NBB 370-002: Special Topic: Cognitive Science of Religion (Spring 2010)

Content: This course will serve as an introduction to a new approach to the study of religion that has emerged over the past twenty years and that takes its inspiration from the cognitive sciences.  Cognitive scientists of religion see their work as addressing various imbalances in religious studies, including, at the methodological level, favoring interpretation over explanation, and at the substantive level, favoring the idiographic over the recurrent, favoring experience and emotion over cognition, and favoring explicit conscious belief over implicit mental activity.  The readings will include theoretical and methodological works that kick started this movement, a collection of empirical and experimental studies about religious cognition that it has inspired, and one of the most influential theoretical statements, to date, to have arisen from this school of thought. 

Texts: Sperber, D.  (1975).  Rethinking Symbolism.  A. Morton (Trans.).  Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press.

 Slone, D. J. (ed.)  (2006).  Religion and Cognition:  A Reader.  London:  Equinox.

 Boyer, P.  (2001).  Religion Explained:  The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought.  New York:  Basic Books.

 The course may also include a few reserve readings.

Assessment: The evaluation of students' performance will turn on three factors:  (1) 2 short papers (about 40%), (2) a longer paper (around 10 pages) due near the end of the semester (about 40%), and (3) participation (about 20%).  Attendance is required.