Ant 340
Culture and Belief
Spring 2009

 

Office Hours: TTh 10-12
                        W. 5-6

 

Instructor: Richard Robbins
Office: Redcay 131

Email: robbinsrh@plattsburgh.edu

 

Phone: 564-4006

 

 

 

 

 

Religious traditions are about how we “give shape to the invisible world and how our imaginative perceptions of what is invisible relate to the ways we respond to the people around us; to events, and to the natural world.

--Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan

 

 
           

 

 

Course Website: http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/richard.robbins/belief

 

 Required Books:

  1. The Belief Machine and the Construction of Meaning (online at http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/richard.robbins/belief/belief-machine.htm
  2. The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels
  3. Darwin and the Bible: The Cultural Confrontation, edited by Richard H. Robbins and Mark Nathan Cohen

 

Electronic Reserve (http://eres.plattsburgh.nnyln.net/)

  1. Animism by Edward Tylor
  2. Elementary Forms of Religious Life by Emile Durkheim
  3. Witchcraft Explains Unfortunate Events by E.E. Evans Pritchard
  4. Religion and a Cultural System by Clifford Geertz
  5. African Traditional Thought and Western Science by Robin Horton
  6. The Abominations of Leviticus by Mary Douglas
  7. Two Essays Concerning the Symbolic Representation of Time by Edmund Leach
  8. Introduction to Grid/Group Analysis by Mary Douglas
  9. Twenty Industrial Scientists by David and Celia Bloor

 

Course Responsibilities:

The course will be run more or less as a seminar; that means that your participation and sharing of ideas is essential for its success.  To help, you’ll be assigned to a group of people who will be expected to prepare questions from the readings that will form the basis for class discussion.  Your group # will appear next to the readings for which you will be responsible. 

 

Group Assignments

 

In addition, there will be two take-home exams, with dates to be announced.

 

Field Trips:

We will be taking at least one field trip.  It will not be required, but try to make every effort to make it.   I’ll announce the date, but we will leave campus at approximately 3 pm on Friday and return late that evening.

 

Topic

Assignments

Part 1 The Anthropological Approach to the Study of Religion

 

Week One:  Introduction-The Organization of the Course and Some Autobiography

 

Week Two: The Sociology and Psychology of God

Articles on Electronic Reserve:

(1)   Animism by Edward Tylor (Group 1)

(2)   Elementary Forms of Religious Life by Emile Durkeim (Group 2)

(3)   Witchcraft Explains Unfortunate Events (Group 3)

Week Three: Religion, Science and Belief

Articles on Electronic Reserve:

1)     Religion as a Cultural System by Clifford Geertz (Group 4)

2)     African Traditional Thought and Western Science (Groups 5)

Part 2 The Belief Machine

 

Week Four: The Role of Symbols and Metaphors
  1. Belief Machine, Chapter 1 Introduction and
  2. Belief Machine, Chapter 2, Metaphoric Construction of the World (Group 1)

Electronic Reserve:

  1. The Abominations of Leviticus by Mary Douglas (Group 2)

Week Five: The Role of Ritual, Myth and Magic

1.     Belief Machine, Chapter 3 , The Rendering of Meaning (Group 3)

Electronic Reserve:

  1. Two Essays Concerning the Symbolic Representation of Time by Edmund Leach (Group 4)

Week Six: Coping with Anomaly and Contradiction: The Case of Medieval Witches
  1. Belief Machine, Chapter 4, The Affirmation of Meaning (Group 5)

 

Week Seven: The Social and Cultural Determinants of Belief
  1. Belief Machine, Chapter 5, The Adherence to Metaphor (Group 1)

Electronic Reserve:

  1. Introduction to Grid/Group Analysis by Mary Douglas (Group 2)
  2. Twenty Industrial Scientists by David and Celia Bloor (Group 3)

Week Eight: How to Account for the Efficacy of Belief and Theory
  1. Belief Machine, Chapter 6, Science, Technology and the Belief Machine (Group 4)

 

 

 

Part 3 Lived Religion

 

Week Nine: Constructing a Metaphor

Pagel, The Origin of Satan, Chapters 1-2 (Group 5)

 

Week Ten: The Social Uses of Metaphor

Pagel, The Origin of Satan, Chapters 3-4 (Group 1)

Week Eleven: Coping with the Devil

Pagel, The Origin of Satan, Chapters 5-6; Conclusion (Group 2)

Part 4 Jesus and the Gene: The Origin of Life

 

Week Twelve:

 Robbins and Cohen, Introduction and Chapter 1 (Group 3)

Week Thirteen:

Robbins and Cohen, chapters 3, 8, 9 ( Group 4)

Week Fourteen

Robbins and Cohen, Chapters 9 and 13 (Group 5)

Finals Week