American Religious Lives

In this course we will look at the diversity of religions practiced in America to think about what that diversity means for understanding the range of human religious experiences. We will also discuss religious diversity's perennial challenge to Americans' conceptions of equality and inclusiveness, and how recognition of a tradition as a religion is often implicated in one's access to legal protections and civil rights. Of particular interest in this class is the significance of American religions in the construction, maintenance, and frequent re-formation of identities, principally as it pertains to notions of community, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class. Important to this course is also the effort to understand our own identity formations in relation to the powerful impact that religions and debates about the role of religion in American life has had on us, even when we were not aware of it, or even if we are not originally from the United States. Fulfills HU Distribution. Fulfills DIV13 Distribution.