Intersections in the Cultural Study of Religion: syllabus/reading list (open-access)

This is the outline of a course that I taught in autumn 2017 at the University of Glasgow, to an honours level (years 3 and 4) undergraduate class.

I am sharing it as an open-access resource for those interested in teaching the contemporary study of religion. I would also benefit immensely if you could send me your comments, feedback, and suggestions for further resources (published, blog, or otherwise).

The course is taught over 11 weeks as an exploration of contemporary approaches in the cultural study of religion. Looking at key issues of culture — including race, gender, sexualities, history, power, agency, postcolonialism, and intersectionality — we explore how recent thinkers can help us to develop tools for the understanding and critical analysis of the concept and practice of religion/s. Examples are taken from religion/s in contemporary culture, including popular culture.

Course aims

This course will provide the opportunity to:

• explore a range of theoretical tools for critical analysis in the cultural study of religion;
• develop a broad understanding of the analysis of categories of race, gender, and sexualities, and the implications of intersectionality as a methodological approach;
• engage in contemporary debates about the historicisation of the concepts of religion and religions;
• apply these tools to an analysis of contemporary culture.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• evidence awareness and understanding of a range of contemporary thinkers in gender and queer studies, race and whiteness studies, and the application of such approaches in the cultural study of religion;
• relate questions about postcolonialism to their understanding of religion and religions in the contemporary world;
• describe and discuss recent debates about the concept of religion as a category and the problems with the ‘world religions’ paradigm;
• present detailed critical study using these tools within the context of contemporary culture

Outline

1. Introduction: Approaches and Methodologies
2. Culture, Belief, and Discourse
3. Religion, Ideology, and Power
4. Intersectionality, Embodiment, and Agency
5. Postcolonialism and Decolonisation
6. Race and Racialization
7. Whiteness and Religion
8. Gender, Genders, and Masculinity
9. Sexualities and queering religion
10. The Category and Classification of Religion
11. Religion and modernity(s)

SOME RESOURCES FOR GETTING STARTED:

PODCASTS:

If you haven’t got into podcasts, they are a very useful way of engaging with materials — through the spoken rather than the written word. They’re very handy if you have a few minutes of time when it’s not so convenient to read (e.g. when driving, on a bus, ironing, walking, etc.)

You don’t need anything special to listen to these podcasts, just click through the links and scroll down to ‘LISTEN NOW’. However, some of these podcasts are also on iTunes and other podcast hosts, if you prefer

• The Religion Bites Podcast (a series of ~15 min talks on religion and religious studies), by Malory Nye
• The Religious Studies Project Podcast

BLOGS AND OTHER WEBSITES

• Culture on the Edge blog (a series of short discussions in blog form from Religion scholars at the University of Alabama, including Russell McCutcheon)
• Studying Religion in Culture: Ongoing Discussions at the University of Alabama (this one is directly linked to the department at Alabama)
• The Critical Religion Association Blog (linked to the University of Stirling)
• Practicum: Critical Theory, Religion, and Pedagogy Blog
• The Bulletin for the Study of Religion
• Global Social Theory, a very useful collection of short introductions with further readings on contemporary cultural/postcolonial theory

From the Religion Bites blog (on medium.com)

• Some resources for an introductory exploration of religion, religions, and culture, on Religion Bites blog on Medium.com
• Questions to ask in the study of religion: some things that can help us to get started on what is religion and what are we trying to do with it, on Religion Bites blog

COURSE READINGS

1. Introduction: Approaches and Methodologies

• Malory Nye, ‘ I Don’t Study Religion: So What Am I Doing in the Study of Religion?’, Practicum: Critical Theory, Religion, and Pedagogy (2017)
• Malory Nye, ‘Trying to understand religion? It’s a matter of finding the right gloves to wear…’ on Religion Bites blog, medium.com
• Malory Nye, ‘Religion: some basics’, ch.1 of Religion: the Basics (2008)
• Jonathan Z. Smith, ‘Religion, Religions, Religious’, Critical Terms for Religious Studies, ed. Mark Taylor (1998)
• Craig Martin, Ch.1, ‘Studying Religion: laying the groundwork’, A critical introduction to the study of religion (2012)
• Brent Nongbri, Ch.1 ‘What Do We Mean by “Religion”?’, Before Religion: a history of a modern concept (2013)
• William Arnal and Russell McCutcheon, ‘Introduction: On the persistence of imagining religion’, The Sacred is the Profane: the political nature of ‘religion’ (2012)
• Stacie Swain, ‘What’s in a name, a name rearranged?’ Parts 1 and 2, Practicum: Critical Theory, Religion, and Pedagogy Blog (2017)
• Malory Nye, ‘Thinking about money and religion: power, belief, and cultural imagination’, Religion Bites Blog

ALSO, listen to:

• Episodes 2 (Defining religion) and 3 (Talking about religion) of the Religion Bites Podcast
• Interview with Brent Nongbri, on Before Religion: a history of a modern concept on the Religious Studies Project podcast

Culture

• Tamoko Masuzawa, ‘Culture’, in Critical Terms for Religious Studies, ed. Mark Taylor
• Malory Nye, Religion: the Basics (chapter 2)
• John Storey, Ch.1 ‘What is popular culture, in Cultural Theory and Popular Culture
• Mark Hulsether, ‘Religion and Culture’, in The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion (1st edition), ed. John Hinnells
• Clifford Geertz, ‘Religion as a Cultural System’, in A reader in the anthropology of religion, ed. Michael Lambek
• ALSO, listen to: Episode 5 (Culture and Religion) of the Religion Bites Podcast (plus, if you have the time: episode 6, Mind the gap: religion in culture — episode 7, Culture and Religion: there is no gap — and episode 8, Religion and Culture)

Belief

• Malory Nye, ‘Thinking about money and religion: power, belief, and cultural imagination’, Religion Bites Blog (2017)
• Malory Nye, Ch.5 ‘Belief’, Religion the Basics
• Talal Asad, Ch 2, ‘Thinking about religion, belief, and politics’, in Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies, ed. Robert Orsi
• ALSO, listen to: Episode 15 (The problem of belief in the study of religion) of the Religion Bites Podcast

Discourse

• Teemu Taira, ‘Making space for discursive study in religious studies’, Religion 43:1, 26–45 (2013)

3. Religion, Ideology, and Power

• Craig Martin, ‘Ideology and the Study of Religion: Marx, Althusser, and Foucault’, Religion Compass, vol 7(9): 402–411 (2013)
• Louis Althusser, ‘Louis Althusser on Ideology (state apparatus, ideology, interpellation), (an extract from: ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation)’, Religion Bites Blog
• Luke Ferretter, ‘The Politics of Culture: essays on ideology’, ch.4, Louis Althusser, Routledge Critical Thinkers. (Routledge 2003). pp.75–94
• Malory Nye, Religion: the Basics (chapter 3)
• Warren Montag, ‘“The Soul is the Prison of the Body”: Althusser and Foucault, 1970–1975’, Yale French Studies, №88, Depositions: Althusser, Balibar, Macherey, and the Labor of Reading. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (1995), pp. 53–77
• Craig Martin, Ch.6 ‘How religion works: Authority’ & Ch.7 ‘How religion works: Authenticity’, A critical introduction to the study of religion
• Adam Possamai, ‘Gramsci, Jediism, the Standardization of Popular Religion and the State’, Religion and the State, e. J. Barbalet, A. Possamai, and Bryan S Turner (2011)
• Craig Martin, ‘Mystifying and making farmers’ (on Althusser and ideological state apparatus), on the Culture on the Edge blog

ALSO, listen to:

• Episodes 9 (Power, Gender, and Race) and 10 (Religion, Power, and Ideology) of the Religion Bites Podcast

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION:

• What is ideology?
• What did Marx mean by saying that religion is the ‘opium of the masses’?
• Is ideology (and/or religion) a ‘false consciousness’?
• What does ideology do for Althusser?
• What is an Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) and how is this different from a Repressive State Apparatus?
• How real is a world that is interpellated? And whose interests does such reality serve?

4. Intersectionality, Embodiment, and Agency

Intersectionality

• Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge, ‘What is Intersectionality?’, chapter 1 of Intersectionality (2016)
• Kimberle Crenshaw, Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics’, University of Chicago Legal Forum: Vol. 1989, Article 8. (Available at: http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8)
• Bonnie G Smith, Ch 3 ‘Intersectionality and Difference’, in Women’s Studies: the Basic
• Helma Lutz, Maria Teresa Herrera Vivar and Linda Supik, ‘Framing Intersectionality: An Introduction’, Framing Intersectionality: Debates on a Multi-Faceted Concept in Gender Studies, edited by Linda, Ms Supik, et al., (Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2012).
• Nina Lykke, ‘Intersectional Gender/Sex’, in Feminist Studies: a guide to intersectional theory, methodology, and writing
• Jasbir Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: homonationalism in queer times (particularly pp.211–216) (2007)
• Jasbir Puar, “‘I Would Rather Be a Cyborg than a Goddess.’” philoSOPHIA 2 (1): 49–66. (2012).
• Priya Kandaswamy, ‘Gendering Racial Formation’, Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century. ed. Daniel Martinez HoSang, Oneka LaBennett, and Laura Pulido (2012)
• Kimberle Crenshaw, ‘Kimberlé Crenshaw on intersectionality: “I wanted to come up with an everyday metaphor that anyone could use”, New Statesman, 2 April 2014
• Jasbir K. Puar, ‘Reading religion back into Terrorist Assemblages: Author’s response’, Culture and Religion (2014)
• Malory Nye, ‘Burkini bans in France: it’s all about intersectionality’, Religion Bites blog

ALSO, listen to: Episode 13 (Intersectionality and religion) of the Religion Bites Podcast

Embodiment

• Birgit Meyer and Dick Houtman, ‘Introduction: Material Religion — How Things Matter’, Fordham Scholarship Online: January 2013
• Saba Mahmood, ‘Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival’, Cultural Anthropology 16(2):202–236. (2001)
• Philip A. Mellor & Chris Shilling, ‘Re-conceptualising the religious habitus: Reflexivity and embodied subjectivity in global modernity’, Culture and Religion, 15:3, 275–297 (2014)
• Matthew Engelke, “Material Religion.” In The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies, edited by Robert A. Orsi, 209–29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (2012)

Agency

• Kelsy C. Burke, ‘Women’s Agency in Gender-Traditional Religions: A Review of Four Approaches’, Sociology Compass 6/2 (2012): 122–133
• Jakeet Singh, ‘Religious Agency and the Limits of Intersectionality’, Hypatia 30(4): 657–74 (2015)
• Sirma Bilge. 2010. ‘Beyond Subordination vs. Resistance: An Intersectional Approach to the Agency of Veiled Muslim Women’. Journal of Intercultural Studies 31 (1): 9–28. (copy also available on Academia)
• Pritchard, Elizabeth. 2006. “Agency Without Transcendence.” Culture and Religion 7 (3). Taylor & Francis Group: 263–89.
• Saba Mahmood, ‘Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival’, Cultural Anthropology 16(2):202–236. (2001)
• Episode 14 (Agency and Religion) of the Religion Bites Podcast

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION:

• What is intersectionality?
• How easy is it to separate activist intersectionality from analytic intersectionality?
• In what ways can we extend Crenshaw’s focus on gender and race to other categories, such as religion?
• What does it mean to say that religion is about (material) things?
• Is it possible to go beyond making Protestant assumptions about the primacy of belief in the study of religion?
• How does a focus on material religion change how we understand religion?
• What is agency?
• Is agency always a form of resistance, such as women’s resistance against patriarchy and male power in religion?
• What are Burke’s different models or types of agency?

5. Postcolonialism and Decolonisation

• Arvind Mandair, ‘Postcolonialism’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion, edited by Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler (2017).
• Morna Joy, ‘Revisiting Postcolonialism and Religion’, Australian Religion Studies Review, Vol 25/2 (2012)
• Ania Loomba, ‘Situating Colonial and Postcolonial Studies’, chapter 1 in Colonialism/Postcolonialism
• David Chidester, ‘Expanding Empire’, Empire of Religion (2014)
• Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions (2005)
• Bonnie G Smith, Ch 4 ‘Global Agendas’, in Women’s Studies: the Basics
• Brent Nongbri, Ch.6, ‘New Worlds, New Religions, World Religions’ Before Religion: a history of a modern concept (2013)
• Aimé Césaire, ‘Discourse on Colonialism’, (Translated by Joan Pinkham. This version published by Monthly Review Press: New York and London, 1972. Originally published as Discours sur le colonialisme by Editions Presence Africaine, 1955). On Religion Bites Blog
• Malory Nye, ‘Some thoughts on the Decolonisation of Religious Studies’, on Religion Bites Blog
• Gurminder K Bhambra, ‘Postcolonial and decolonial dialogues’, Postcolonial Studies, 17:2:115–121 (2014)

ALSO, listen to

• Episode 16 (Postcolonialism and religion) of the Religion Bites Podcast
• Kwame Anthony Appiah, ‘Culture’, Mistaken Identities, 2017 Reith Lectures, BBC

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION:

• What is postcolonial studies and why does it matter?
• How does a re-examination of the history of colonialism/imperialism help us understand other cultures?
• How does a re-examination of the history of colonialism/imperialism help us understand western cultures?
• How does a focus on postcolonialism change how we think about religion and different religions?
• Is the idea of religion a product of colonialism?
• If so, does it matter? Can it be used outside western contexts?
• What does decolonization mean?
• Is it possible to decolonize religious studies? If so, how?

6. Race and Racialization

• Michael Omi & Howard Winant, ch 4 ‘The Theory of Racial Formation’, in Racial formation in the United States : from the 1960s to the 1990s (1994)
• Patrick Wolfe, ‘Introduction’ in Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race (2015)
• Steve Garner, ‘The Idea of ‘Race’ and the Practice of Racisms’, Racisms: An Introduction (2010)
• Malory Nye, ‘Race and the Study of Religion’ (draft chapter of next edition of Religion the Basics), Religion Bites Blog (2017)
• Howard Winant, ‘The Theoretical Status of the Concept of Race’, Theories of Race and Racism: a Reader, ed. L. Back and J. Solomos (2000)
• Patrick Wolfe, ‘Race and racialisation: Some thoughts’, Postcolonial Studies (2002)
• Malory Nye, ‘The analysis of race in the study of religion’, Religion Bites Blog
• Michael Omi & Howard Winant, ‘Racial Formation Rules: Continuity, Instability, and Change’, Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century. ed. Daniel Martinez HoSang, Oneka LaBennett, and Laura Pulido
• Daniel Martinez HoSang, Oneka LaBennett, and Laura Pulido, ‘Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century’, Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century. ed. Daniel Martinez HoSang, Oneka LaBennett, and Laura Pulido
• Edward Blum, ‘Color Of Christ’: A Story Of Race And Religion In America, WBUR News
• W.E.B. Du Bois on trying to understand the categories of racism, race and religion (an extract from: ‘The Negro and the Warsaw Ghetto’, in Jewish Life, 6 no. 7:14–15 (May 1952), published by the Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America), Religion Bites Blog

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION:

• What do we mean by the term ‘race’?
• Is race a thing?
• What do Omi and Winant mean by racial formation?
• What does the term racialisation refer to? How is it useful?
• In what ways can we talk about the ‘racialisation of religion’?
• Why/how are Muslims treated as a race? (Is Islamophobia a form of racism?)
• Can we think about religion without thinking about race and racialisation?

7. Whiteness and Religion

What is whiteness?

• Richard Dyer, ‘The Matter of Whiteness’, ch 36, in Theories of Race and Racism, ed. Les Back and John Solomos (1999)
• WEB Du Bois, The Souls of White Folk, from Darkwater: voices from within the veil (1920), available on Religion Bites blog
• The Critical Media Project, Whiteness, http://www.criticalmediaproject.org/cml/topicbackground/race-ethnicity/white/
• Understanding Whiteness, Stand website: framing and learning anti-racism
• Audrey Thompson, Summary of Whiteness Theory, http://www.pauahtun.org/Whiteness-Summary-1.html
• Richard Dyer, ‘The Matter of Whiteness’, ch.1, White (1997) [full version]
• Kehinde Andrews. “The Psychosis of Whiteness.” Journal of Black Studies. (2016). 47(5).435–53.
• Sneja Gunew. “Rethinking Whiteness: Introduction.” Feminist Theory (2007) 8 (2):141–47.
• Ta-Nehisi Coates, ‘The First White President: The foundation of Donald Trump’s presidency is the negation of Barack Obama’s legacy’, The Atlantic (October 2017)
• Alfred J Lopez, ‘Introduction: whiteness after empire’, in Postcolonial Whiteness: a critical reader on race and empire, ed. Alfred J Lopez (2005)
• Bilge, Sirma. 2014. ‘Whitening Intersectionality. Evanescence of Race in Intersectionality Scholarship’. In Racism and Sociology. Racism Analysis Yearbook, edited by Wulf D. Hund and Alana Lentin, 175–205. Berlin: Lit Verlag/Routledge.
• Toni Morrison on Whiteness as a ‘goldfish bowl’ (A short extract from Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: whiteness and the literary imagination, Harvard University Press, 1992, pp16–17), Religion Bites Blog
• Malory Nye, ‘The British construction of whiteness: unionism, imperialism, and the United Kingdom’, Religion Bites Blog (2017)
• PODCAST: (with Kehinde Andrews) ‘#033 Is Trump Better For Black America Than Barack Obama?’ Under the Skin podcast, with Russell Brand

Whiteness and (American) religion

• Johnson, Sylvester A. ‘Accounting for Whiteness in Mormon Religion’, Mormon Studies Review, 3(1) , Article 11. (2016)
• Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture (various authors), ‘Forum’ [on whiteness and American religion], Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, Vol. 19, №1 (Winter2009), pp. 1–35
• Kelly Baker, A Brave New Book: Kelly J. Baker’s Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915–1930, Religion Nerd blog
• Kelly J. Baker, Gospel according to the Klan: the KKK’s appeal to Protestant America, 1915–1930 (2011)
• Janet M. Cramer, White Womanhood and Religion: Colonial Discourse in the U.S. Women’s Missionary Press, 1869–1904', Howard Journal of Communications, 14/4 (2003)

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION:

• What does whiteness refer to?
• Why is whiteness so invisible?
• Why is the concept of whiteness often seen as controversial?
• How does the discourse (or ideology) of whiteness structure power?
• What are the historical roots of the concept of whiteness?
• Is Christianity a white religion (in certain contexts)?
• How much does whiteness depend on certain understandings of religion?
• Does the discourse of whiteness entail an ideal/ideology of white supremacy?

8. Gender, Genders, and Masculinity

Gender

• Bonnie G Smith, Ch 5 ‘Women’s studies and the question of gender’, in Women’s Studies: the Basics
• Priya Kandaswamy, ‘Gendering Racial Formation’, Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century. ed. Daniel Martinez HoSang, Oneka LaBennett, and Laura Pulido (2012)
• Darlene Juschka, ‘Feminism and Gender Theory’, Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion, ed. M. Strausberg and S. Engler (2016)
• Malory Nye, Ch.4 ‘Gender’, Religion the Basics
• Darlene Juschka, ‘Gender’, The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion, ed. J. Hinnells (2009)
• Sîan Hawthorne, ‘Religion and Gender’, The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Religion. ed. PB Clarke (2011)
• bell hooks, ‘Racism and Feminism: the issue of accountability’, ch 25, in Theories of Race and Racism, ed. Les Back and John Solomos (1999)
• Sirma Bilge. 2010. ‘Beyond Subordination vs. Resistance: An Intersectional Approach to the Agency of Veiled Muslim Women’. Journal of Intercultural Studies 31 (1): 9–28.
• Surya Monro, ‘Transmuting Gender Binaries: the Theoretical Challenge’, Sociological Research Online, 12(1), 2007

ALSO, listen to:

• Episode 11 (Gender, sexuality, and religion) of the Religion Bites Podcast
• Mary Jo Neitz, Gender, Queer Theory, and Religion, in the Religious Studies Project Podcast
• Kelly Baker, Gender Me, Gender Religion, Religion in American History blogspot (2010)

Masculinities

• Lucy Delap and Sue Morgan, ‘Introduction: Men, Masculinities and Religious Change in Post-Christian Britain’, in Men, Masculinities and Religious Change in Twentieth-Century Britain, ed. Lucy Delap and Sue Morgan
• Santokh Singh Gill ‘So people know I’m a Sikh’: Narratives of Sikh masculinities in contemporary Britain’, Culture and Religion, 15:3, 334–353(2014)
• Björn Krondorfer and Stephen Hunt, ‘Introduction: Religion and Masculinities — Continuities and Change’, Religion and Gender, 2(2) (2012), pp. 194–206

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION:

• How are gender and sex considered to be different?
• Does gender create sex or does sex create gender?
• Is gender socially constructed?
• What does a gender based perspective show us?
• Is gender policed? How?
• Do studies of gender assume a ‘normative’ whiteness?
• What differences does it make to recognise black women’s experiences as not the same as those of white women?
• Why talk about men and masculinity?
• How does masculinity frame religions and vice versa?

9. Sexualities and queering religion

• Kathryn Lofton. 2016. ‘Sexuality and American Religion,’ Oxford Research Encyclopedia, American History. Oxford University Press.
• Megan Goodwin. 2011. ‘Thinking Sex and American Religions’. Religion Compass 5 (12): 772–87
• Bonnie G Smith, Ch 7 ‘Embodiment and sexuality’ in Women’s Studies: the Basics (London: Routledge, 2013)
• Elizabeth A. Castelli, ‘Introduction: At the Intersection of Queer Studies and Religion’, in Queer Religion, a special issue of The Scholar & Feminist Online, 14.2 (2017)
• Bee Scherer, ‘Queerthinking Religion: Queering Religious Paradigms’, in Queer Religion, a special issue of The Scholar & Feminist Online, 14.2 (2017)
• Schippert, Claudia, ‘Implications of Queer Theory for the Study of Religion and Gender: Entering the Third Decade’, Religion and Gender, 1(1):66–84, (2011)
• Melissa Wilcox, ‘Outlaws or In-Laws? Queer Theory, LGBT Studies, and Religious Studies’, Journal of Homosexuality, 52, 2006 — Issue 1–2,

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION

• What is sexuality? (e.g., is it an identity, an embodied discourse, an aspect of power?)
• Can we distinguish between gender and sexuality?
• Is gender sexualised or is sexuality gendered? (Or is it both?)
• How do discourses of sexuality figure in specific religious contexts?
• Is religion always heteronormative?
• That is, are religion and homosexuality (and other non-heterosexualities) at odds?
• What is queer theory?
• How is queer theory different from other approaches to the study of LGB religion?
• How does queer theory challenge the study of religion?

10. The Category and Classification of Religion

• William Arnal and Russell McCutcheon, ‘Introduction: On the persistence of imagining religion’, The Sacred is the Profane: the political nature of ‘religion’ (Oxford University Press, 2012)
• Brent Nongbri, ‘Conclusion: After Religion’, Before Religion: a history of a modern concept (Yale Books, 2013)
• Morna Joy, ‘Method and Theory in Religious Studies: Retrospect and Prognostications’, Temenos Vol. 43 №2 (2007), 199–222
• Malory Nye, ‘Religion, Post-Religionism, and Religioning: Religious Studies and Contemporary Cultural Debates’, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion (2000)
• Ian Alexander Cuthbertson, “Preaching to the Choir? Religious Studies and Religionization”, in Method Today: Redescribing Approaches to the Study of Religion, ed. Brad Stoddard. Sheffield: Equinox (forthcoming, 2018).
• Christopher Cotter and David Robertson, Chapter 1. ‘Introduction: The World Religions Paradigm in contemporary Religious Studies’, After World Religions, (Edinburgh University Press, 201
• Russell McCutcheon, Introduction, Manufacturing Religion (1997)
• William E. Arnal and Russell T. McCutcheon. “Maps of Nothing in Particular: Religion as a Cross-Cultural Taxon.” In The Sacred Is the Profane, 102–13. Oxford University Press.(2012)
• Kevin Schilbrack, ‘After We Deconstruct “Religion”, Then What?’, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion (2013)
• Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, ‘Review Essay The Politics of Reconstruction: A Review of After World Religions’, Religious Studies Review 43(1), 2007
• Malory Nye, Religion is like chocolate, Religion Bites blog

You might also want to look at the following short discussion papers and blogs that revolved around a podcast that referenced the above paper by Schilbrack on deconstruction and the category of religion

• Teemu Taira podcast on arguments against deconstructing religion
• Paul Hedges response on reconstructing the idea of religion
• Russell McCutcheon’s response to Paul Hedges’ comments
• Malory Nye responding to Hedges
• Neil Green doing likewise
• Richard Newton’s thoughts on the challenges of the reality of religion

LISTEN TO:

• Christopher R. Cotter and David G. Robertson, ‘Interview about After World Religions: Reconstructing Religious Studies’, New Books Network Podcast

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION

• What is religion (what are we talking about when we talk about religion)?
• Is the term meaningful beyond Europe?
• Is religion a form of (white male heteronormative) Protestant Christian universalism?
• Are there times when a popular folk concept (such as religion) can be used as an analytic one?
• What does the use of the term ‘religion’ classify (i.e., what meanings and explanations does are presumed by its use)?
• What are the problems with the idea of world religions?
• Can religion and religions be understood (or taught) without the ‘world religions’ approach?
• How is ‘religionisation’ similar to (or different from) racialisation, sexualisation, gendering, etc.?

11. Religion and modernity(s)

• Gurminder Bhambra, ‘The possibilities of, and for, global sociology: a postcolonial perspective’, Postcolonial Sociology, ed. Julian Go. Emerald: New York (2013)
• Raewyn Connell, Southern Theory : The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science (2007)
• Gurminder Bhambra, ‘Postcolonial and Decolonial Reconstructions’, Connected Sociologies (2014)
• Barnor Hesse. “Racialized Modernity: An Analytics of White Mythologies.” Ethnic & Racial Studies 30 (4): 643–63. (2007).
• Lucia Hulsether, “The Grammar of Racism: Religious Pluralism and the Birth of the Interdisciplines.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, November. (2017).
• Nelson Maldonado-Torres, “Race, Religion, and Ethics in the Modern/Colonial World”, Journal of Religious Ethics 42 (4): 691–711. (2014).
• Timothy Fitzgerald, “Introduction”, in Religion and the Secular: Historical and Colonial Formations, ed. Timothy Fitzgerald (London: Equinox, 2007).
• Malory Nye, ‘Modernity and the disciplinary formation of religious studies’, Religion Bites Blog

Some notes on developing this course

Since I put this course online on 22 September 2017 I have had some excellent feedback and discussion with colleagues in the field.

For example, there has been some very interesting reflections on issues coming from a syllabus such as this by Russell McCutcheon on the Religion in Culture Blog at the University of Alabama. See in particular:

Keyword

Looking Over and Overlooking

Also, one omission in the syllabus that has been pointed out (I am sure there are many!), is that there should be space for ability/disability as a further axis or category (thanks to Daniel Jones at Missouri State University). I very strongly agree with this, and I intend to incorporate this into the syllabus in some way.

I do not have any expertise in the field of disability studies, but there is a lot of good literature to help students to think through the construction of the idea of religion around the ‘normal’ /able body (and mind), nuanced by racialisation, gender, and sexuality, and of course through the lens of postcolonial studies. And similarly, vice versa: the ways in which discourses on religion also impact on and intersect with disability and the idea of the ‘normal’ body.

Of course, my main problem is the structure of the particular course I am teaching this semester (i.e., 10 weeks of teaching). In future, though, this online syllabus may be expanded to include further topics, to go beyond that 10 distinct classes.

This is very much a work in progress.

Religion Bites is edited by Malory Nye, an academic and writer who teaches at the University of Glasgow. He can be found on Twitter (@malorynye) and on his website, malorynye.com.

He produces two podcasts: Religion Bites and History’s Ink.

Malory Nye is also the author of the books Religion the Basics (2008) and There Shall be an Independent Scotland (2015).

He is the editor of the Routledge journal Culture and Religion.

Some resources for an introductory exploration of religion, religions, and culture

I don’t study religion: so what am I doing in the study of religion?

Trying to understand religion? It’s a matter of finding the right gloves to wear…

Religion is like chocolate

Modernity and the disciplinary formation of religious studies

On deconstructing the deconstruction of the deconstruction of the category of religion

Questions to ask in the study of religion