SYLLABUS

RLST 5820, sec. 004 Fall, 2004

Seminar in the Academic Study of Religion: Prof. Ira Chernus

American Civil Religion(s)

This course will:

  1. explore the notion of "American Civil Religion" as an academic category
  2. examine the history of that notion and critiques of it
  3. offer an opportunity to test that category against a range of historical data, including the discourse of the 2004 presidential campaign.
  4. set the discussion in the context of some classic theories in the academic study of religion

 

Required Readings:

Richard T. Hughes, Myths America Lives By, University of Illinois Press

Robert Bellah, The Broken Covenant, 2nd ed., University of Chicago Press

Marcela Cristi, From Civil to Political Religion, Wilfred Laurier University Press

Leroy S. ROUNER, Civil Religion and Political Theology, University of Notre Dame Press

These books are available at the Lefthand Bookstore, 1200 Pearl Street (just east of Broadway, south side of mall, lower level). They are usually open noon-9 weekdays; call 443-8252 to check exact hours. They take cash or check; no credit cards.

John F. Wilson, Public Religion in American Culture, Temple University Press. This book is out of print and should be purchased used. (Check Amazon.com, Abebooks.com, etc.)

You will find links to all of the other reading in the online syllabus, linked from the course home page: http://www.colorado.edu/ReligiousStudies/chernus/CivilReligions/index.htm Please rely on the online syllabus, rather than this print version, because the syllabus will probably change during the course.

 

I will have office hours (room 284) on Thursday 12:30 – 2:00 and at other times by appoinment: chernus@colorado.edu; 303-492-6169; (home: 720-494-9011, emergencies only)

I will be glad to make appropriate accommodations for any student with any kind of special needs for enhancing your education.

Schedule of Topics and Reading Assignments:

Aug. 31: From Durkheim to Bellah

Pierard and Linder, Civil Religion and the Presidency, 30-47; Eric Sharpe, Comparative Religion, 82-86; Brian Morris, Anthropological Studies of Religion, 106-122; Durkheim, Elementary Forms of Religious Life, 37-57, 235-261, 454-461 462-479; Bellah, xiv-35

Sept. 7: From Durkheim to Bellah (continued)

Cristi 1-73; Bellah, 36-111

Sept. 14: From Tillich and Niebuhr to Bellah

Ira Chernus, Nuclear Madness , 47-56; Ira Chernus, American Nonviolence, "Reinhold Niebuhr"; Rouner, 79-97; Bellah, 112-188.

To Read Niebuhr's own writings, go to online syllabus for my nonviolence course:

http://www.colorado.edu/ReligiousStudies/chernus/4800/SyllabusFall2004.htm

and read assignments for Oct. 21 - Nov. 2.

Sept. 21: Civil Religion and Public Theology

Donald Jones, "Civil and Public Religion," Encyclopedia of American Religious Experience, 1398-1408; Rouner, 41-75, 98-110, 125-223

Sept. 28: A Classic Critique

Wilson, Public Religion in American Culture; Wilson, "Common Religion in American Society," in Rouner, 111-124

Oct. 5: Deconstruction and Post-Structuralism (Derrida and Foucault); The Chicago School

Linda H. Peterson, "Deconstruction and Wuthering Heights," 359-368; Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction, 85-109, 150-155; Paul Rabinow, "Introduction" (from The Foucault Reader), 3-27; Richard Harland, "Foucault as Archaelogist" and "Foucault as Genealogist" (from Superstructuralism), 101-116, 155-166; Mircea Eliade, "Paradise and Utopia" (from The Quest), 88 - 101;Charles Long, "Interpretations of Black Religion in America," Part C: "Civil Rights -- Civil Religion" (from Significations), 148-155; Catherine Albanese, "Dominant and Public Center," 202-217

The Kerry - Bush debate, September 30., 2004: Full Transcript: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/100204Y.shtml

Oct. 12: Post-Structuralist Perspectives on Civil Religion

N.J. Demerath and Rhys Williams, "Civil Religion in an Uncivil Society," Annals of the American Academy 480 (July, 1985), 154-166; James Mathison, "Twenty Years After Bellah," Sociological Analysis 50 (Summer, 1989), 129-149; Rita Kirk Whillock, "Dream Believers: The Unifying Visions and Competing Values of Adherents to American Civil Religion," Presidential Studies Quarterly 24(2), 1994, 375-388; "Forum: American Civil Religion Revisited," Religion and American Culture 4(1), 1994, 1-23; Randi Jones Walker, "Liberators For Colonial Anahuac: A Rumination On North American Civil Religions," Religion and American Culture 9(2), 1999, 183-203; ;

Oct. 19: Bellah and Civil Religion Revisited

Robert Bellah, "Seventy Five Years," South Atlantic Quarterly, February, 2002; Bellah, Broken Covenant, vi-xii; Hughes, ix-125; Chernus, Review of Myths America Lives By (Journal of the American Academy of Religion, forthcoming)

Oct. 26: Civil Religion and Twentieth-Century History

Hughes, 126-195; Robert Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion, chapter 10 and chapter 11; C.D.B. Bryan, Friendly Fire, 54-59; Edward Tabor Linenthal, "War and Sacrifice in the Nuclear Age," (from Chernus and Linenthal, eds., A Shuddering Dawn), 20-32; Gary Wills, "Original Sinlessness," (from Reagan’s America), 449-460

Nov. 2: From Civil to Political Religion

Cristi, 74-163, 187-242

Nov. 9: Civil Religion as a Search for Meaning and as Ideology

Clifford Geertz, "Religion as a Cultural System" and "Ideology as a Cultural System" (from The Intepretation of Cultures,) 87-125, 193-233; Robert Simon, Gramsci's Political Thought, 18-28; Enrico Augelli and Craig Murphy, "Gramsci's Understanding of Ideology" and "Elements of Common Sense in America" (from America's Quest for Supremacy and the Third World), 13-29, 35-52

Nov. 16: Two Civil Religions: Eisenhower and Whitman

Martin Marty, Modern American Religion, vol. 3, "A Civic Religion of the American Way of Life," 294-332; Ira Chernus, "The Word ‘Peace’ as a Weapon of (Cold) War," Peace Review, December, 1998, 605-611; Ira Chernus, "Eisenhower: Faith and Fear in the Fifties"

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass: Song of Myself, I Sing the Body Electric, Song of the Exposition, Song of the Redwood Tree, Song of the Universal, Pioneers! O Pioneers!, With Antecedents, A Broadway Pageant, By Blue Ontario’s Shores, Thou Mother With Thy Equal Brood, Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deeps, The Centenarian’s Story, Come Up From the Fields Father, Vigil Strange I Kept, Over the Carnage Rose, Spirit Whose Work is Done, Adieu to a Soldier, Turn O Libertad;

Get an edition of Leaves of Grass that includes Whitman’s essay, "Democratic Vistas," and read as much of the essay as you can.

Leo Marx, "The Uncivil Response of American Writers to Civil Religion in America" (from Richey and Jones, eds., American Civil Religion), 222-251

 

Nov. 30: Student Presentations of Research

Dec. 7: Student Presentations of Research

 

 

 

COURSE RESPONSIBILITIES:

Everyone is responsible for coming to class well prepared to discuss the reading.

The major writing responsibility is a research paper analyzing one manifestation or example of American civil religions in light of some of the theoretical models we study. Please be sure to have your research topic approved no later than OCTOBER 1.

In addition, each student will write three short (5 – 7 page) papers responding to the reading and give class presentations and lead discussion based on those papers.

Each week one or two students will give a presentation and lead discussion about discourse from the presidential campaign in light of the material we are studying.

Does it sound like fun???