701 outline (draft) - Department of Religious Studies

Course Outline (draft version, to be revised)
Religious Studies 701
Issues in the Study of Religion
Term 1, 2011-12
Professor: Zdravko Planinc
Office: UH 111
Telephone: x. 23394
E-mail: planincz@mcmaster.ca
Office hrs: Wednesdays, 3:30-4:30; or by appointment
Course description
This departmental seminar is required of all incoming students. It offers a forum for the
discussion of issues central to the field of Religious Studies and for the exploration of a variety
of approaches to investigating religious traditions, texts, institutions, ideas, experiences and
practices. Since Religious Studies might best be considered a field rather than a discipline, its
theories, methods and issues can be extremely diverse. In the seminar we will consider the
following questions from a variety of perspectives: What do we think we are studying when we
study religions? Why do we think this is a worthwhile endeavour? How do we study religions?
As in all seminars, we study not only the topics discussed in the assigned readings, but also the
readings themselves, how they were written, why certain perspectives and materials were
chosen, and so on.
Assignments and evaluation
1. Seminar conference (15%)
For the Oct 5th seminar, each student will either (a) present one of the chapters in the
Taylor collection (written and sent to the discussant in advance) or (b) present a (written)
critique of another student's presentation. The class will discuss each pair of
presentations briefly.
2. Seminar presentation (30%)
For one of the six seminars from Oct 12 to Nov 16, each student will either (a) present
the week's readings (written and sent to the discussant in advance) or (b) present a
(written) critique of another student's presentation. For each seminar, both students
presenting will be responsible for initiating and leading the class discussion.
3. Research paper (40%)
Each student will write a research paper (length to be determined) analyzing the readings
for the week in which he or she was a presenter or discussant, incorporating all relevant
aspects of the presentation, critique, and class discussion.
4. Class participation (15%)

Seminar schedule
1. Sept. 14 Introductory meeting
1. Each student should be prepared to present a short intellectual biography.
Describe your previous studies, your areas of interest, and your career ambitions.
2. Class organization and assignments
3. Discussion: The state of the academy – a stark perspective
• Thomas Benton, "Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go," The
Chronicle of Higher Education (30 Jan. 2009); and "Just Don't Go, Part 2," The
Chronicle of Higher Education (13 Mar. 2009).
• Brian Croxall, "The Absent Presence: Today's Faculty," paper prepared for
2009 MLA Convention, available on the author's website at:
.
• Thomas Benton, "The Big Lie About the 'Life of the Mind'," The Chronicle of
Higher Education (8 Feb. 2010).
• Thomas Benton, "A Perfect Storm in Undergraduate Education, Part 1," The
Chronicle of Higher Education (20 Feb. 2010); and "Part 2," The Chronicle of
Higher Education (3 Apr. 2010).
2. Sept. 21 The state of the discipline
• Ann Taves, "2010 Presidential Address: 'Religion' in the Humanities and the
Humanities in the University," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79/2
(2011), 287-314.
• Proceedings of the 2005 Conference, "Religious Studies in Canada: Past,
Present, and Future," published in Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses
35/3-4 (2006).
= Michel Gardaz, "Editor's Preface: The past meets the present: Religious
Studies in Canada," 383-7.
= Harold Coward, "Taking its interdisciplinary heritage seriously: The future of
Religious Studies in Canada," 403-412.
= Donald Wiebe, "The learned practice of religion: A review of the history of
Religious Studies in Canada and its portent for the future," 475-501.
= Michel Desjardins, "What the Canadian doctoral programs tell us about the
academic study of religion in Canada," 505-515.
= Aaron Hughes, "Outside looking in, inside looking out: An epilogue (of
sorts)," 561-575.
3. Sept. 28 Library / Grants – TBA
4. Oct. 5 Seminar conference
• Mark Taylor, ed., Critical Terms for Religious Studies (University of Chicago
Press, 1998).

5. Oct. 12 Scholarship and critique (1)
• Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (Basic Books,
2000 editon), selected chapters.
• Talal Asad, "Anthropological Conceptions of Religion: Reflections on Geertz,"
Man, New Series, 18/2 (1983), 237-259.
6. Oct. 19 Scholarship and critique (2)
7. Oct. 26 Religion(s)
• Symposium on Donald Lopez Jr's Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism
and the West, in Journal of the American Academy of Religion 69/1 (2001).
= David Germano, "Encountering Tibet: The Ethics, Soteriology, and Creativity
of Cross-Cultural Interpretation," 165-182.
= Tsering Shakya, "Who Are the Prisoners?," 183-9.
= Robert Thruman, "Critical Reflections on Donald Lopez Jr's Prisoners of
Shangri-La," 191-201.
= Donald Lopez Jr, "Jailbreak: Author's Response," 203-213.
• Russell McCutcheon, "The Category 'Religion' in Recent Publications: A
Critical Survey," Numen 42/3 (1995), 284-309.
• Robert Ford Campany, "On the Very Idea of Religions (in the Modern West
and in Early Medieval China," History of Religions 42/4 (2003), 287-319.
• Gregory Schopen, "Archaeology and Protestant Presuppositions in the Study of
Indian Buddhism," History of Religions 31/1 (1991), 1-23.
8. Nov. 2 Reading (and writing)
• Paul Griffiths, Religious Reading: The Place of Reading in the Practice of
Religion (Oxford University Press, 1999), selected chapters.
• Recommended: Stanley Fish, How to Write a Sentence: and How to Read One
(Harper, 2011); and Joseph Epstein, "Heavy Sentences," The New Criterion 29
(June 2011).
9. Nov. 9 Islamic Studies
• Richard C. Martin, "Islamic Studies in the American Academy: A Personal
Reflection," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 78/4 (2010), 896-920.
• Rebecca Chopp, "Presidential Address: Beyond the Founding Fratricidal
Conflict: A Tale of Three Cities," Journal of the American Academy of Religion
70/3 (2002), 461-474.
• A selection from the following papers and chapters, all of which are available
on the author's website .
= Carl Ernst, "The West and Islam? Rethinking Orientalism and Occidentalism."

= Carl Ernst, "It's Not Just Academic – Writing Public Scholarship in Middle
Eastern and Islamic Studies," (forthcoming, Middle East Studies Association
Bulletin).
= Carl Ernst, "Reading Strategies for Introducing the Qur'an as Literature in an
American Public University" (Islamic Research Institute, Islamabad), Occasional
Papers no. 77.
= Carl Ernst and Richard C. Martin, "Introduction: Toward a Post-Orientalist
Approach to Islamic Religious Studies," in their Rethinking Islamic Studies:
From Orientalism to Cosmopolitanism (University of South Carolina Press,
2010).
10. Nov. 16 Post-colonial critical theory
• Susan Buck-Morss, Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History (University of
Pittsburgh Press, 2009).
11. Nov. 23 Class canceled for AAR Annual Meeting
12. Nov. 30 Concluding discussion – TBA