Examines religious diversity within the United States and the variety of ways in which particular religious orientations affect the behavior and personality of their adherents.  Emphasizes spiritual accounts and autobiographies as case studies for analyzing the influence of religion on ethnic and personal identities as well as on political and social behavior.

Roger Williams University Catalogue

Far too often, when people discuss religion, the discussion becomes an unproductive and unpleasant argument about who is right and who is wrong.  This does not have to be the case.  The academic study of religion in the humanities offers a unique opportunity to learn about American communities of faith in an atmosphere free of both judgment and partisan advocacy.  It focuses on what each group believes and does and on what these beliefs and practices mean to those who are a part of it.  It does not evaluate whether those beliefs and practices are right or wrong, nor does it make judgments about whether a religion is true or false.  The academic study of religion does not judge and it does not advocate.  It does not present religion as preferable to non religion, nor does it favor secularity over religiousness.  It does not attempt to make converts to or from any particular community of faith.  Each community of faith is presented without its beliefs and practices being judged favorably or unfavorably.

Corbett, Religion in America

Corbett, Julia,
     Religion in America, fourth edition
     Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall Co. 2000

Albanese, Catherine,
     America: Religions and Religion, third edition
     Belmont, CA, 1999

Allitt, Patrick,
     Major Problems in American Religious History
     Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000

How we'll use these texts.

We will work in all three text simultaneously.  Julia Corbett's Religion in America will be the central text. There are several things about it which I like very much:  First, the writing style is user friendly.  The level of detail is not overly burdensome.  Second, it has a structure which makes is a useful teaching tool.  You will note that each chapter begins with a series of preparatory exercises to be concluded prior to reading.  I am going to require you to do these in a "semi-formal" sense.  By this I mean I want you to commit the preparatory exercises to paper without worrying about matters of form or style.  For instance, when Corbett asks you to "ask yourself what your attitude towards those whose religion is different from your own," I want you to take some time to think about the question and then answer it in a paragraph or so.  Each chapter also concludes with a series of questions and exercises.  I'll be asking you to do one or more of these in every instance. Third,  Corbett is a pioneer in recognizing the importance of the computer and the internet as a vital source of information for scholars.  Each chapter provides includes a list of several websites pertinent to the topic at hand.  I'll be asking you to visit some of these on a regular basis, as well.

Corbett covers a lot of ground for a relatively short book.   In order to do this, she has had to make some hard choices, one of which is to sacrifice some depth in order to gain some breadth.  To overcome this, I will be using Catherine Albanese's America:  Religions and Religion.  You will note two things quite early on: First,  the book is written in a more formal, scholarly style. Second, the book places more emphasis on historical narrative, which is good, because contemporary religious expressions can best be understood in their historical contexts.  Albanese and Corbett do not organize their works in quite the same way.  Albanese looks at the three principal strains of religion in America in the order in which they emerged historically:  Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism.  Corbett chooses to discuss these in order of numerical importance within the American context:  Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism.  We will follow Corbett, which means we'll jump around some in Albanese.  This isn't entirely fair to her, for it disrupts her continuity.  I think, however, that this will serve us better than any other scheme.

Patrick Allitt's Major Problems in American Religious History is a collection of primary source materials and interpretive essays presented in fairly strict chronological order.  We will read selectively in this book  Corbett makes a distinction between looking at religion from the "outside" and from the "inside".  In the first instance we put our emotional and psychological attachments aside.  In the second, we try to understand a religion from the stance of its practitioners.  Primary sources give us the opportunity to do this.

Work for this course

If you've had me in courses before, you know that I don't give out a syllabus which covers the entire enterprise at the beginning of the semester.  I like a more flexible approach which allows me to tailor-make the course at least in part according to the personality and character of the class as it emerges.  Nearly every Thursday I will distribute a sheet similar to this one. On it, will be the reading assignments for the following weeks, together with a short statement about what I hope to achieve during that time.  YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ASSIGNMENTS DISTRIBUTED, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER YOU ARE PRESENT OR ABSENT.  SEE ME OR ANOTHER MEMBER OF THE CLASS TO CATCH UP.  I will also post assignments to a class internet site at http://amst310.homestead.com/

Ongoing Assignments and tools for evaluation.

1.  Keep a Notebook.  I want you to purchase a three ring loose leaf notebook for this course. Buy a pad of loose paper for it, not a wire bound notebook.  This notebook will document your preparation for class and the quality of your thought about what you read.  In it you will record your responses to the initial questions in the Corbett chapters and summarize or outline the readings from the other two books.  I will review your notebooks at least twice:  towards the middle and at the end of the semester.  I may also ask you to turn in pages at any time during the semester, without prior notice.  Students with adequate notebooks may elect to skip the final examination.

2.  Mid-term exam.  There will be a short take-home examination around the middle of the term.  I will distribute the questions on a Tuesday and will collect the responses on the following Tuesday.  Late work will be penalized.

3.  Short Projects.  I will identify one or more of the exercises in each of the Corbett Chapters as suitable for turning into a project.  Some of these will be individual, some of these group.  I want you to choose three of these throughout the semester (approximately one per month).  No two projects may come from the same chapter.

4.  Final Examination (optional).  Students who desire a chance to boost their grades may elect to take a final examination.  This will take place in the classroom during the final exam period as assigned in the official schedule.

Weighting:

Notebook:  50% of Final Grade... cumulative

Mid-term:  20% of Final Grade

Short Projects:  30% of final grade (10% each)

Final Examination:  weighted according to the quality of the work.  This examination may boost the grade for the course 0 to 1.5 letter grades, i.e., a C average could become anything from a C to a B+, a C+ anything from C+ to A-, a B- anything from a B- to an A.  etc.  The Optional final will not have a negative effect upon a course grade.
 

Do the preliminary exercises on p. 1, writing the responses in your loose-leaf notebook.  (Remember to put your name on each page).

Everyone Do, or take notes on, Questions or activities #2, 6, and 7. on pp. 7-8  (record these in the notebook.)  Note:  Telephone books for a variety of communities can be found in the Roger Williams University Library.  Don't everyone feel they have to do Bristol or Providence. (These do not qualify as short projects)

Visit at least one of the websites mentioned on page 9, and take notes on what its mission seems to be. (record these in the notebook)

The Interfaith Alliance
Ontario Consultants for Religious Tolerance
The Pluralism Project
United Communities of Spirit   (Temporarily off line, as it switches servers.  The link at the left connects to the new page)

We will use part of the class period to consider the readings you've done and the investigations you've uncovered.  We will also form study/discussion groups.  I want the membership of each group to be as diverse as possible, both in terms of religious orientation and degree of attachment to a religion or religious orientation.

Do the preliminary exercises on p. 10, writing the responses in your loose-leaf notebook.  (Remember to put your name on each page).

Everyone do exercise 1, p. 19 writing the responses in your loose-leaf notebook.  (Remember to put your name on each page).
Everyone do exercise 5, too, visiting the website of the American Academy of Religion  writing the responses in your loose-leaf notebook.  (Remember to put your name on each page).

Everyone visit at least one of the websites for this chapter, besides the website of the American Academy of Religion, and take notes on what its mission seems to be. (record these in the notebook)

The Society for Biblical Literature
The Center for the Study of Religion
Yahoo! search engine, religion:
Excite search engine, religion:
Alta Vista search engine, religion:

NOTE:  URLs are notoriously unstable.  I have replaced three of the ones in your text with the correct ones.  click on the references at the class website.

As you read Albanese, note how she defines religion.  In what ways is her approach different from that of Corbett?  Note some of her distinctions: for example the difference between "ordinary" and "extraordinary" religion. Note, too the components she assigns to all religions.  On the basis of these she creates a short descriptive statement on p. 11.  This can be directly compared to the statement Corbett makes on p. 18.  It is crucial that you do the preliminary exercises before reading the assigned materials.

HINT on Albanese... While Albanese doesn't provide introductory exercises, she does provide an overview of the chapter contents (a kind of Reader's Digest version) for each chapter.  These always conclude the chapter... but there's no law which says you can't hunt them up and read them first (and then again, read them last.  It is usually a good idea to have a sense of what a chapter is about before reading it.