Course Logic

The modern category of religion is a product of colonial encounters between Europeans and their non-European subjects. Though often unacknowledged, the theoretical and methodological foundations of Religious Studies are firmly rooted in colonial attempts to convert, subdue, discipline, or civilize subject populations. This course situates the problem of religion and its study (and thus of modernity, secularism, and globalization), in relation to colonial forms of knowledge and power. Using specific historical situations, it explores some of our thorniest theoretical problems. Students will acquire a solid understanding of postcolonial theory and the historical tools to engage religion in the present critically.

Required Texts

• Loomba, Ania. Colonialism-Postcolonialism. New York: Routledge, 1998.
• Peter van der Veer, Imperial Encounters: Imperial Religion and Modernity in India and Britain. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.
• Viswanathan, Gauri. Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India. Delhi ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
• Mitchell, Timothy. Colonising Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

Note on Readings and Movies

Readings marked as EOR are drawn from the following source:
Jones, Lindsay. Encyclopedia of Religion. 2nd ed. 15 vols. Detroit, Mich.: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005.
All required and recommended readings are available online.
Videos will be available in the library or online.

Course Requirements and Grading

This course is difficult. There is a lot of reading, and most of it is very dense. You should complete all assigned readings before class and be prepared to discuss them. Class participation (not simply attendance) will constitute 10% of your final grade.

Grade Breakdown

Class participation: 10%
To receive full credit for this portion of the course, you must show up to prepared (this includes doing all the reading and preparing questions for discussion).
Précis: 20%
Each week, students will be expected to write a one-page, single spaced summary of one of the assigned readings. These summaries should summarize the author’s argument in a coherent and succinct manner. These short papers should end with a question about the author’s method, assumptions, theory, etc. We will use many of these questions for our in-class discussion. ALL PRECIS MUST BE RECEIVED BY 5 PM TUESDAY. Students will be expected to read the summaries of their fellow students BEFORE CLASS.
In-class exam: 30%
Final Project 40%
Students are expected to submit a ‘research proposal’ by the end of week 6. For this prospectus you must outline your final project (1-2 pages).
Option 1: final research paper 15-20 pages
Topic TBD in consultation with professor
Option 2: annotated bibliography
Students may choose to complete an annotated bibliography instead of a final paper. These bibliographies should identify an area of significant research and open the possibility of further research—topics should be driven by the student’s research interests.

Topics and Readings

Part One: Religion and Modernity

Articles highlighted in BOLD indicate the reading to be summarized in your précis.
Week 1: Introductions (April 2)
Required

1. Alles, Gregory. D. “Religion [Further Considerations].” in EOR . Available on Blackboard.
2. Smith, Jonathan Z. "Religion, Religions, Religious." In Critical Terms for Religious Studies, edited by Mark C. Taylor, 269-84. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
3. Loomba, Ania. Colonialism-Postcolonialism. New York: Routledge, 1998. 1-41.

Recommended

1. Bayly, C. A. The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914: Global Connections and Comparisons. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2004. 325-365.
2. Aguirre, the Wrath of God. Werner Herzog. (1972)

Week 2: Logics of Empire (April 9)
Required

1. Loomba, Ania. Colonialism-Postcolonialism. New York: Routledge, 1998. Selections.
2. Marx, Karl. “Theses on Feuerbach,” “Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” “The British Rule in India,”
3. Singer, Peter. "What Should a Billionaire Give - and What Should You?" New York Times, December 17, 2006 2007.
4. Ludden, David E. Reading Subaltern Studies : Critical History, Contested Meaning and the Globalization of South AsiaLondon: Anthem, 2002. 1-28.

Recommended

1. Singer, Peter. Marx : A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
2. Young, Robert. Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. Oxford, UK ; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 2001. 1-69.
3. Pagden, Anthony. Peoples and Empires. 2003. 1-46.

Part Two: Missions and Mercantalism

Week 3: Mercantilism, extractive capitalism, and the ‘Indians’ (April 16)
Required

1. MacCormack, Sabine. Religion in the Andes : Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991. 15-50. 249-280.
2. Chidester, David. Christianity: A Global History. 1st U.S. ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2000. 353-371.
3. Dupré, Louis K. Passage to Modernity: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. 120—144.

Recommended Viewing/Reading

1. Pagden, Anthony. Peoples and Empires. 2003. 47-72
2. Casas, Bartolomé de las, and Nigel Griffin. A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. 1st ed, Penguin Classics. London, England ; New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books, 1992. Selections
3. Black Robe. Bruce Beresford. (1991)
4. Patricia Seed, “The Requirement: A Protocol for Conquest.” In Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640. Cambridge: New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995: 69-99.

Part Three: Managing Religion

Week 4: Governing Colonies (April 23)
Required

1. Foucault, Michel. “Governmentality.” In Power. Foucault, Michel. New York: New Press, 2000. 201-222.
2. Dean, Mitchell. Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society. London ; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1999. 1-59, 99-112
3. Peter van der Veer, Imperial Encounters: Imperial Religion and Modernity in India and Britain. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Selections.

Recommended Viewing

1. Shatranj ke Khilari. Satyajit Ray. (1977).

Week 5: Control and Knowledge (April 30)
Required

1. Mitchell, Timothy. Colonising Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Ch. 2, Ch. 6.
2. Chatterjee, Partha. The Nation and Its Fragment: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. 116-157.

Recommended/Background

1. King Richard. “Orientalism and the study of religions.” in Hinnells, John R. 2005. The Routledge companion to the study of religion. New York, NY: Routledge.
2. Talal Asad, “Reconfiguration of Law and Ethics in Colonial Egypt.” In Formations of the Secular. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003: 205-256.
3. Evelyn Baring (Lord Cromer), “The Europeanized Egyptians.” In Modern Egypt, vol. 2. London: the Macmillan Company, 1908: 228-244.

Week 6 Measuring truths: secular and other sciences (May 7)
Required

1. Prakash, Gyan. Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999. Selections.
2. Mitchell, Timothy. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. 1-15, 80-119.

Recommended Viewing

1. Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India. Ashutosh Gowariker. (2001).
2. Scott, David. “Colonial Governmentality.” In Anthropologies of Modernity, ed. Jonathan Xavier Inda. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005: 23-49.

Week 7: Educating the Heathens (May 14)
Required

1. Viswanathan, Gauri. Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Selections.
2. Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Minute on Indian Education.” In Selected Writings, ed. John Clive and Thomas Pinney. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972: 237-251.

Recommended

1. The man who would be king. John Huston. (1975)

Part Four: Global mediations, or ‘postcoloniality’ in an age of imperial freedom

Week 8: Caring for the self ‘after’ colonialism (May 21)
Required

1. Mahmood, Saba. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Ch.1
2. Foucault, Michel, and Paul Rabinow. Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. London: Allen Lane, 1997. 225-251, 281-301.

Week 9: Capitalist Spirituality (May 28)
Required

1. Kripal, Jeffrey John. Esalen : America and the Religion of No Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Selections.
2. Carrette, Jeremy R., and Richard King. Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion. 1st ed. New York, NY: Routledge, 2004.

Recommended

1. Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. 37-71, 259-308.
2. Ziolkowski, Eric Jozef. A Museum of Faiths: Histories and Legacies of the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions, Classics in Religious Studies ; No. 9. Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1993. 85-89, 91-93., 149-162
3. Burris, John P. Exhibiting Religion: Colonialism and Spectacle at International

Week 10: In-Class Exam (June 4)

Final Projects due on Final Exam Date