University of Toronto Department for the Study of Religion

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1 University of Toronto Department for the Study of Religion SYLLABUS - RLG230H1F - RELIGION AND PUBLIC LIFE September December 2008 INSTRUCTOR: Ruth Marshall Jackman Humanities Building (170 St. George St.), Suite 206C, ruth.marshall@utoronto.ca Office Hours: Tuesdays, 12-2, Thursdays 12-1 :30. Teaching Assistant: TBA THEMES: The dramatic resurgence of religion in public spheres and pitical debate across the globe has prompted an urgent questioning of the place of religion in pitical life. Through interdisciplinary readings and the examination of case studies and current events from around the world, this course will examine the evving re of religions in contemporary public, pitical contexts. The focus will be on developing an understanding of the ways in which secularism, as the defining context of modern social life and the cornerstone of liberal democracy, has become increasingly questioned or embattled. Themes to be discussed include: religion and the nation-state; the relationship between religion, human rights, law and justice; problems of terance, pluralism and accommodation, questions of immigration and multiculturalism; the pitical nature of religious organizations and doctrine (pitical theogies); religious publics and media; religion and the pitics of gender and sexuality; interreligious conflict and alliances; religious vience, terror and fear; the re of religion in remapping the global order in our post-9/11 world. REQUIREMENTS: 1. Short Paper (firm maximum of 750 words). Due Tues. Oct.14 th Weight: 15% Format to be discussed in class and posted on the web site. 2. Test, Tues., Nov. 4 th Weight: 15% An in-class quiz, with a series of short identification items and an essay question. 3. Second Essay (firm maximum of 3000 words). Due Tues., Dec. 2 nd Weight: 35% Topic to be chosen by student flowing guidelines discussed in class and posted on the website. This essay is to be submitted to Turnitin.com. 4. Final Exam, December examination period Weight: 35% A series of questions will be handed out on in late November, from which a random selection will be made for the examination. Note that the exam will be in the examination period, scheduling TBA. Students should not make travel plans over the inter-term period without knowing the examination timetable. 1

2 LATE PENALTIES: Essays and papers are due by the beginning of class on the due date. Essays handed in after the beginning of class will be assessed with a late penalty. Penalties for late essays are 5% per day. Essays more than a week late will not be accepted. The only exceptions will be medical or family emergencies, supported by the appropriate documentation. Students are required to keep both electronic and hard copies of their essays until their marked essays have been returned to them. ESSAY WRITING: Clear, well-organized, and articulate writing is an indispensable feature of the analytical process, and this course assumes that you are prepared to work on improving your capacity to communicate in prose. Please consult the Writing at U of T link to access a wide array of university-wide resources. Each clege also has a writing workshop, and I will be available during my office hours for consultation on any part of the essay-writing process. Plagiarism is a serious academic offence and will be dealt with accordingly. Students must read the University s How not to Plagiarize document, writing/plagsep.html. and are encouraged to discuss with me if they are unsure of what constitutes plagiarism or academic dishonesty. The second essay, due December 2, must be handed in to Turnitin.com, for a review of textual similarity and detection of possible plagiarism. In doing so, students will allow their essays to be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database, where they will be used sely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism. The terms that apply to the University's use of the Turnitin.com service are described on the Turnitin.com web site. WEB SITE & The course will have a Blackboard web site, on which the syllabus, announcements, information on essays and tests, relevant media reports, certain readings and other items will be posted. Students are urged to consult the web site regularly. Students may communicate with me by , but should not necessarily expect a response, or at least not immediately. Questions concerning information given in class or available on the syllabus or the website will not be answered. Substantial matters must be discussed with me during my office hours or by appointment. TEXTS: Course Pack: A course pack is available through Print City, 180 Bloor St. West, Phone Readings NOT included in the course pack are marked if available on line, and ws if posted on the course web site. Materials drawn from academic journals and designated are available through the U of T library site by finding the electronic resource listing under the journal title. Books from which course pack articles are drawn will usually contain 2

3 other material worthy of your attention, and are available on short term loan at Robarts Library. READING LIST: All reading listed under each topic is required reading and lectures will assume that required reading has been completed before class. In addition to the items listed below, media reports and other articles may be posted on the course web site and treated as required reading. A showing of the film Persepis will be organized outside of class time, and will be treated as an integral part of the course, on par with readings and lectures. Sept. 9. Course Introduction Sept. 16 Secularism and Modern Pitical Life Talal Asad Introduction: Thinking about Secularism Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), pp Charles Taylor, Introduction, in A Secular Age (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2007), pp Peter Berger Secularization Falsified First Things, N 180, February, pp Sept. 23 Private and Public Religions José Casanova, Private and Public Religions, in Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp José Casanova, Evangelical Protestantism: From Civil Religion to Fundamentalist Sect to New Christian Right Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) pp Discussions from the SSRC website The Immanent Frame on American Pitics and Religion: See Blackboard for required blogs. Sept. 30 The Limits of Accommodation I - Canadian Multiculturalism /ws Gerard Bouchard and Charles Taylor, Final Report, Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences Abridged Version, Government of Quebec, John Biles and Humera Ibrahim, Religious Diversity in Canada: In the Shadow of Christian Privilege, Canadian Diversity 4,3 (Fall 2005):

4 Rainer Baubock, If You Say Multiculturalism is the Wrong Answer, Then What Was the Question You Asked? Canadian Diversity 4, 1 (Winter 2005): Will Kymlicka, The Uncertain Futures of Multiculturalism, Canadian Diversity 4,1 (Winter 2005): Oct. 7 The Limits of Accommodation II - French Republicanism John Bowen, Muslims and Citizens: France s Headscarf Controversy in Boston Review, February/March 2004 ( Olivier Roy French Laïcité and Islam: Which is the Exception? Secularism Confronts Islam, (New York: Cumbia University Press, 2007.) pp Joan Wallach Scott, Secularism, The Pitics of the Veil, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007). pp Oct Short Paper due The Limits of Accommodation III: The Pitics of Terance in the Netherlands Peter van der Veer, Pim Fortuyn, Theo van Gogh, and the Pitics of Terance in the Netherlands, Public Culture, V. 18, (1), 2006, pp Job Cohen, Can a Minority Retain its Identity in Law?, (2005 Mulatuli Lecture) in Pitical Theogies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World, ed. Hent De Vries and Lawrence Sullivan (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006) pp Oct. 21 Religion, Secularism and the Public Sphere in non-western Contexts Partha Chatterjee The Contradictions of Secularism, in Anuradha Dingwaney Needham and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan eds. The Crisis of Secularism in India, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007) pp Fariba Adelkah, Introduction: A Pitical Earthquake, and A New Public Space for Islam, Being modern in Iran (London: C. Hurst and Co., 1999) pp. 1-8, and pp Stephen Ellis, Terri Ger Haar, Power, in Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and Pitical Practice in Africa (London: C. Hurst and Co., 2004), pp Oct. 28 Religion, Human Rights and Justice The Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam 4

5 Bettina Prato, Prophetic Justice in a Home Haunted by Strangers: Trangressive Sidarity and Trauma in the Work of an Israeli Rabbis Group, in Pitical Theogies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World, ed. Hent De Vries and Lawrence Sullivan (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006) pp Adam Ashforth Witchcraft, Vience and Justice, in Witchcraft, Vience and Democracy in South Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), pp Nov. 4 - In-class test Nov. 11 Religion, the Pitics of Gender and Sexuality Linda Kintz, Tender Warriors, Between Jesus and the Market: The Emotions that Matter in Right-Wing America (Durham: Duke University Press: 1997), pp Annelies Moors, Representing Family Law Debates in Palestine: Gender and the Pitics of Presence, in B. Meyer, A. Moors (eds.) Religion, Media and the Public Sphere, (Indianapis: Indiana University Press, 2006) pp Laurel Zwissler, Spiritual, But Religious: Spirituality among religiously motivated feminist activists, Culture and Religion, V.8 (1), 2007, pp Nov. 18 The Media and Global Religious Publics Ruth Marshall-Fratani Mediating the Global and Local in Nigerian Pentecostalism Journal of Religion in Africa, V. 28, N 3 (Aug., 1998), pp Charles Hirschkind, Cassette Ethics: Public Piety and Popular Media in Egypt in B. Meyer, A. Moors (eds.) Religion, Media and the Public Sphere, (Indianapis: Indiana University Press, 2006) pp Nov. 25 Ethico-Pitical Landscapes of Religious Militancy and Vience Faisal Devji, Effects Without Causes, Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity, (London: C. Hurst and Co., 2004), pp Ananda Abeysekara, The saffron army, vience, terror(ism): Buddhism, identity, and difference in Sri Lanka, Numen, v. 48, no. 1, pp. 1-46, 5

6 Edward Simpson, The State of Gujarat and the Men without Souls, Critique of Anthropogy, V: 26, Issue: 3, September 2006, pp Dec. 2 - Second Essay due Remapping the World: Religion and the War on Terror David Kaplan, Hearts, Minds, and Dlars In an Unseen Front in the War on Terrorism, America is Spending Millions...To Change the Very Face of Islam U.S. News and World Report, April 25, Saba Mahmood, Secularism, Hermeneutics and Empire: The Pitics of Islamic Reformism, Public Culture, 18, 2, pp Olivier Roy, Remapping the World: Culture, Civilization and Strategy, in Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah, (London: C. Hurst and Co., 2002), pp