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A survey conducted in 2011 by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life recently found, based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, "that religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid . . . constant movement characterizes the American religious marketplace, as every major religious group is simultaneously gaining and losing adherents."
This finding seems consistent with ingrained American beliefs about identity, namely the idea that it remains highly malleable, that one can choose to adopt or discard certain traits that other parts of the world may regard as inborn, among them religion. In a land of immigrants exposed to the idea that "all men are created equal" is it much of a stretch to believe that all identities are equally malleable or that religion is part of that malleable identity? America remains the country with the "can-do" and why not? attitude. This attitude is of course helped along by the American constitutional right to religious freedom.
The course will address these and other questions about American attitudes toward religion, for instance, how Thomas Jefferson's ideas about the need for separation between church and state work (or don't), how religion influences politics, and how Americans experience religious belief and conversion. The relationship between American ideas about religion and American politics will also be taken up. A Pew Charitable Trusts poll taken on Nov. 16, 2012 reveals that the newly elected, 113th Congress includes the first Buddhist to serve in the Senate, the first Hindu to serve in either chamber and the first member of Congress to describe her religion as “none,” continuing a gradual increase in religious diversity that mirrors trends in the country as a whole.
Students will need to purchase five books, the first two of which are quite short:
- Satan Says, by Sharon Olds (1980)
- Fighting Words, by Robin Morgan (2006)
- Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander (2007)
- Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions by Rachel Held Evans (2010) OR A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberted Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering her Head, and Calling Her Husband Master (2012) (You’d read ONE of these books by Evans, NOT both)
- I Speak for Myself: American Women on Being Muslim (2011)
Strongly Recommended, but not required:
- Religion in America: A Short Introduction by Timothy Beal (2008)
- The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (especially letters concerning religion) online at the University of Virginia.
- Randall Balmer (b. 1954) Selections from Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: A Journey Into the Evangelical Subculture in America ("A Word About Words," "Phoenix Prophet," and "Campaign Journal")
- Julia Sweeney (b. 1959) "Letting Go of God?" from This American Life, in The Best American Nonrequired Reading (2006) ed. Dave Eggers
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