Class

Course Description | Syllabus

Course Description

Course: EXP 91F Lecturer: Sherman Teichman Meeting Times: Tuesday & Thursday This year's class will exlore the role of religion in today's world. Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, liberation theology in Chiapas, the involvement of the church in overthrowing Communism in Eastern Europe, China's challenge to the Dalai Lama's successor, the Waco siege, the suppression of the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, the threats against author Salman Rushdie -- all dramatically challenge prior assumptions about the diminishing influence of religion. What is the relationship between civil society and religion? Is modernization -- defined in terms of secularism and scientism -- incompatible with either tradition or religion? As a class we will examinine the resurgent status of religion on global and domestic politics. We will consider the geopolitics and the geoculture of the alleged "clash of civilizations" and explore the role of religion in conflict and peacemaking from Ireland to Guatemala, from Bosnia to South Africa. Studying the encounters between religious nationalisms and secular states, we will look at the destruction and plans for reconstruction of multiethnic, multireligious societies; at the religious roots of violence and pacifism; and at the selective interpretation of tradition and memory in confrontations from India's Ayodhya mosque to Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Additionally, we will examine the debates surrounding the contentious terms of "fundamentalism" and "syncretism"; the role of religion and ritual as cultural resistance; comparative religious ethics and cross-cultural attitudes towards human rights and human values; women and religion; science, faith and the search for order; and the role of religion in American politics.

Syllabus

This year's readings included the following:

• "The Clash of Civilizations?" Samuel P. Huntington, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993
• "The Summoning" Fouad Ajami, Foreign Affairs, September/October 1993
• "The Dangers of Decadence" Kishore Mahbubani, Foreign Affairs, September/October 1993
• "Civilization Grafting" Liu Binyan, Foreign Affairs, September/October 1993
• "Civilisational Conflict? Fighting the Enemy under a New Banner" Adam Tarock, Third World Quarterly, Vol.16, No.1 1995
• "Civilisational Conflict? Looking for Cultural Enemies" Jacinta O'Hagan, Third World Quarterly, Vol.16, No.1 1995
• "Where Is the New World Order: At the End of History or Clash of Civilizations?" Majid Tehranian, The Journal of International Communication, 1994 1(2)
• "The New Cold War? Religious Nationalists Confront the Secular State" Mark Juergensmeyer, University of California Press, 1993 Introduction: The Rise of Religious Nationalism Part One: Religion vs. Secular Nationalism
• "The New Cold War? Religious Nationalists Confront the Secular State" Mark Juergensmeyer, University of California Press 1993 Part Two: The Global Confrontations Part Three: The Problems Ahead Conclusion: Can We Live with Religious Nationalism? pp. 45-203
• "Religion and Politics" from The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World Joel Krieger, ed. Oxford University Press, 1993 pp.778-782 (handout)
• "Introduction: Fundamentalism and Politics" John H. Garvey from Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking Polities, Economies and Militance, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1993 pp. 13-27 (handout)
• "The Dark and Bloody Crossroads: Where Nationalism and Religion Meet" Gertrude Himmelfarb, The National Interest, Summer 1993 (handout)
• "Geoculture: The Underside of Geopolitics" from Geopolitics and Geoculture: Essays on the Changing World System Immanuel Wallerstein, Cambridge University Press, 1991
  • 10: National and World Identities and the Interstate System
  • 11: Culture as the Ideological Battleground of the Modern World-System
  • 12: The National and the Universal: Can There Be Such a Thing as World Culture?
  • 13: What Can One Mean by a Southern Culture?
  • 14: The Modern World-System as a Civilization 15: The Renewed Concern with Civilization(s?) pp. 139-237 (handout)
• "Religion and Modernity" Warren A. Nord, Religion and American Education: Rethinking a National Dilemma, University of North Carolina Press, 1995 (handout)
• "The Imagined Community" Diana L. Eck, Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras, Beacon Press, 1993 (handout)
• "Fundamentals of the Faiths" The State of Religion Atlas, Joanne O'Brien and Martin Palmer, Touchstone, 1993 (handout)
• Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan: A Sociological Enquiry Kosaku Yoshino, Routledge, 1992 (handout)
  • Chapter Two: The Nihonjinron: Thinking Elites' Ideas of Japanese Uniqueness (optional)
  • Chapter Three: Ideas of National Distinctiveness: Comparative Perspectives
  • Chapter Four: Theories of Ethnicity and Nationalism: A Critical Review
  • Chapter Five: Modern Japanese Society as Gemeinschaft: The Holistic Tradition in Theories of Modern Japan
• "Explaining Modernization" from Islam and Modernization: A Comparative Analysis of Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey, Javaid Saeed, Praeger, 1994 (handout)
• "Religion and Moderization" from Islam and Modernization: A Comparative Analysis of Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey, Javaid Saeed, Praeger, 1994 (handout)
• "The End of Progressivism: A Search for New Goals" Eisuke Sakakihara, Foreign Affairs, September/October 1995 (handout)
• "Where Is the New World Order: At the End of History or Clash of Civilizations?" Majid Tehranian, The Journal of International Communication 1994, 1(2)
• "Religion, Politics and Cultural Identity" Majid Tehranian
• "Islam and the West: Alienation, Provocation and Revivalism" Majid Tehranian
• "From Silk to Satellite: A Letter from Central Asia" Majid Tehranian, The Fletcher Forum Summer/Fall 1995
• "Fundamentalist Impact on Education and the Media: An Overview" Majid Tehranian, Fundamentalisms and Society: Reclaiming the Sciences, the Family and Education, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1993
• "Explaining Modernization" and "Religion and Modernization" Javaid Saeed, from Islam and Modernization: A Comparative Analysis of Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey, Praeger, 1994
• "Politics and Culture in Islamic Globalism" and "The Self and Reflexive Modernity" Bryan S. Turner, Orientalism, Postmodernism and Globalism, Routlege, 1994
• "Yugoslavia: New War, Old Hatreds" Dusko Doder, Foreign Policy, Summer 1993
• "The Last Ambassador: A Memoir of the Collapse of Yugoslavia" Warren Zimmerman, Foreign Affairs, March/April 1995
• Danilos Kis on "Nationalism" from A Paper House, Mark Thompson, 1992
• Balkan Ghosts: A journey through History Robert D. Kaplan, St. Martin's Press, 1993
  • Prologue: Saints, terrorists, Blood and Holy Water
  • Chapter One: Croatia: "Just So They Could Go to Heaven"
  • Chapter Two: Old Serbia and Albania: Balkan "West Bank"
• "The Fearful Asymmetry of War: The Causes and Consequences of Yugoslavia's Demise" Ivo Banac, Daedalus, Spring 1992
• "Bridges and Barriers of Islamic Faith and Culture" H.T. Norris, Islam in the Balkans: Religion and Society between Europe and the Arab World, University of South Carolina Press 1994
• "The Religious Component in the Wars" Paul Mojzes, Yugoslavian Inferno: Ethnoreligious Warfare in the Balkans, Continuum, 1994
• "Introduction: Problematizing Syncretism" by Rosalind Shaw and Charles Stewart and "Syncretism, Multiculturalism and the Discourse of Tolerance" by Peter van der Veer from Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis, Charles Stewart and Rosalind Shaw eds., Routledge, 1994
• "Confucianism" by Tu Wei-Ming from Our Religious by Arvind Sharma
• "The Mirror of Modernity and Spiritual Resources for the Global Community" Tu Wei-Ming, Sophia, March-April 1995
• "The Serbian View of Islam in the 1980's" H.T. Norris, Islam in the Balkans: Religion and Society between Europe and the Arab World, University of South Carolina Press 1994
• "Through the Serbian Mind's Eye" John Kifner, The new York Times, may 5, 1994
• Interview with (Serbian) General Ratko Mladic Nik Gowing, Channel 4, London, June 29, 1994
• "Evolution of the Yugoslavia Idea, 1830-1980" Lenard J. Cohen, Broken Bonds: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia, Westview Press, 1993
• Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia, 1962-1991 Sabrina P. Ramet, Indiana University Press 1992
  • Chapter Three: Yugoslav Nationalities Policy (recommended)
  • Chapter Nine: Nationalist Tensions, 1968-90
• "The Balkan Tragedy" Michael Ignatieff, The New York Review of Books, May 13, 1993
• "The Answer" John J. Mearsheimer and Robert A. Pape, The New Republic, June 14, 1993
• "The Islamic World and the Bosnian Crisis" Tetsuya Sahara, Current History, November 1994
• "Bosnia: Some Religious Dimensions of Genocide" Michael Sells, Religion Studies
• "Fates, Mentalities, Invisible Frontiers" from The National Question in Yugoslavia, Ivo Banac
• "Culture under Fire" by Smail Balic from Why Bosnia?, Rabia Ali and Lawrence Lifschultz, eds.
• "Separating History from Myth" An Interview with Ivo Banac from Why Bosnia?, Rabia Ali and Lawrence Lifschultz, eds.
• The Future of Jerusalem (manuscript) Walid Khalidi
• "City of Strife" Chapter 1 from Intimate Enemies: Jews and Arabs in a Shared Land by Meron Benvenisti
• "Border or Frontier" Chapter 2 from Intimate Enemies: Jews and Arabs in a Shared Land by Meron Benvenisti
• "Negotiating the Non-Negotiable: Jerusalem in the Framework of an Israeli- Palestinian Settlement" Naomi Chazan, Emerging Issues Paper, AAAS
• "Reinventing Jerusalem" Ian S. Lustick, Foreign Policy Winter 1993-94
• "Jerusalem's Final Status Must Reflect Its Uniqueness" Alon Ben-Meir, Middle East Policy, 1994
• "Whose Jerusalem Is It?" Paul Goldberger, The New York Times Magazine, September 1995
• "The Role of Religion in Russia and Eastern Europe" Nathaniel Davis, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 1995
• "Authority and Community in Soviet Islam" Mark Saraoyan from Accounting for Fundamentalisms. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1995
• "The Case of Orthodoxy" James H. Billington, The New Republic, May 30, 1994
• "Revamped Religion Law Encroaches on Freedoms" The Current Digest, Vol. XLV, No. 30 (1993)
• "Jewish Zionist Fundamentalist: The Bloc of the Faithful in Israel (Gush Emunim)" Gideon Aran from Fundamentalisms Observed, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago, 1993
• "The Book and the Sword: The Nationalist Yeshivot and Political Radicalism in Israel" Eliezer Don Yehiya from Accounting for Fundamentalism, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1995
• "Jewish Fundamentalism and the Israel Policy" Charles S. Liebman from Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking Politics, Economies, and Militance, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1994
• "Jewish Fundamentalism and the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse" Ian S. Lustick from Jewish Fundamentalism in Comparative Perspective, Laurence J. Silberstein, New York University Press, 1993
• The Political Cultures of Israel's Radical Right: Commentary on Ehud Sprinzak's The Ascendence of Israel's Radical Right" Richard D. Hecht, Terrorism and Political Violence, Spring 1993
• "Afghanistan: An Islamic War of Resistance" Oliver Roy from Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking Politics, Economies, and Militance, Martin, E. Marty R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1994
• A Sense of Siege: The Geopolitics of Islam and the West" Graham E. Fuller and Ian O. Lesser, Westview Press, 1995
• "Accounting for Islamic Fundamentalists" James Piscatori from Accounting for Fundamentalisms, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1995
• "Unity and Diversity in Islamic Fundamentalism" Said Amir Arjomand from Fundamentalisms Comprehended, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1995
• "Fundamentalism in the Sunni Arab World: Egypt and the Sudan" John O. Voll from Fundamentalism Observed, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1993
• "Muslim Fundamentalists: Psychosocial Profiles" Valerie J. Hoffman from Fundamentalisms Comprehended, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1995
• "The Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism and the Future of North Africa" Eduardo Serpa, Africa Insight Vol. 22, No. 3, 1992 (pp. 186-198)
• "Political Islam in Algeria: The Nonviolent Dimension" John P. Entelis, Current History Vol. 94, No. 588, January 1995 (pp.13-17)
• "Egypt: An Uneasy Portent of Change" Caryle Murphy, Current History Col. 93, February 1994 (pp. 78-82)
• "Sudan's Islamic Experiment" Milton Viorst, Foreign Affairs Vol. 74 No. 3, May/June 1995 (pp. 49-61)
• "Islam, Democracy, the State and the West" Hasan Turabi, Middle East Policy Vol. 1, No. 3, 1992 (pp. 49-61)
• "Qur'an, Shari'a and Human Rights: Foundations, Deficiencies and Prospects" Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Concilium 1990/2, 1990 (pp. 61-69)
• "An Islamic Fundamentalist Abroad Talks Feely of Limits on Freedom" Youssef M. Ibrahim, The New York Times, January 9, 1994
• "Is There an Islamic Ethic of Humanitarian Intervention?" Sohail Hashemi, Ethics and International Affairs 1993
• "Islamic Ethics in International Society" Sohail Hashemi, from The Constitution of International Society, Terry Nardin and David Mapel, eds. Princeton University Press, 1996
• "International Society and Its Islamic Malcontents" Sohail Hashemi, Fletcher Forum for International Affairs, 1996
• "Palestinian Islamisms: Patriotism as a Condition of Their Expansion" Jean-Francois Legrain from Accounting for Fundamentalisms, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press 1995
• "The Islamic Jihad" from Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza, Ziad Abu-Amr, Indian Press, 1994
• "Religious Fundamentalisms Compared: Palestinian Islamists, Militant Lebaneses Shi'ites, and Racial Sikhs" Emile Saliyeh from Fundamentalisms Comprehended, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1995
• "Islam and Modernity: The Reconstruction of an Alternative Shi'ite Islamic Worldview in Iran" Farhang Rajee from Fundamentalisms and Society, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1992
• "Islamic Fundamentalism in Iran and the Discourse of Development" Majid Tehranian, From Fundamentalisms and Society, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1992
• "Shi'ite Jurisprudence and Constitution Making in the Islamic Republic of Iran" Said Amir Arjomand from Fundamentalisms and the State, Matin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1993
• "Activist Shi'ism in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon Abdulaziz A. Sachedina from Fundamentalisms Observed, Martin, E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1991
• "Concluding Notes--Autographically Changing Iran: Minor Media and Bicultural Graphics" and "Postscriptual Parergon: Bombay Talkies, the Word and the World" from Debating Muslims: Cultural Dialogues in Postmodernity and Tradition, Michael M.J. Fischer and Mehdi Abedi, University of Wisconsin Press, 1990
• "The Revolutionary Movement of 1977-1979" and "Epilogue" from Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution, Michael M.J. Fischer, Harvard University Press, 1980
• "The Enclave Culture" Emmanuel Sivan from Fundamentalisms Comprehended, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1995
• "Examining the Cases" Gabriel A. Almond, Emmanuel Sivan and R. Scott Appleby from Fundamentalisms Comprehended, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., University of Chicago Press, 1995