[ Wesleyan Home Page ] [ WesMaps Home Page ] [ WesMaps Archive ] [ Course Search ] [ Course Search by CID ]
Academic Year 2004/2005

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

This course examines 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 some 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 as well as the emergent spiritual and aesthetic traditions such as Capoera and Rara. We 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.

COURSE FORMAT: Seminar

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-21-2005

Contact wesmaps@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions. Please include a url, course title, faculty name or other page reference in your email

Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459