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08.25.10 Introductions


09.01.10
Different Perspectives & Different Types of Perspectives



readings:
Religious Perspectives in Anthropology by Dorothy Lee (on KSOL)
excerpt from Doxa, Orthodoxy, and Heterodoxy by Pierre Bourdieu

podcasts:



In Defense of Darwin? with Richard Dawkins

God said, Huh? with Julia Sweeney (click "stream episode" and fast-forward to 29:05)


assignment:
present your religious perspective and/or your perspective on religion
OR summarize your favorite book or article on religion on the KSOL message board and read other student's summaries



09.08.10 What are the origins of religion?

readings:
On the Origin of Religion by Elizabeth Culotta
"In the beginning ..." from A History of God by Karen Armstrong (on KSOL)

podcasts:




download mp3 of all 3 above

assignment:
participate in online discussion about the origins of religion on KSOL forum



09.15.10 A Crash Course in the History of World Religions


readings:
Read Karen Armstrong Summaries (especially the intro and conclusion. Skim the rest enough that you understand the timelines linked below)
Carefully Study the Timelines of Religious History

podcast (not required):

interview with Karen Armstrong

assignment:

participate in online discussion about the history of world religions on KSOL forum




09.22.10 The Religious Experience

readings:
Introduction to the Perennial Philosophy
Mysticism (excerpt from William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience) (1902)
Durkheim, Emile (1914) excerpts from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (on KSOL)
Tao Te Ching 1-12

podcast (not required but super-interesting):
Telephone (This American Life) on KSOL

(student project by Tyler Doshier, class of 2008)



assignment:
Try to have a peak experience or religious experience (without drugs or otherwise endangering yourself)
Write about it on KSOL using explanations and interpretations from the perspectives offered here




09.29.10 Religion, Change, and Media


readings:
Image/Word from The Alphabet vs. the Goddess
Turning the Belly, by Roger Lohmann (read all available pages ... Google Preview not giving all pages)

podcasts:
Laughter Epidemic in Tanzania - RadioLab podcast (skip to 42 minutes and listen for 16 minutes)



assignment:
based on what you have read, what is the future of religion? How might religion change in the age of YouTube, social networking, genetic engineering, etc.? Discuss on KSOL.



10.06.10 Religion and/as/of the Inner Life


readings:
Jung's thought summarized
Campbell, Joseph. Bios and Mythos 1961
Questions of Re-formation: Darwin, Freud, and the Power of Myth by Phyllis Tickle (Chapter 4 of The Great Emergence)

podcast:

The Power of Myth Part One (on KSOL)


assignment:
tba



10.13.10 The Matrix




assignment:
analyze the Matrix (1st movie) based on what we have learned so far


10.20.10 Exam One Review followed by Exam One
(online)




10.27.10. How Human Imaginations Work

readings:
The French Structuralist Lexicon (one page)
The Structural Study of Myth by Claude Levi-Strauss (read carefully up to "5.0" then skim after that)
Notes on The Structural Study of Myth (one page ... should be *very* helpful)
Needham, Rodney (1978) “Synthetic Images”

watch:
I Heart Huckabees

assignment:
join the discussion on KSOL about how I Heart Huckabees seeks to
fulfill what Levi-Strauss calls "the purpose of myth" which "is to provide a logical model capable of overcoming a contradiction" What are the core contradictions in our culture & cultural logic, and how does I Heart Huckabees resolve them?



11.03.10. Telling great stories (Final Project Workshop)

readings:
Geertz - Thick Description
Ira Glass - Radio

podcasts:
Dan Savage on This American Life: Return to the Scene of the Crime (go to 39:00)
This American Life: Heretics

assignment:
outline your final project for us on the KSOL message board



11.10.10.
Emergence and the mysteries of how societies work

readings:
Deflem, Mathieu. 1991. “Ritual, Anti-Structure, and Religion: A Discussion of Victor Turner’s Processual Symbolic Analysis.” JSSR 30(1):1-25.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1977) short excerpt from Outline of a Theory of Practice
A Witch-Hunt in New Guinea: Anthropology on Trial by Michael Wesch


podcasts:
Emergence - RadioLab Podcast
The New Baboon - RadioLab Podcast (Short) (Start at 4:52)

assignment:
Brainstorm, based on what you now know about habitus, power, and emergence why Professor Wesch thinks Richard Wrangham is wrong about those baboons in Africa, or present a theory as to how and why the witch-hunt in New Guinea happened.


11.17.10 American Religion


Watch all 6 parts of God in America (5 1/2 hours ... you can skip around a little bit if there are parts that are not relevant to you or your project)
The Century of Emergence: Einstein, the Automobile, and the Marginalization of Grandma by Phyllis Tickle (Chapter 5 of The Great Emergence)


assignment:
Discuss God in America and the reading, noting what insights and information you discovered help you with your project.



11.29.10 (2:30 pm in Waters 201a) KYHOI Conference

12.08.10 KYHOI Conference (continued)



other recommended podcasts:

What is the relationship between mind and body?




What are the limits of what we can know?


Intelligent Design? (last segment of RadioLab podcast on genetic engineering)

Can we lie to ourselves? (and is it good for us) (last segment of RadioLab podcast on "Deception")
















mwesch
mwesch
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