Appropriate for First Year students.

TimeDaysLocationInstructorGERCreditOPUS Class NumberSyllabus (Tentative)
2:30pm-3:45pm
TuTh
Callaway Center S109
Jenkins, Thomas. HSC. 413161 TBA.

January 13, 2010- April 26, 2010

Catalog Description: An examination of American religious history and culture from the colonial period to the present.

Semester Details:

Content: The course will equip students to analyze major religious trends in America from colonization to the present.  An angle of inquiry will be to examine how Americans have seen themselves as interacting with supernatural agents as part of historical change. We'll explore this angle in a number of areas, including Native American traditions, Puritanism, Transcendentalism, social Darwinism, the Women's Movement, immigration and assimilation challenges, Civil Rights and the Religious Right.  Our chief method of analyzing beliefs and imagery will be close readings of primary texts. 

 

Texts:

  • Butler, Jon; Grant Wacker; and Randall Balmer. Religion in American Life: A Short History. (Oxford)
  • Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (Penguin Classics)
  • Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (Signet Classics)
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can't Wait (Signet Classics)
  • William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist (Mass Market Paperbacks)
  • Selected Documents

Grading: Class attendance and participation; mid-term; final; and short paper.

The schedule of courses on O.P.U.S. is the official listing of courses, including days and times they meet and the General Education Requirements they satisfy. Students should use course descriptions as general guidelines. Course requirements, grading details, book lists, and syllabi are subject to change.