Download Syllabus - University of Southern California

Fall 2009
Religion 468
University of Southern California
Paul Lichterman
Office hours:
Mondays 10:00-11:30, or
by appointment
KAP 356, [email protected]
Sociology of Religion
Here’s an OLD SYLLABUS: SPRING 2012 WILL BE SOMEWHAT SIMILAR BUT
WITH SOME DIFFERENT READINGS. UPDATED SYLLABUS WILL BE POSTED
LATER.
Course Description
Are religious differences tearing Americans apart over issues such as abortion and gay marriage?
Can religious groups offer better social welfare services than government agencies? Hasn’t
religious belief been dying in the U.S.? Why even talk about "religion" when everyone has her or
his own spirituality anyway? These are just a few of the questions we ask as sociologists of
religion. This course introduces you to sociological concepts and findings that you can use to
study religion's social effects, and also to understand better what you read everyday in the
newspaper about religion in society.
This is a course in how to think about what religion does in society, and what people do with
religion. It is not an introduction to all the religions practiced in the U.S. The bulk of our studies
will treat a variety of Christian and Jewish practices in the United States since the 1960s. The
course assumes that you are interested in learning sociological concepts that we can apply to
religion. The course does not presume any particular religious faith on your part.
Our specific goals in this course are to:
•learn different sociological concepts for understanding religion in a modern society
•learn about enormous transformations in the U.S. religious landscape in the past forty years
•learn about different forms of public religious expression in the post-1960s U.S.
Prerequisites: A sociology course is recommended before taking this course, but not required. If
you are taking this course without any sociology background, you will need to take the initiative
to learn unfamiliar concepts, and ask questions whenever necessary.
Expectations: A discussion-intensive course with small research projects is familiar to some
students, but not to others. We will not have midterms or a final. We will have take-home
essays and two, small, independent research projects. We will have a lot of discussion.
Participation in class discussions is crucial. Participation means more than active listening—it
means talking, asking questions, pursuing ideas out loud, being willing to agree or disagree with
classmates out loud. Good attendance is crucial.
By enrolling in the course, you are agreeing to read assigned materials thoughtfully, in time for
class discussion. You are agreeing to take yourself and others seriously in class discussions. If I
cannot tell whether or not students have done the reading conscientiously, I may ask you to
answer questions in writing, in class, and grade these on-the-spot quizzes.
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Our readings include selections from these books, available from the bookstore:
Wade Clark Roof. 1999. Spiritual Marketplace. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
Lynn Davidman. 1991. Tradition in a Rootless World. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Christian Smith. 1998. American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving. Chicago:
Univ. of Chicago Press.
Robert Wuthnow. 2005. America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Paul Lichterman. 2005. Elusive Togetherness. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Some of our readings are photocopied articles and chapters; these will be available in a course
reader.
Course Requirements
Undergraduates:
Participation in class, and any quizzes =15%
Two essay assignments (see schedule),
#1 worth 20% + #2 worth 25% = 45%
Two projects (see schedule), each worth 20% = 40%
Participation and presentations may sway your grade up or down, especially if the grade is
near a borderline.
One of our main goals for class time is to have engaging discussions that welcome different
contributions from people with different levels of experience with social science. It’s a tricky art.
We need to bring to it our good will and openness to learning from everyone.
Description of requirements
ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION: Regular attendance and participation are required.
We sometimes will discuss concepts that are not available in readings. Some of the required
materials for this course—newspaper articles, research documents, for instance—are available
only in class. Some of the learning in this course will emerge through discussion rather than
through lecture alone. I will take attendance on occasion. Please be polite, turn off and don’t use
cell phones or other communication devices during our course. We’re here to talk and listen;
you’ll like it a lot more without interruptions.
BRIEF PRESENTATIONS: We will have “kick-starts” roughly once a week. The point of these
is to offer comments (3-5 minutes, no more) on one or two things you found interesting, difficult,
or troubling about the reading, things that can kick-start discussions that will move toward
broader points. The goal is to start with your interests, concerns and confusions, instead of just
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mine. Please do not make these into summaries of the readings. Your kick-start comments and
our ensuing discussion will give me a good idea of which parts of the readings, if any, may have
been unclear or confusing, and then I will intercede if necessary to make sure we all share a basic
grasp of the reading before continuing our discussion. Your comments might:
-apply the reading to some current social issue
-draw out an idea or concept that you found particularly interesting, or particularly hard to
understand
-offer criticisms (with good will) of the reading from some intellectual or moral
standpoint of your own
ESSAYS: There will be two take-home essay assignments during the semester. Each
assignment will ask you to write two essays of roughly 4-5 pages (or one essay of roughly 9-10
pages) in response to questions given out in class. Essays will need to analyze readings in the
context of lecture and class discussion.
•Essay due dates are on the schedule below.
•Late essays are counted down a grade for every class day they are late.
•If your essay is not handed in at the start of class on the day it is due, it counts as late.
Lateness: You have one chance to turn in an essay assignment late without penalty. This will be
the only chance to turn in an essay late without penalty, and no more than two class days beyond
its due date. This is intended to help you manage your schedule with other classes. Please don’t
ask for other extensions due to ordinary illness, broken printers, or scheduling snafus. There
will not be extensions other than the one extension that each student gets once for an essay,
unless you have an extraordinary circumstance that can be verified by third parties who are in
an official position to tell. It is very unlikely you will have such a circumstance.
PROJECTS: Everyone will do two projects. Each consists of writing a paper (roughly 7-8
pages), based on brief research experiences. An assigned book will be your guide to each
research project. The class offers three project options; you need to choose TWO of the three
during the semester. The research will involve carefully observing, participant-observing, or
interviewing people in religious congregations or religiously based volunteer or activist groups,
or people who follow religious or spiritual practices. Handouts in class will describe each project
further and we will discuss these so that everyone knows what to do.
Both projects need to be handed in on time. You will be glad that the class kept you to a
schedule; projects are harder to complete without one.
SCHEDULE
Readings are from required books unless marked by R for course reader. Readings under each
set of dates are the readings to have completed for those dates. When necessary, I’ll clarify
which readings to do for which days.
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August 24:
Why study religion sociologically?
PART I: Large, long-term trends in U.S. religions, 1960-present
This part of the course introduces you to important findings and debates about
religious change in American society.
Aug. 26, Aug. 31:
Introduction to the modernist view of religion: secularization theory
and its social context
R
Berger, Peter. 1963. short selection on institutions, from Invitation to Sociology
Garden City: Doubleday and Co., 1963,
R
Berger, Peter, and Thomas Luckmann. 1969. The Sacred Canopy (Garden City:
Doubleday and Co., 1969, pp. 127-153, (Chap. 6) “Secularization and the
Problem of Plausibility.”
Robert Wuthnow, America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity,
pp. 1-36.
September 2: Did religion go silent? Why would anyone think that?
The argument about private religion
R
Luckmann, Thomas. 1967. The Invisible Religion: The Problem of
Religion in Modern Society. New York: Macmillan. Pp. 107-114 only.
R
Besecke, Kelly. 2005. “Seeing Invisible Religion: Religion as a
Societal Conversation about Transcendent Meaning. Sociological Theory
23(2): 179-196.
No class September 7
Sept. 9, 14: The move from “religion” to “spirituality” across U.S. religions
W.C. Roof, Spiritual Marketplace, pp. 3-110, 315-323.
Sept. 16, 21, 23: Growth of religious individualism, or, what’s wrong with Sheilaism?
R
Robert Bellah et al.. 1985. Habits of the Heart. Berkeley: U of California Press,
Chapter 9 (pp. 219-249).
W.C. Roof, Spiritual Marketplace, pp. 145-179, 243-253, 305-314.
R
George M. Thomas and Douglas Jardine. 1994. “Jesus and Self in
Everyday Life: Individual Spirituality through a Small Group in a Large
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Church.” Pp. 275-299 in R. Wuthnow, ed., “I Come Away Stronger”:
How Small Groups Are Shaping American Religion. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans.
Project 1: Interview project on spirituality due Oct. 5, start of class
No class September 28
Sept. 30, October 5, 7: How can tradition thrive in modern society?:
The case of orthodox Jewish American women
Orthodox Jewish women and the problem of tradition in a modern society
Lynn Davidman, Tradition in a Rootless World, pp. 26-73.
Comparing two kinds of orthodoxy
Lynn Davidman, Tradition in a Rootless World, pp. 74-107, 136-173, 191-206
Oct. 12, 14:
Are culture wars ripping the U.S. apart? The story about red and blue
R
Hunter, James. 1991. Culture Wars. New York: Basic Books, pp. 31-64
(Chapter 1) only.
R
Paul DiMaggio. 2003. “The Myth of Culture War.” Pp. 79-97 in J. Rieder, ed.,
A Fractious Nation? Berkeley: University of California Press.
FIRST ESSAY ASSIGNMENT DUE OCT. 16, at 352 Kaprielian, 4:00pm.
Oct. 19, 21, 26: The growth of conservative Protestantism in the modern U.S.
Introduction to evangelicalism in the U.S.
Christian Smith, American Evangelicalism, pp. 1-19 SKIM, pp. 20-66
A sociological explanation for evangelicalism’s strength
Christian Smith, American Evangelicalism, pp. 89-119, 120-153
Ironies in evangelicalism: strength and ineffectiveness
Christian Smith, American Evangelicalism, pp.178-220
Christ-centeredness and religious diversity
Robert Wuthnow, America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity,
pp. 159-187.
Project 2: Observation project on evangelical church congregation due Nov. 2,
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start of class
Oct. 28, November 2: Taking stock of modernist assumptions: two views
R
R
Chaves, Mark. 1994. "Secularization as Declining Religious Authority."
Social Forces 72:749-775.
Ammerman, Nancy. “Introduction: Observing Modern Religious Lives,”
in Everyday Religion. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, pp. 3-18.
PART II: Beyond modernist approaches: new and newly recognized realities of religion in
the U.S.
This part of our course treats aspects of American religion that have been
neglected in modernist theories.
Nov. 4, 9 11: Americans negotiating religious diversity
Introduction to religious diversity in the U.S. and debates about it
R. Wuthnow, America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity, pp. 37-105
What are different ways Americans deal with religious diversity?
R. Wuthnow, America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity, pp. 188-228 and
pp. 286-314
Nov. 16, 18, 23:
Religion in public: mainline and evangelical Protestant volunteers in
community service projects
Religion and the debate about civic engagement: Is civic America dying?
Paul Lichterman, Elusive Togetherness, pp. 1-41
Religious volunteer groups trying to reach out: two styles
Paul Lichterman, Elusive Togetherness, pp. 60-98, 133-170
The quiet ways that religion matters
Paul Lichterman, Elusive Togetherness, pp. 171-246
Project 3: Participant-observation project on public religion due Nov. 30,
start of class.
Nov. 25, 30: Religion in social welfare: What do “faith-based” social services do?
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R
Mark Chaves. 2004. Congregations in America. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, pp. 44-93 only.
R
Robert Wuthnow. 2004. Saving America? Faith-Based Services
and the Future of Civil Society. Princeton: Princeton U Press,
Pp. 138-175.
December 2: Course wrap-up: What new questions should we ask?
SECOND ESSAY ASSIGNMENT DUE ON FINAL EXAM DAY, by the end of the
exam period, at 352 Kaprielian.