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Academic Year 2000/2001

Anthropology of Black Religions in the Americas
RELI 387 SP
Crosslistings:
AFAM 387

This advanced research seminar will examine Afro-Creole religions and cultural expressions in selected communities throughout the Atlantic world. How were religious communities created under colonial domination? Under what conditions were religions shaped, and what shapes did they take? How are African-based religions produced through aesthetics and the ritual arts of spiritual talk and sermons, song, dance, drumming and medicine-making? How do these religions continue to survive, thrive, and in som e cases, grow in the current historical period? This course will pay special attention to the yearly ritual cycle and its attendant festivals: Christmas, Carnivals, Lent, Easter, saint's days, feasts and pilgrimages a well as the emergent spiritual and aesthetic traditions such as Capoera and Rara. The course will study the black religious experience in the United States and also familiarize students with Orisha religions like La Regla de Ocha, or Lukumi, in Cuba and the Latino United States; Candomble in Brazil; Vodou in Haiti; and Rastafari in Jamaica.

MAJOR READINGS

Barry Chavannes, RASTAFARI: ROOTS AND IDEOLOGY Joseph Murphy, SANTERIA Karen McCarthy Brown, MAMA LOLA; U of California Press Bettelheim and Nunley, CARIBBEAN FESTIVAL ARTS Robert Farris Thompson, FLASH OF THE SPIRIT Joseph Murphy, WORKING THE SPIRIT, Boston, Beacon Press, 1994

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

This research seminar prepares the student to write a major 16-20 pp. paper on one of the religious traditions in the Black Atlantic world. You will be required to use at least two primary sources to investigate a topic that must be approved. For anyone interested in documenting some aspect of an Afro-Atlantic religion, the paper may be an ethnographic project. However you must demonstrate that you have the language skills and entree (proper introductions and access) to do fieldwork.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

This course fulfills a "Religion in Society" requirement for the department major. Attendance and class participation are important to your grade and your progress in the class. You will write a 25-35 page paper on a topic we develop together in class. For anyone already involved in documenting some aspect of an African-American religion, the paper may be an ethnographic project. However you will have to demonstrate to me that you have entree into a community and the language skills you will need to do fieldwork. Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form t o the Registrar's Office.

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS RELI    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-26-2001

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