place each text or passage within its contexts–social, intellectual, political and religious. We will study American religious traditions to an extent proportionate to their relative prominence in American history. That is, we will give the most time to Protestant Christian traditions and thinkers because that tradition has been the most dominant in American religious history. Less (but still substantial) time will be given to Roman Catholic, Jewish and Native American traditions.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America

Jennifer Rycenga
Author

San Jose State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

From the bountiful religious insights of Native Americans, to the dreams of religious freedom developed by many newcomers to these shores, this course will examine how religions in America have blossomed, migrated, transformed, and developed both in conjunction and in struggle with each other. By studying the religious conflicts and hopes of the peoples of this continent, we will develop critical methodologies for reading and evaluating spiritual and historical ideas, movements and writings. The course will focus on American religious creativity and diversity, with special interest in the interactions of different religions under conditions of cultural adaptation, immigration, oppression, and political-economic circumstances. The syllabus blends chronological history with experiential voices and thematic explorations.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America

John Schmalzbauer
Author

Southwest Missouri State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2005
Date Published

There have been many attempts to tell the story of religion in America. Many scholars emphasize the secularization of American life, arguing that religion has become less and less important in our society. Others believe that we have grown more religious over the past 200 years, highlighting what they call the “Churching of America.” Still others celebrate the amazing diversity of American religion, focusing on the spiritual journeys of native peoples, immigrants, and African-Americans. In “What is Happening to Religion? Six Sociological Narratives” sociologist James Spickard summarizes these conflicting approaches, arguing that that “each of these stories is plausible” and that few scholars “are wedded to any single story.” In this course, we will consider the multiple storylines that have been used to make sense of American religious history. Your job is to determine which storylines make the most sense to you. You need not be wedded to a single story

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion in America

Christopher White
Author

Georgia State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2006
Date Published

What are the major cultural and intellectual forces shaping religions in America? How have religious Americans encountered people of other faiths and nationalities? How have they seen America as a promised land or place of refuge—or as a place of bondage, conflict or secularity? What are the main ways that religious Americans think about faith, spirituality, religious diversity and church and state? How might we understand the complexity of these and other issues in a country of so many different religious groups—Protestant, Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim? There will be several other topics that we will examine: 1) What it means to be an American or a religious American; 2) how Americans of different faiths have interacted, argued and cooperated with each other; and 3) how Americans have thought about personal religious experiences.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America

T. Paul Thigpen
Author

Southwest Missouri State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

The religious heritage of the United States encompasses a fascinating array of wildly diverse traditions– some transplanted from other cultures, others “homegrown.” Religion has in fact played such an important role in shaping American society from its very beginnings that we can’t hope to understand our nation’s history and culture adequately without examining its religious elements. This course offers an introductory survey of religion in America from early Native American traditions to the present. Our central concern will be the relationship between American religion and American culture.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America

Matthew J. Cressler
Author

College of Charleston
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2019
Date Published

Is the United States a Christian nation or the most religious diverse country in the world? Does the story of religion in America begin in 1492, 1619, or 1776? What does “religious freedom” mean in society built on slavery and settler colonialism? And why do these questions matter? Students will engage each of these questions and more as they are introduced to religion in the 4 Americas broadly and in the United States in particular. The course will situate religion in America in its historical and cultural context. It will also unearths our assumptions about what “religion” and “America” are in the first place. In addition, students will debate contemporary issues at the intersection of religion, race, and politics in America. Topics explored include the convergence of Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans in the context of Christian empires; Jews, Catholics, and African Americans negotiating religious freedom in the nascent U.S. nation; as well as the ways Asian, African, and American im/migrants changed the religious landscape in the 20th and 21st centuries. Oh, and we’ll listen to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton and debate Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “The Case for Reparations” while we’re at it.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America, 1900-1941

Jonathan Ebel
Author

University of Illinois
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2011
Date Published

This seminar takes a thematic and roughly chronological approach to the religious history of the United States from 1900 to 1941. It is designed to familiarize students both with the religious lives and thoughts of Americans in the first four decades of the twentieth century and with the many overlapping issues confronting American society and American religion during that time. We will focus our discussions on four themes: debates over the meaning of modernity, understandings of the relationship between religion and society, the gendering of faith, and the relationship between religion and American identity. We will read from many scholarly monographs during the course, but readings will also come from works of fiction and primary documents. Students will be evaluated based on four graded exercises: two in-class presentations, one mid-term paper, and a final research project.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Seminar

Religion in America: A Multicultural Approach

Yvonne Chireau
Author

Swarthmore College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1996
Date Published

This course is intended to acquaint you with some of the major themes in American religion from the perspective of actors/subjects who are traditionally underrepresented in the study of religious history. Our goal is to explore the relationships between religion and society by considering the interaction of its various participants -including women, ethnic and racial minorities, and religious “outsiders” -in shaping American culture.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America: From Protestantism to Pluralism

Rebecca Kneale Gould
Author

Middlebury College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2005
Date Published

America has often been paradoxically defined as simultaneously the “most religious” and “least religious” of nations. This course, an historical survey of American religious life, will trace the unique story of American religion from colonial contact with native cultures to the present. Along the way, we will examine Puritan life and thought, the emergence of evangelicalism, liberal and radical challenges to the Protestant mainstream, the impact of Jewish and Catholic immigration, African-American religious experience, the importance of women’s history and the ongoing challenges of religious diversity. Readings include sermons, essays, diaries and fiction, as well as secondary source material.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America: Particularity, Americanization, and the Aesthetics of the U.S. Religious Quest

Anne Blue Wills
Author

Davidson College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2005
Date Published

This course will explore the origins, development, and character of a variety of religious traditions and movements in North America and the United States, from pre-contact to the present. Although we will cover historical terrain of dates, places, and people, and consult primary documents and critical essays, our study will be organized around our reading of five “fictions,” works that rise out of and/or imaginatively describe religious movements.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in America: Using Databases to Unlock the Sociological Imagination (Presentation)

Wendy Youngblood
Author

Teaching Module, Other
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Class Type:

Religion in American Culture

Matthew Glass
Author

South Dakota State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1993
Date Published

Americans frequently distinguish between being religious and belonging to a church or some other religious organization. In this course we will try to take this distinction seriously. If the religious expressions of the American people are not necessarily tied to the institutions which dot our landscape, then where ought we look in order to understand the role of religion in our culture? In what parts of our lives does religion crop up? What is religion anyway? We will focus our efforts on examining various features of American culture in order to trace the many different ways in which religious aspirations shape and reflect the changing nature of life in America.

While we will be somewhat attentive to the variety of religious groupings which have either migrated to or developed over time on American soil, our primary approach will not be historical. Instead our focus will be on those aspects of religion that are intertwined with other parts of American culture. We will attempt to provide a comparative and socio-cultural perspective on the forms of American religion and their role in American culture, as well as examine the sorts of religious interpretations which have been given to the American experience itself.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in American Culture

John G., Jr. Stackhouse
Author

Regent College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1993
Date Published

The primary goal of “The American Religious Experience” is to examine the beliefs and practices of the major religious traditions and movements in American history. This course surveys major religious traditions, movements, and themes in American history from the colonial period to the present. Additionally, we will explore the relationship between religious values and beliefs and other aspects of American culture. Along with acquiring certain factual information, another purpose of the course is to critically analyze and understand the interaction between religious beliefs and social, cultural, and intellectual forces in American culture.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in American History

Tony Fels
Author

University of San Francisco
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1993
Date Published

This course is an introduction to the central themes and issues in the history of American religion, as this subject matter had been discussed and interpreted by historians. It will acquaint students with the internal life of the nation’s diverse religious institutions, and it will attempt to draw connections between these religious experiences and the history of the wider society and culture of the United States.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in American History

Roberto R. Trevino
Author

University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

This overview of religious history emphasizes the interplay between religion and secular culture, and how this has affected American history. The course is presented from a social history perspective and takes an expansive view of what constitutes American religions, their functions, and influences in shaping the nation’s past. The material is presented chronologically against the background of the developing United States with religious expression and traditions appearing as they came onto the American scene, but without tracing their entire histories. Instead, we selectively explore some important links between ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’ arenas that influenced the way America and its peoples evolved. Thus some of the recurring topics of the course include the impact of religion on: identity, community and nation building, social and political change, class, gender, and ethnic relations, and so forth. The course will introduce students to the myriad religious traditions in American history but, more importantly, it will deepen their understanding of religion as a historical force, and hone their skills of historical analysis and writing. Activities designed to achieve this include lectures, films and, most importantly, structured small-group exercises that emphasize the critical evaluation of historical evidence and formulation of coherent arguments necessary for writing thesis-driven essays.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in American History

T. J. Tomlin
Author

University of Northern Colorado
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2016
Date Published

America has long been recognized for its distinct religiosity. This semester, we will examine the complex role of religion in the American past and the process by which, often against its will, the United States became home to a baffling variety of religious groups who changed and were changed by America. By the end of the course, you should be able to: 1.) Use “religion” as a category of historical analysis. 2.) Explain the core beliefs, practices, and (most importantly) experiences of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and other religious groups over time. 3.) Analyze how religion and American culture shaped each other. 4.) Create and complete an original, thesis-driven research project in American religious history supported by primary and secondary sources.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in American History

Judith Hunter
Author

State University of New York at Geneseo
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1996
Date Published

We start with the creation of a Protestant hegemony and trace its development through the Civil War. We continue to examine the fragmentation of the religious landscape in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a result of both pluralistic forces (e.g., immigration) and internal divisions among Protestants (e.g., the Modernist controversy). We conclude with the emergence of the postwar consensus surrounding civil religion. Class lectures places an emphasis on mainstream religion, but students are encouraged to explore “non-mainstream” religious issues in their papers.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in American Life

Maura Jane Farrelly
Author

Brandeis University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2011
Date Published

This course will chart the origins and development of the various (and primarily Christian) religious movements that have shaped and been shaped by the American experience, with a goal toward understanding and appreciating the richness, complexity, and influence of this country’s contemporary religious landscape. We will explore the answers to countless questions that you may not have realized you even had: What happened to the Puritans – are any of them still around? Why are there Southern Baptist churches in New England? What are people really saying when they call themselves ‘agnostics’? My hope is that when this course is over, you will look upon the subject of religion in America with discerning eyes– that you will appreciate the diversity and sophistication of religious belief, even if a particular belief or “belief” in general is not something you share, and that you will recognize the extent to which some of the best and worst parts of contemporary American society are a byproduct of the fact that people have believed.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in American Life

Thomas Tweed
Author

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1993
Date Published

This course provides an introduction to the history, themes, and issues in American religion from the precolonial period to the present. It is divided into three sections. The first provides an historical overview and an introduction to some of the religions that have been most prominent–Catholicism, Protestant, and Judaism–as well the traditions that are native to the land. The second and third sections consider some “non-traditional” religions (those outside orthodox Judaism and Christianity). Those sects and religions include, for instance, Mormons, Shakers, Zen Buddhists, and Black Muslims. We also explore in those last two sections of the course a wide range of topics. Most of them concern the relation between religion and some other theme or dimension of American life–politics, art, science, literature, music, race, gender, class, and popular culture. This is a writing intensive class.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in American Life

Kathleen M. Joyce
Author

Duke University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

Religion in American life is a one semester survey course. We will be exposed to people, events, beliefs, and traditions that may be unfamiliar to you, but the course focuses on Jewish and Christian mainstream traditions. Students will develop analytical capabilities by investigating primary and secondary source documents. This course is intended to be a collaborative effort, with students and instructor joining together to discuss texts and reflect on the issues they raise. The texts and issues we will be considering lend themselves to active discussion and debate.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Syllabus
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Class Type:

Religion in Literature (Unit Plan)

Colleen Eddy
Author

NEH Institute
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Class Type:

Religion in Postwar America

David Yamane
Author

Wake Forest University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2004
Date Published

This course surveys the major developments in religious life in the United States since the 1950s. We will read some of the most important recent books on this subject and discuss these works in class. The overall aim of this course is to cultivate a sociological imagination and apply it to religious life.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in Public Schools

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module explores the debate of various religious issues when it comes to public schooling. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion in Society

Michael Emerson
Author

Bethel College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

We all have extensive personal experience with religion. This course is about, among others, how things social shape our personal experience. Religion exists in a social contextit is shaped by and shapes that social context. Moreover, religion is always a socially constituted reality; that is, its content and structure are always formed, at least partially, out of the “stuff” of the sociocultural world (language, symbols, norms, interactions, organizations, inequality, conflict and cooperation). In Religion in Society, we seek to understand both the “socialness” of religion itself and the mutually influencing interactions between religion and its social environment. We examine religious beliefs, practices, and organizations from a sociological perspective, with a primary (but not exclusive) focus on religion in the contemporary U.S.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in the American South

John Hayes
Author

Augusta State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2012
Date Published

With different religious groups as the main characters, this class tells a winding story of the diverse ways in which people have religiously imagined life in the American South. How did they understand the relation between the sacred and society? What did they picture as the ideal way of life? What rituals did they practice to codify this ideal, and who was included in these rituals? Was their religious vision a sacred alternative to the dominant culture, or did they seek to craft a sacralized society? In pursuing these questions in a narrative format, we will learn that religion in the South has been neither homogenous nor unchanging. Different groups have waxed and waned in cultural power, and different visions of the sacred have been imagined in changing contexts. The story of these groups and these changing visions is the story of religion in the American South.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in the American West

Quincy D. Newell
Author

University of Wyoming
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2012
Date Published

This course explores the history of religion in the American West. The boundaries of this topic are fuzzy, at best: what is religion, exactly? Is it more than going to church? More than what someone believes? Can planting gardens count as a religious practice? What about rock climbing? And where is the West? Is California part of the West? Was it ever part of the West? What about Wyoming? What is the difference? We will begin with considerations of these questions, and keep them in mind throughout the course. This course has three major learning outcomes: 1.) Students will synthesize the religious history of the American West by identifying key figures, groups, ideas, and events and explaining the connections between them. 2.) Students will evaluate how the physical, social, and cultural environments of the West have affected the presence and practice of religion, and vice versa. 3.) Students will recognize and analyze manifestations of religion that do not fit dominant institutional models.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion in the Colonial Americas

John Corrigan
Author

Florida State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

The syllabus for a graduate seminar. The reading list includes some primary as well as secondary sources. Geographic areas include the Caribbean, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, New France, New Netherland, New England, Native American territories. The course centers religion in relation to the contestation of space, shiftings of power, race, commerce, colonialism, and empire.

Class Type: Graduate Course

Daisy Vargas
Author

Syllabus
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

This course will explore the central role of religion in shaping constructions of race and ethnicity in U.S. history, especially in light of immigration debates. Since the country’s founding, immigrants have expanded ethnic and religious diversity in the United States in the face of powerful anti-immigrant movements. Students will engage with in-depth studies of immigrant communities who shaped the American religious and ethnic landscape, including diverse American expressions of religions such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Evangelical Protestantism, and Vodou.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Online

Religion, Health, and the Body in Law and Order Teaching Module

Philippa Koch
Author

Missouri State University
Institution

Teaching Module
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

This is a unit designed for a course called “Body and Health in American Religions.” It could be used in a variety of courses, including a survey of American religion and an elective on sexuality, healing, and family life. It could also be used in a course to cover the topics of religion and colonialism.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course, Graduate Course, Online, Seminar

Religion, Literature, and Film: Global Pursuits of Meaning

Everett Hamner
Author

Western Illinois University-Quad Cities
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2011
Date Published

This course pursues the unique insights contemporary fiction and film offer for understanding world religions and spiritualistic. What do such narratives suggest about similarities and differences between Midwestern Protestantism and New York City Judaism, or between Iranian Islam and New Zealand indigenous spirituality? Conversely, the course considers the value of religious and secular questions for understanding literary and filmic characters and plots. What can understanding basic concepts of Hinduism or Taoism, for instance, reveal about an Oscar-winning film or a major science fiction novel?

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Graduate Course

Religion, Politics, and Society in Modern U.S. History

Darren Dochuk
Author

Purdue University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2009
Date Published

This course provides both a chronological and thematic overview of the history of religion, politics and society in twentieth century America. This course will encourage us to think more deeply about the ways religious ideas, institutions, and individuals intersect with and weave through broad political developments like populism and progressivism, corporate and labor activism, the rise and decline of New Deal liberalism, war and American empire building, the power shift to the Sunbelt, urban and suburban power struggles, social movements of the Left and the Right, the politics of family, education, and community, civil rights and ethnic identity, conservatism and globalization. The overarching goal of this course is to place religion at the center of political development in the twentieth century, and at the center of our understanding of this recent past. Here religion will not (as is often done by political historians) be cordoned off as an agent of change worthy of consideration only under exceptional circumstances and in rare moments, but rather be considered as a consistent, powerful player that always brings competing passions and interests, drama and controversy to the political realm.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religion, Politics, and the FBI

Lerone A. Martin
Author

Washington University in St. Louis
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2015
Date Published

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 twentieth 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. We will address several questions, including: What are the origins of the FBI? Did religion play a role in shaping the formation of the FBI? How have such origins shaped the FBI and public perceptions of the same? How, if at all, has the FBI shaped religion in America? How and why did the FBI spy on religious groups? Why did some religious groups fight the
FBI while others chose to cooperate and coordinate with the FBI? How did race, class, gender, and/or the theological composition of religious groups/persons contribute to such
variance? In what ways, if any, did FBI surveillance and counter-intelligence shape religious and political activity? Closely related, how, if at all, did FBI partnerships with cooperating and coordinating ministers, faith communities, and consultative religious professionals influence religious and political activity? Did the FBI’s engagement of religion alter public, cultural, political, and governmental perceptions and opportunities of religious communities and persons? And finally, what does the history of the FBI and religion tells us about religion and politics in America?

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Seminar

Religion, Race and Gender in the 2020 Political Landscape

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Dr. Melissa Borja (University of Michigan) answers the question “What is your sense of the best way to understand religion’s role at the intersection of race and gender in today’s political landscape?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 1, October 15, 2020.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religion, Race, and American Evangelicalism

Darrius Hills
Author

Grinnell College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2023
Date Published

For many Americans, both scholars and faith
communities alike, one of the truly confounding
tasks in contemporary settings, is how to define and
categorize the nature and scope of American
evangelicalism. Such a task is all the more
complicated when one asks, “which” evangelicals—a
nuance tethered to demographic considerations,
namely along the lines of race, sex, and even shifting
theological commitments. In light of this, this course
has two goals: 1) introducing students to major
markers of American evangelical thought and
historical development; 2) interpreting the shifts of
American evangelicalism as a feature of race
relations and political arrangements in the 21st
century.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Graduate Course, Online, Hybrid

Brad Stoddard
Author

Syllabus
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

A wide-ranging examination of the diverse religious life of the United States both in history and today. Attention is given to religion among native/First Nations peoples, mainstream groups such as Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism, marginal movements such as Scientology and other new religious movements, and religions among recent immigrants. The course will look at the history of religions in the United States, themes that have characterized U.S. religions, and case studies drawn from religious practice in the United States.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religious Attitudes During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religious Diversity in North America

Jeff Wilson
Author

University of Waterloo
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2012
Date Published

North America is one of the most religiously diverse regions in the history of humanity; it is also one of the most monolithically Christian places on Earth. Scholars of religious history in North America must deal with this tension between the so-called mainstream and fringes, recognizing how a dominant tradition itself produces plurality while simultaneously exerting pressure on outside groups to lose elements of their distinctiveness. This course will therefore explore diversity within and outside of the Christian tradition(s), examining forces of change, diversification, and conformity, and consider how immigration, gender, race, class, theology, praxis, and other forces have produced and been shaped by the religious ferment of North American society.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Graduate Course

Religious Experience in Everyday Life

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module will explore religious experiences in everyday life as well as how many Americans report having such experiences. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religious laity and environmentalism

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Amanda J. Baugh (California State University, Northridge) answers the question “How might religious laity be engaged in environmentalism?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 6, March 18, 2021.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religious Lives in America

Ansley Quiros
Author

University of North Alabama
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2023
Date Published

Religious Lives in America is a graduate seminar that explores themes in American history through examining
the genre of religious biography. Listening to voices from various eras, regions, and identities, students will
analyze the craft of religious biography, its promises and perils. We will interrogate how culture, race, gender,
class, sexuality, place, and relationship impact individuals and both expand and constrain traditional religious or
institutional narratives. What makes a biography of a person religious? Who decides? Whose stories are told? By
whom? What is included or left out? How do individual lives intersect with broader narratives of American
religion(s)?

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Graduate Course, Online, Hybrid

Religious Minorities (Non-Christians) in American History

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module focuses on non-christians in the United States and their experiences. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religious Minorities Across Nations

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Teaching Module, Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Religious Narratives in American Identity

Joe Creech
Author

Valparaiso University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2006
Date Published

In this course we will examine American literary works spanning from the colonial to the modern period that in one way or another address religion and national identity as those entities have changed over time. This course is explicitly cross-disciplinary, combining insights from history and the study of literature to shed light on the way religion has shaped how Americans understand themselves and their nation. Starting with the colonial and moving through to the modern period, this course will examine such themes as exceptionalism, innocence, election, social concern, and freedom as they were expressed in mainstream and non-mainstream religious contexts.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Seminar

Religious Nones and Kamala Harris

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Dr. Janelle Wong (University of Maryland) discusses “Religious Nones and Kamala Harris.” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 2, November 19, 2020.

In January, it became known that Jeff and Mackenzie Bezos had filed for divorce after 25 years of marriage. At the same time, the media revealed that one of the reasons for this decision was Lauren Sanchez, the new love of the Amazon founder. Lauren’s biography immediately became one of the most discussed topics, in part because it turned out that she herself was not free. At the time of the novel with Bezos Sanchez was not the first year married to the owner of a major Hollywood casting agency WME Patrick Whitesell. Bezos and Sanchez haven’t officially confirmed Jeff Bezos new girlfriend their relationship yet, though plenty of evidence has surfaced – the National Enquirer tabloid also blackmailed him and Lauren with intimate correspondence and photos, as Bezos himself told the world.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Religious Outsiders andthe American State

Shari Rabin
Author

College of Charleston
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2019
Date Published

This course explores the relationship between select outsider religions – Native Americans, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Mormons, and Buddhists – and the American state from the beginnings of the nation until the present day. In a country that is premised on the separation of church and state but that also includes diverse religious communities, the place of religion in public life and of the government’s role in regulating and defining religion have long been contested. What do church-state relations look like if we focus on groups outside of the Protestant mainstream? What are the scope and limits of “religious freedom”? In this course, students explore these questions in relationship to immigration, education, national security, first amendment jurisprudence, and more.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Seminar

Religious Plots

Joshua Guthman
Author

Berea College
Institution

Anna M. Lawrence
Author

Florida Atlantic University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2012
Date Published

Why have women been the majority of religious congregations? What sorts of gender structures are central to religious groups in America? How has women’s relationship to religious institutions changed over time? This course will help foster students’ ability to think, read, and write about American religious history and women’s history from an informed and critical perspective. This course will span the time period from the colonial era to the twentieth century. However, instead of seeking to be complete in its coverage (since this would be impossible), this course will focus on key periods in the formation of American women’s relationship to religious ideas and institutions. Topics include: Native American women and Colonialism, Puritan Women, Quakerism, Witchcraft Accusations, Evangelicalism, American Catholic Life, Black Churches in America, Social Movements, Spiritualism, the L.D.S. Church, Jewish Women in America, Fundamentalism, Muslim Women, Modern Witchcraft, Goddess Movements, and Buddhism.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Salem Witchcraft Trials (Unit Plan)

Other
Resource Type

2010
Date Published

Class Type:

Satan and Satanism Assignments

Rebecca Moore
Author

San Diego State University
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2015
Date Published

This assignment is actually two assignments grouped into one. Therefore it includes the following: four academic book reviews each about 4 pages in length and a 5000-wood research paper. All of these assignments revolve around the course topic of Satan and Satanism.

Class Type: Graduate Course

Scholarly Responsibility and Public Health

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Dr. Philippa Koch (Missouri State) answers the question “Do scholars of religion have a responsibility to name or engage with religious communities whose actions are harmful to public health?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 3, December 17, 2020.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Scopes Trial Role Play

Anne Blankenship
Author

North Dakota State University
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

A fun and interactive activity where students role play different parts of the Scopes trial using excerpts from the trial transcripts. The included script is edited to 30 minutes of content with notes summarizing the missing portions.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course, Graduate Course, Seminar

Secularism

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Teaching Module, Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

The purpose is to introduce secularism in the United States, explore various measurement strategies used to examine secularism and to familiarize students with online research tools.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Secularism Across the Globe

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Secularism and U.S. Empire

Kathleen Holscher
Author

University of New Mexico
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2015
Date Published

From nineteenth century talk of manifest destiny to twenty-first century evangelical interventions in U.S. foreign policy, religious motivations have undergirded American empire. This course recognizes the role of religion in the processes and relationships of U.S. imperialism. We’ll focus on the similarly important role of secularism in shaping ideologies, practices, and experiences of empire. Over two centuries, American imperialism has been tied to imaginings, formal and informal, of the United States as a secular nation—a government and culture where “religion” exists apart, as something privatized and optional. This course considers how U.S. formations of “the secular”– and efforts toward defining and regulating “religion” that they incubate– extend into imperial relationships. We’ll ask how these co-emergent categories have played into the interlocking modern projects of capitalism and colonialism. We’ll pay attention to how “the secular” and “religion” are assembled, historically, from ideas about race, class, gender, and sexuality, and how the state has invoked both to police racial, sexual, etc. identity and behavior. American imperialism extends to distant peoples, and it also bears on “domestic” populations who, by virtue of race, sexuality, immigration or felon status, are governed in ways that produce their marginalization within the body politic. This course examines how secularism and religion-making work in the service of empire, and how these diverse subjects of empire receive those categories and resist, trouble, or otherwise make them a part of their own lives.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Graduate Course

Seminar on Race/ Ethnicity and Religion in the United States

Samuel Perry
Author

Oklahoma University
Institution

2015
Date Published

This course will focus on the scientific study of how race and ethnic issues influence and are influenced by religion. The course will focus upon this race and religion relationship within the context of the United States. We will begin with a historical and theoretical examination of religion and race/ethnic relations. This will lead us to examining how various racial interests have used religious concepts to legitimate their racial beliefs. We will examine empirical evidence of the ways religion can influence racial issues such as racism, discrimination and stratification. We will then look at the different religious traditions of various racial and ethnic groups in America. Lastly, we will consider the phenomenon of multiracial faith communities and their potential impact in our society. This is a seminar course will be discussion-based. It assumes previous course work in both the social sciences and religion.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Sensory Mapping of Religious New York Assignment

John Seitz
Author

Fordham University
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Sensory Mapping of Religious New York: A Course Blog Assignment

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Sexuality and American Religion

Anthony Petro
Author

Boston University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2015
Date Published

This course examines sexuality and religion in colonial America and the United States. We trace the history of this intersection while also paying attention to theoretical tools scholars have used to think about religious and sexual desire, identity, bodies, ritual, and regulation. We consider how religion and sexuality have changed over time, how they have mutually constituted one another, and how they continue to shape cultural and political debate in American society. Our course will survey a range of cases, with particular attention to Protestant and Catholic history, Mormonism, and Judaism, as well as to the history of same-sex and opposite-sex encounters, the history of sex and gender, queer history and politics, and the history of colonialism and race. Given the nature of this course, some of the materials we cover include graphic depictions of sex, including sexual violence. Students should be prepared to engage with these matierals critically and thoughtfully.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Graduate Course

Sexuality and Religion in the United States

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Charles Brown
Author

Albright College
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2010
Date Published

This course is designed to provide an opportunity for the student to develop a general sociological understanding and perspective with which to evaluate, interpret, and understand religion and religious institutions. This IS NOT a course in religious theology, nor will we be concerned with identifying the “truth” or “falsity” of religion in general or specific religions in particular. In short, we will confine ourselves to the scientific study of religion and not attempt to pass judgments about which religions are better or worse, true or false.We will begin by looking at how religion has been traditionally defined and how it differs from magic. We will also discuss some of the world‟s major religious traditions, the role of belief, values, and symbols, how and why people decide to join a religion and what happens when they decide to leave, how religious organizations form and are maintained, the link between religion and social inequality (in regards to race and gender), whether religion is diminishing in light of the advancement of science, and various contemporary expressions of religion (cults, civil religion, and fundamentalism). We will end by discussing the implications of the commodification of religion.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Social Gospel in American Life

Heath Carter
Author

Valparaiso University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2016
Date Published

Historians have often construed the Social Gospel as an elite theological movement within Liberal Protestantism – one which was driven by white, male ministers and seminary professors and which flourished primarily in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. In this course we will explore the viability of an alternative narrative, which posits a much wider and
longer Social Gospel tradition in American life. Over the course of the last two centuries countless American Christians have sought to apply the gospel to the most pressing problems of their day. Believing that sin infects not only persons but also systems and structures, they have set out to save not just individual souls but also the whole of society. In this class students will be introduced to a diverse array of social gospelers – women and men, rich and poor, Catholics and Protestants, African Americans, Latinos, and more – who participated in social struggles ranging from abolitionism to the labor movement, from battles for Civil Rights to campaigns to revive blighted urban neighborhoods. As we move chronologically from the early-nineteenth century to the present, we will spend most of our time immersed in primary documents, but we will also attend throughout to historical contexts, with an eye especially toward understanding the larger impact that social gospelers have had on the modern United States.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Social Justice Mysticism Syllabus

Robert Saler
Author

Christian Theological Seminary
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Uses three historical examples of socially engaged spirituality in the 20th century: Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day, French philosopher Simone Weil, and the Eastern Orthodox saint Maria of Paris. All three of these women were deeply formed by prayer and mystical experience, and all three took on power structures of their day (two to their own deaths in World War 2). This course will examine key aspects of their lives and writings with an eye towards answering the following question: how does a life of deep prayer form courage for activism and helping the poor? How does Christian charity manifest itself at both individual and systematic levels? We will be particularly attentive to how these questions shape our own contemporary discernment for the lives of prayer, ministry, and social justice to which God calls us and the church.0

Class Type: Graduate Course

Social Movements and Religion in American History

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Teaching Module
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module explores social movements in United States history. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Social Movements and Religion in American History

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Sociology 145.001: Religion and Society

Elfriede Wedam
Author

Loyola University Chicago
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2014
Date Published

While it may surprise many, the place of religion in American society is deep and broad. We will explore the many dimensions of religion—how it is defined, how people express it, how they experience its power. We will discover how religion changes as the structure and culture of society itself evolves. During the first half of the semester, we will learn about the varieties of religious traditions in America through our readings and lectures as well as by visiting them together as a class. We will focus especially on the practice of religion, what scholars call “lived religion,” which we will observe at the sites of religious worship. During the second half, we will focus on the social forces as experienced in the metropolitan Chicago area that affect and change some of these religious practices. These include modernization, secularization, globalization, stratification, fundamentalism, race, ethnicity, gender, and social conflict. But we will also ask how religion is not just the recipient of forces, but an influence on the broader culture (and subcultures) in which we live.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Sociology 20610: Sociology of Religion

Christian Smith
Author

University of Notre Dame
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2012
Date Published

This course provides an introduction to the sociology of religion, an important field in the discipline of sociology. Religion is one of the most powerful forces of social cohesion, order, meaning, disruption, and change in human societies, both historically and today in the modern world. Sociology provides a particular disciplinary perspective and analytical tools and theories for describing, understanding, and explaining the nature and influence of religion. The course will engage the following kinds of questions. What is religion? Why is religion so primordial and prevalent in human societies? What do different religions teach? Why are people religious or not religious? What causal role does religion play in human personal and social life? How does the sociological study of religion differ from a theological or psychological study of religion? Why and how do religious organizations grow and decline? How, for example, did an obscure, early Jesus Movement manage to become the largest religion in the world today? How and why do people convert to a different religious faith or lose their faith entirely? Is modernity secularizing? What are the religious and spiritual lives of 18–23 year-old Americans today like? Why has the Islamist movement become so powerful in recent decades?

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Sociology 351/Religion 285: Sociology of Religion

Mark Chaves
Author

Duke University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2013
Date Published

This is an introduction to the sociology of religion. We will begin by discussing questions such as: What is religion? Where does it come from? What is its fate in modern societies? We then will consider varieties of religious expression, exploring how social context shapes religious belief and practice. Finally, we will study American religion, focusing especially on what we can learn from social surveys.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Sociology 6143: Sociology of Religion

Christopher Ellison
Author

University of Texas, San Antonio
Institution

2012
Date Published

In this course, we will examine the dominant theories of religion and look at the way sociologists use multiple types of empirical data –quantitative and qualitative– to study religion as a social institution. We will begin the course by focusing squarely on the debate between “old” and “new” paradigms in the sociology of religion. The next phase of the course explores the dynamics religious affiliation and disaffiliation, and the reasons for the growth and decline of specific religious groups and communities, as well as the varied factors that influence individual religious and spiritual practices. Subsequent segments of the course will address such topics as: (a) the links between religion, ethnicity, and immigration; (b) religion, gender, and family life; (c) religion, health, and well-being; (d) religion and socioeconomic stratification; and (e) religion and politics.

Class Type: Graduate Course

Carol MacGregor
Author

Loyola University New Orleans
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2012
Date Published

This book review assignment is made up of two components—an oral presentation of roughly 15-20 minutes on the date you sign up for and a written report submitted at any point up until 5pm on the last day of classes. The written report should be about 6-8 pages and include both a brief summary and a more extensive critical reflection on the material. The report and the presentation should follow the basic format—a brief introduction and summary, a critical evaluation of the book and a conclusion. However, I also request that as part of your presentation you develop at least one big question for us to discuss as a class. You may use PowerPoint or any videos or materials you think would be illustrative as part of your presentation but depending on the number of other students presenting on your day you may not have much time so use audiovisuals wisely.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Sociology of Religion: Dead White Men and Beyond

Wendy W. Young
Author

University of Florida
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

This survey course in the sociology of religion is designed for a class of thirty undergraduate majors in Sociology. The emphasis is on theory and qualitative methods, while exposing the student to a wide variety of authors and themes. The beginning of the course leads the student through the several conceptual frameworks created by the founding fathers of the academic study of religion including: Durkheim, Weber, Marx and Freud. The latter portion expands the course to consider feminist and multi-cultural perspectives and ends with consideration of the problem of individualism in a post-modern world.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Sociology of Religion: Movie Watching and Written Responses

Christian Smith
Author

University of Notre Dame
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2012
Date Published

The following course is about watching 3 movies that you are not familiar with, afterwards writing a response that tackles some sociological question, perspective, concept, or theory of the religious aspect of the film. Ensure to focus those responses on the religious aspect of the film.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Sociology of Religion: Research Project

Roger Finke
Author

Pennsylvania State University
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2015
Date Published

This research project requires you to visit worship services at three different congregations and observe four YouTube videos. Based on these observations, you are required to write a three-to five page research paper.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Spiritual but not Religious: Making Spirituality in America

Daniel Vaca
Author

Brown University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2017
Date Published

When people call themselves “spiritual,” what does that mean? This introductory course answers that question by exploring the wide range of ideas, practices, and desires that have come
to make up the concept of spirituality. Inviting students to consider why spirituality seems “not religious,” this course examines such phenomena as yoga, faith healing, hip hop, shopping, self-help books, psychology, surveys, and protest movements. By studying these sites of spirituality, this course will enable students to recognize how Americans have made sense of their own lives and institutional attachments through continually changing technologies of race, pluralism, science, capitalism, and secularism.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Spreading the Word: How Americans Share Their Faith

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module discusses how various Americans feel and share their faith in a multitude of ways. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

St. Mother Theodore Guerin (Annotated Bibliography)

Lucinda Kanczuzewski
Author

Other
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Class Type:

Studies in Christian Conversion and Spiritual Autobiography

Bruce Hindmarsh
Author

Briercrest Biblical Seminary
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

I have designed this course to stimulate you to think in a disciplined way about the nature of Christian conversion through the study of a number of historical examples. We will focus most intently in the second half of the course on the early evangelical tradition of spiritual autobiography or ‘conversion narrative’, though we will set this within—and sometimes against—the larger history of the response of women and men to Christian proclamation through the centuries. Attention will be paid chiefly to theological themes in the literature studied, but this will be augmented by some discussion of interdisciplinary perspectives on the conversion experience. We will explore the relevance of all of this to our experience of faith and ministry in the contemporary world, and you will be encouraged to think through your own theology of conversion

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Graduate Course

Syllabus for Spring 2016 graduate course on Religion and Immigration

Prema Kurien
Author

Syracuse University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

I am a sociologist of immigration and religion. Unfortunately I do not generally get to teach courses that are related in any way to religion. This is the last time I taught a course linking my two areas of interest.

Class Type: Graduate Course

Take Home Exercise

Marion Goldman
Author

University of Oregon
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2016
Date Published

This short take-home exercise has been effective in a number of classes. It is useful for helping students understand how most Americans can become audiences or clients of new religious movements and how people reveal and understand their vulnerabilities in group contexts.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

The Acquisition of California and the Importance of Religion to Westward Expansion (Lesson Plan)

Andrew French
Author

Assignment
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Class Type:

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Dr. Krista Hoffmann-Longtin (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis) answers the question “Is there an unrealistic binary between science and religion?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 3, December 17, 2020.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

The current state of public teaching (2020-2021)

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Kate Bowler (Duke Divinity School) answers the question “What are your thoughts on the current state of public teaching?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 8, May 20, 2021.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

The current state of public teaching (2020-2021) (Part 2)

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Gerardo Marti (Davidson College) answers the question “What are your thoughts on the current state of public teaching?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 8, May 20, 2021.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

The Evolution of Religiosity and Human Coalitionary Psychology

Paul Watson
Author

University of New Mexico
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2013
Date Published

The course’s goal is to address, as incisively as possible, the question of why humans have evolved intrapsychic design features leading them to create religions. Collaboratively, we shall analyze possible answers to this question from a purely materialistic modern Darwinian perspective. The aim of the course is to impart a rich blend of competing and complementary theoretical perspectives and empirical results, not available elsewhere, promoting the understanding and continuing study of religiosity, and its cross-cultural consequence, religion, as a natural phenomenon. This is a course dedicated to opening and elucidating questions about our shared, species-typical, pancultural human nature. In line with modern thinking on human behavioral biology, such questions about ourselves assume that not only relatively “hardwired” instincts are biological, but so are the complex and varied cultures that such instincts promote as they interact with the ecological and cultural environments of each individual. 0

Class Type: Undergraduate Course, Graduate Course, Seminar

The Idea of Black Religion

Jamil Drake
Author

Florida State University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2019
Date Published

Black religion is a familiar category in American history and culture. It has been a reliable category to describe practices, institutions, and experiences of people of African descent. For a little over a decade, Sylvester Johnson, Barbara Savage, Curtis Evans, and other scholars of religion have called attention to how black religion is more a proscriptive and ideological than descriptive idea in human history. Following these scholars of religion, this course suspends the familiarity of black religion in order to assess its meaning(s) and function(s) in American history. Moreover, this course examines how the meaning and function of black religion was formed and constituted in conjunction with ideals used to differentiate “modern” and “premodern” social groups, behaviors, and institutions. The idea of Black religion coalesced with contested ideas and norms such as civilization and the nation-state; freedom and the human; science and rationality; morality and crime; and health and medicine. In the end, this course will demonstrate how the idea of black religion is not only central to the making of racial and ethnic identities, it is also important to the making of modern America.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Graduate Course, Seminar

The limits of scale and presence in university education

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Caleb Elfenbein (Grinnell College) discusses “The limits of scale and presence in university education.” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 8, May 20, 2021.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

The link between Black studies and technology

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Sylvester Johnson (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) answers the question “How do you link Black studies and humanities with science and technology?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 5, February 18, 2021.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization

Other
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization is a vibrant, growing collection curated by leading Jewish Studies scholars which offers unprecedented direct access to excerpts from thousands of primary sources reflecting Jewish creativity, diversity, and culture world-wide, and will span biblical times to the 21st century when complete.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

The Religion Clauses of the First Amendment

David Gerber
Author

University at Buffalo (SUNY)
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

This seminar utilizes Supreme Court decisions regarding the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment to introduce students to both judicial processes and their history and ongoing debates about the relationships between the state and religion/religions in the public sphere, dating from the origins of the Constitution and the First Amendment. In discussing legal confrontations over polygamy, school prayer, public evangelizing, and the use of public resources to support sectarian institutions, the Supreme Court decisions serve to raise questions for students about their own ideas about order and justice. The seminar readings include classic court decisions from the historical past and very recent decisions.

Class Type: Seminar

The sanctification of space at the 2021 U.S. presidential inauguration

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

Dr. Elaine Peña (The George Washington University) answers the question “What are your thoughts on the sanctification of space at the 2021 U.S. presidential inauguration?” This clip was taken from “Religion &” Episode 4, January 21, 2021.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

The Scientific Study of Religion: Measuring Religiosity

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module will focus on the measurements available to measure religiosity. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

The Separation of Church and State (Unit Plan and Presentation)

Paul Fisher
Author

Other
Resource Type

2010
Date Published

Class Type:

The Sociology of Religious Organizations

Kevin Dougherty
Author

Baylor University
Institution

2013
Date Published

Congregations, denominations, religious schools, religious hospitals, and a wide assortment of other organizations with religious ties operate in contemporary society. The organizational forms of religion hold particular interest to sociologists. What makes an organization religious? How do religious organizations form? Why do religious organizations succeed or fail? What is success or failure for a religious organization? Soc 6332 is a graduate seminar devoted to such questions. The seminar explores organizational aspects of religion, including organizational forms, prominent theories, and common methodologies.

Class Type: Graduate Course

The Variety of Secularities

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

Joseph Kip Kosek
Author

George Washington University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2011
Date Published

This course considers how religion and politics have influenced each other in the United States, as well as the ways that Americans have understood those influences. Our major questions include: Is the United States a Christian nation, a secular nation, or something else entirely? When has religion promoted, or prevented, bigotry, conflict, and violence? What exactly do we mean by “separation of church and state”? In what ways has religion shaped the politics of gender and race? How have Americans dealt with the nation’s bewildering religious diversity? Why have faith and science been so often in conflict (or have they)? How have religious people sought to reform American politics and society? What is the relationship of religion to American democracy?

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Understanding the Geographic Contexts of Congregations

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions.This module will focus on geography as it pertains to congregations and will explore comparing smaller to larger areas around the same congregations. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.0

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

United Methodist History and Theology

Christopher Evans
Author

Colgate Rochester Divinity School
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

1999
Date Published

The United Methodist Church represents many distinctive historical and theological currents. This course will trace United Methodism’s historical and theological growth from the Wesleys to the late 20th century. Attention will be paid in the course to United Methodism’s roots in the theology of John Wesley. However, the course will also focus on the denomination’s growth from a series of predominantly American movements into a global church.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Graduate Course

Using Experiential Education to Teach Religious Studies (Unit Plan)

Jeremy Luke
Author

Other
Resource Type

2022
Date Published

Class Type:

Varieties of American Evangelicalism

Robert E. Brown
Author

Bucknell University
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2004
Date Published

Evangelical Protestantism has played a vital role in shaping American history, culture and religion. It is estimated that some 25-35% of the American population (c. 70-100million) today identifies with this movement. Far from being a monolithic entity,however, the religious, ideological, and social allegiances of evangelicalism are quite diverse. In addition, evangelicals maintain a somewhat paradoxical relationship with American society, functioning simultaneously as a politically powerful interest group (insiders) and as cultural antagonists (outsiders). This course is designed to introduce students to the history of evangelicalism, its characteristic religious patterns, and its ongoing negotiations with contemporary American culture

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Seminar

Varieties of Secularism in American History

John Lardas Modern
Author

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Author

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

The Trump presidency, culminating in the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, brought into sharp relief the importance of white Christian nationalism as an animating force in American civil society. Millions of Americans believe that the United States should be distinctively “Christian” in its public policies, sacred symbols, and national identity. These beliefs are inextricably tied to notions of whiteness as central to American identity. As the insurrection made clear, the implications of white Christian nationalism are very real. This online mini-conference brings together the leading scholars, authors, journalists, policy experts, and public theologians in order to discuss white Christian nationalism from a variety of perspectives making it a truly unique opportunity to explore these issues. This first panel—“White Christian Nationalism Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow”—revolves around the study of white Christian nationalism from a cross-disciplinary perspective, including history, social science, and law. You can watch the second session at the following link: https://youtu.be/8hzFamNEAX4

Host: Andrew Whitehead

Panelists: Anthea Butler, Caroline Mala Corbin, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Samuel Perry

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

White Christian Nationalism in the United States (session 2)

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Author

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Institution

Video
Resource Type

2021
Date Published

The Trump presidency, culminating in the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, brought into sharp relief the importance of white Christian nationalism as an animating force in American civil society. Millions of Americans believe that the United States should be distinctively “Christian” in its public policies, sacred symbols, and national identity. These beliefs are inextricably tied to notions of whiteness as central to American identity. As the insurrection made clear, the implications of white Christian nationalism are very real. This online mini-conference brings together the leading scholars, authors, journalists, policy experts, and public theologians in order to discuss white Christian nationalism from a variety of perspectives making it a truly unique opportunity to explore these issues. The topic of the second panel is “Engaging White Christian Nationalism in Public Spaces.” This panel moves beyond the first session’s study of white Christian nationalism to include perspectives from journalists, clergy, policy experts, and public theologians on how they engage it in their various spheres of influence.

You can watch the first session at the following link: https://youtu.be/F4R_m02ri6U

Host: Amanda Tyler

Panelists: Angela Denker, Jack Jenkins, Jemar Tisby, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Who is Leading America’s Congregations? A Social Demographic Profile of U.S. Pastors

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions.This module explores the continuing diversification of pastors within the United States and how that translates to diversity in the country. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.0

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Witchcraft: Religion, Law and Crime in the Atlantic World

Katharine Gerbner
Author

University of Minnesota
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2019
Date Published

This course poses a series of questions. What is the historian’s task? How do historians know what they know? What methods and skills do historians use? This course introduces history majors (and non-majors) to the methods and practices of historical knowledge production and to the philosophy/theory of history. Put slightly differently, the course will introduce students to the work/craft of history as thought and methodology. It will also encourage students to think about history (as discipline, method) critically, to address questions such as: What is history for and what does the student of history/the historian do in research (as the detective and the archivist), in writing (as the storyteller and the analyst), and in (critical) thought (as the teacher and the philosopher)? What does it mean to teach/study history in a time of struggle? What are the possibilities and limits of history?

This course examines the history of witchcraft and its relationship to religion, crime, and law. Who was deemed a “witch” in different historical contexts, and why? How did perceptions about witchcraft change over time? We will begin our inquiry in the early modern period, with the “witch crisis” in early modern Europe and the rise of European colonialism and the Atlantic slave trade. We will then do a close analysis of the Salem witch trials, reading original documents and examining the role of law, colonialism, slavery, and capitalism in the witch “outbreak” of 1692. The final section of the course will think about religion, law, and crime comparatively, examining concepts such as “voodoo” and “obeah.” Throughout the course, we will focus on how history is done –including close readings of primary documents, synthesis of historiographical arguments, and theorization of important concepts, such as “superstition,” “religion,” “magic,” and “law.”

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Women and American Catholicism

Kathleen Sprows Cummings
Author

University of Notre Dame
Institution

Syllabus
Resource Type

2006
Date Published

This course is a history of American Catholic women from the colonial period to the present. We will explore the following themes: the role of religious belief and practice in shaping Catholics’ understanding of gender differences; the experience of women in religious communities and in family life; women’s involvement in education and social reform; ethnic and racial diversity among Catholic women; devotional life; the development of feminist theology, and the emergence of the “new feminism” as articulated by Pope John Paul II. We will seek to understand how Catholic women, both lay and religious, contributed to the development of Church and nation, and examine how encounters with the broader American society have shaped Catholic women’s relationship to the institutional church over the last three centuries.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Women and Men in the Catholic Church

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions.As the title suggests, this module compares the differences of roles by women and men in the Catholic Church. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.0

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Women and Religion in the United States

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module explores the question of women’s religiosity as it compares to men in the United States. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Women and Religion in the United States

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Women in the Seminary

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module explores the differences in men and women in attending seminaries. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Written Assignment: Debate Between Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens on “Is Religion a Force for Good in the World?”

Elfriede Wedam
Author

Loyola University Chicago
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2013
Date Published

Read chapter 14 in Religion Matters, “Do We Need God to Do Good?” and the article “Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching” by Terry Eagleton to prepare for listening to this debate. We will watch the debate in class. Take notes as you listen. Write a 3-4 page essay following these guidelines.

a) Who had the most persuasive argument? (Not who you happen to agree with, but who won the debate?) Explain why.

b) Identify one important idea that you learned while listening to this debate.

c) Why do you believe that this idea is important?

d) Identify and explain at least one point made in chapter 14 or in the article by Eagleton that challenged one of the debaters (or vice-versa).

e) What questions(s) has this debate raised for you? What are you wondering about?

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Written Exercises on the Economics of Religion

Brooks Hull
Author

University of Michigan-Dearborn
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2013
Date Published

This honors course consists of 3 exercises throughout the course. The first of which is a topic paper that is one page describing the topic and key points that will be made. The second exercise is the literature review, consisting of 4 pages and the final exercise in a paper incorporating previous work and using proper references.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Written Exercises on The Economics of Religion, Crime, and Marriage

Brooks Hull
Author

University of Michigan-Dearborn
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2012
Date Published

This course revolves around the discussion between religion, crime, and marriage and their larger effects on economics as a whole. Students will be required to complete 4 total exercises. The first of which is a 1 page paper consisting of the topic chosen and the key points that will be made. Following that paper, the second of which will be 1-2 pages consisting of the literature review of the topic. The third exercise will involve the presentation of the paper to the class or group. Finally, the last exercise is the completed paper that has incorporated the previous work done in the class.

Class Type: Undergraduate Course

Young Adults, Religion, and Volunteering

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Learning modules allow you to interactively explore the best data and information sources on religion. This “Core Module” offers a broad overview of topics and provides detailed directions. This module explores how young adults spend their time volunteering for religious and non-religious organizations. This assignment was created by the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Young Men, Young Women, and Religion: How Young Adult Religiosity Differs by Gender

Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course

Young Men, Young Women, and Religion: How Young Adult Religiosity Differs by Gender

The Association of Religion Data Archives
Author

IUPUI
Institution

Assignment
Resource Type

2020
Date Published

Class Type: Intro, Undergraduate Course