John G. Stackhouse, Jr. Course Syllabus
Prepared for the Center for the Study of Religion and American
Culture by:
John G. Stackhouse, Jr.
Regent College
(formerly of Department of Religious Studies University
of Manitoba)
The Center is pleased to share with you the syllabi for
introductory courses in American religion that were developed
in seminars led by Dr. Katherine Albanese of the University
of California, Santa Barbara. In all of the seminar discussions,
it was apparent that context, or the particular teaching
setting, was an altogether critical factor in envisioning
how students should be introduced to a field of study. The
justification of approach, included with each syllabus,
is thus germane to how you use the syllabus.
For the personal use of teachers. Not
for sale or redistribution.
© Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture,
1998
I. Syllabus Justification
The University of Manitoba is the largest of the three
provincial universities, with 13,000 full-time and 8,000
part-time students. Many students work or have other substantial
outside commitments, and almost all commute (the university
provides residence space for about 1,500 only). So highly-structured
courses help students stay on track.
This course is offered as a full-year (September to April)
elective at the third-year level. This means that it will
enroll majors and minors almost exclusively, and I would
expect 10-20 students to participate. Given this higher
level of instruction and small size of class, therefore,
I can use a variety of methods and materials that are not
available to me when I teach my introductory class of 175.
Students normally reflect a wide range of religious backgrounds,
from Mennonite to Roman Catholic, from Jewish to Muslim
to Sikh, and from Christian fundamentalist to New Age. Some
have had Christian schooling; most know very little about
their own or any other religious tradition. Most know little
about Canadian history, and probably know a little more
about American history, in fact, because of the dominance
of American popular culture in Canada.
The fact that this course will be taught in Canada entails
at least a couple of significant alterations from how one
might teach it in the U.S. First, field trips/field projects
are not exactly convenient, with the American border an
hour from Winnipeg and the first city of any size being
Grand Forks, N.D., two-and-a-half hours away. So use of
videotapes, films, magazines, and other means to "bring
the mountain to Muhammad" will be more-than-usually
necessary.
Second, multiculturalism is an official policy of the Canadian
government and a lived reality in Winnipeg--a city of 600,000.
Students doubtless have their own biases, but no one sort
dominates, so there is no need to compensate for a prevailing
subculture as there would be in other regions of the U.S.
and Canada. If anything, in fact, one must account for the
official multiculturalism and pervasive "official"
relativism among students in helping them truly to encounter
their own traditions and those of others.
Third, one cannot confidently refer to current events in
American culture as points of contact with the past. So
one must carefully refer to Canadian parallels at times
to work from the "known" to the "unknown."
Of course, American professors teaching American students
can't necessarily be all that confident about such references
either--as I learned from five years of teaching in the
U.S.!
Syllabus: Beyond the fact that this is taught in a foreign
country, the other major difference between this course
and those of the other participants in the "Young Scholars"
program is that it is offered over the entire Canadian academic
year (September to April), as per custom in Faculties of
Arts in this country. While this does not mean that I can
dodge criticism of any selectivity by claiming to have enough
time to do everything one would want to do in such a course
(!) it does mean that I can assign more, expect more, lecture
more, show more, and so on.
The class periods, assignments, and overall structure of
the course emerges out of the "Questions and Purposes"
stated at the outset. I believe I ought to be able to justify
every element of the course and the arrangement of those
elements by reference to this set of concerns. The first
two are straightforward descriptive questions, drawing on
sociology and history.
In the interest of stimulating thought about the issues
involved here, I should say in this context that I continue
to be highly ambivalent about so-called "thematic"
introductions. Naturally, any course that uses history as
its framework will be thematic unless it is a mere chronicle,
and no one can pretend nowadays to "objective"
historiography. Also, I myself happily direct my course
from general description to thematic considerations toward
the end. But courses which almost completely abandon chronology
strike me as risking presentism and impressionism, intriguing
students with all sorts of interesting things, but perhaps
failing to explain them very well (where do they come from
and why are they this way and how do they relate to the
other elements of the course?).
I must confess to sharing the historical and social-scientific
suspicion that some approaches to religious studies, at
least, lack sufficient "controls" on the interpreter's
imagination and so career from one theme to another without
the discipline of having to produce adequate evidence for
a clear argument in a coherent context. Unfashionable as
these convictions may be among some postmodernists, it seems
that without considerable structure of this sort we in fact
abandon the academic study of religion and instead take
up poetry--or preaching. The latter activities are worthy
pursuits, to be sure, but I don't believe they are what
we're supposed to be about here.
The third "Question and Purpose" picks up a particular
crucial theme, and the fourth makes explicit the historiographical
issue. The last couple begin to answer the "So what?"
question regarding both course matter and form.
One of the "Young Scholars" rightly questioned
what definition of "culture" was understood here,
and I intend by it both "high" and "popular"
culture. So we would look at political leaders, political
rhetoric, civil religion, voting patterns, and so on, to
pick one dimension.
"Procedure" gives students an immediate, first-day-in-class
idea of what we're in for. This sets up the "Outline"
at the end.
"Assignments and Evaluation" ought to be clear
enough, but perhaps a couple of comments are in order. First,
I record impressions of student discussion after each class--just
a mark in a ledger, but this gives me some cumulative accounting
against which to measure my end-of-term reflection. The
description in the syllabus reflects my concern to teach
students something of the basics of good academic conversation
and my antipathy toward the "high grades are for blabbing"
mode of evaluation I have suffered as a student myself.
Second, I have used these short, quick "papers"
in every seminar I have taught for what is now going to
be my eighth year of postsecondary teaching at my fourth
school. Students invariably groan about this at first, and
invariably endorse it at the end as a guarantor of at least
an adequate conversation, since it makes most people prepare
at least a bit. (The demerits for style emerged out of unhappy
experience with less-motivated students handing in scribbled
scraps.)
Third, the "reports" encourage public speaking,
badly neglected in our liberal arts curricula. They capitalize
on the advantages of biography: well-defined subject, common
student interest in notable individuals, humanizing of abstractions,
and so on. I find I must emphasize the importance of the
rhetorical dimension in advance, or students will tend to
stand up and read a carefully-written (and overlong) paper
rather than present a winsome sketch as requested. At the
end of each presentation, I usually will remark to the class
on some point of public speaking or exposition as exhibited
(positively, one hopes) by the presenter, and later I give
a list of observations and a grade to each student at the
end of the term--with invitations to discuss these with
me as students wish to do so.
Fourth, the "research paper" is pretty customary
and, with the biographical sketches, gives a "depth"
dimension to the "breadth" of the class periods'
survey. This also is where I demand serious attention to
the interpretation of primary documents, versus the "illustrative"
function of the Gaustad readings. And class time is devoted
to instructing the students much more fully in how to complete
this assignment well.
Fifth, the essay questions on the "examinations"
I generally give out in advance. I dislike surprise, timed
essay questions because they excessively reward quick thinking
rather than good, deliberate thinking. Examinations would
be two hours long at the end of winter term, and three hours
long in the spring.
My main interlocutor at the "Young Scholars"
review session wondered whether students complained about
so many and such different modes of activity and evaluation.
My experience in two American colleges and this Canadian
university is that students do not complain if each activity
is justified in terms of the course--in terms of its content
and of the skills I am teaching them--and if I instruct
the students in how to complete the assignments satisfactorily.
Many students actually prefer not having all their eggs
in a "writing" or "speaking" or "examination"
basket. And whether they do prefer it or not, I'm an old-fashioned
liberal arts teacher who thinks students should still learn
something about these various kinds of thought, research,
and expression. So far, may I say by way of encouragement
to others, my course evaluations over the years have not
indicated that this is a problem.
Regarding "Absences," I believe strongly in the
corporate dimension of learning, and I try to reinforce
this in several ways. In this case, students are reminded
that they are valued participants in, not just autonomous
consumers of, the course--so the grade for "discussion"
mentioned above.
A couple of jobs ago, I was asked to prepare a departmental
statement regarding plagiarism. This statement regarding
"Integrity" is a reduced version of that earlier
exercise, and tries to set plagiarism in a positive context.
(We are required by university regulations to insert clear
statements regarding academic honesty in each syllabus--it
helps administrators deal with student appeals.)
Now, on to substance, combining "Texts" and "Outline."
September has us learning about what sort of course this
is, and also introduces the issue of interpretation immediately.
As a final preliminary, I will give a lecture (probably
over two class sessions) sketching the broad contours of
American history as a reference for the rest of the class.
Then the lectures begin, with a more-or-less chronological
survey. Students will be assigned specific pages in the
Gaustad volumes, the Albanese text, and the Marsden text
as the main "stuff" of the survey. The Gaustad
overview provides the linkage for the primary readings of
his two other volumes, with the Marsden book providing an
alternative narrative. Particular chapters of the Albanese
text are assigned to link up with specific topics as they
arise during the course narrative. I believe in the majority
of content coming, if possible, from good texts, and the
different "voices" of these three noted interpreters
provides continual grist for class discussions regarding
interpretation throughout the course, not just at the end.
Class periods then serve several different functions. Some
include lectures which provide simple frameworks or maps
(literal or figurative) for all this reading. At the other
end of the scale from this 'big picture" presentation,
some periods will focus on illustrative case studies of
individuals and movements through lectures or media presentations.
A third kind of period regularly would be interactive, whether
discussing readings and questions arising, or reviewing
each section of the course before moving on. In these various
kinds of periods, we will sustain consideration of the categories
of centre /periphery or insider /outsider, gender, race/ethnicity,
region, class, and theology/ piety /practice. That is, since
the students should have a good deal of material in their
heads and notes from their reading, class periods can spend
more time on organizing and reflecting upon that material,
rather than trying to convey it in the first place.
(A new technique I am trying with some success, by the
way, is the phony "pop quiz." I announce a pop
quiz--always a shocker the first time one does this--and
then tell them to get in groups of two or three to confer.
Confusion gives way to laughter when I tell them that we're
going to have a contest among the groups, but that it won't
count for anything on the course.
Then I yuk it up as we go through ten or fifteen questions
of various sorts, giving them a couple of minutes after
each one to confer and arrive at a group answer. We review
all the correct answers, and the plausible wrong ones offered--which
sometimes lets the instructor change his mind about what
counts as "correct"!--tot up the scores, and then
see whether in fact they are keeping up with the reading
and lectures. I have found this gets the right points across
without embarrassing anyone, and I am glad to acknowledge
several ideas from the Harvard/Light report which I have
combined in this exercise.)
The reinforcing of the material through several overlapping
texts, rather than just one, plus primary sources plus outline-type
lectures ought to help fill in a pretty good picture of
the survey for most students. This is, after all, congruent
with how most of us learn about subjects in which we are
not specialists.
Come February, we shift to the seminar mode and discuss
the books listed on the "Outline," reading all
of them through (and the remainder of Albanese). We relate
these to the books we have already read (in research as
well as for class), and try to learn the content they convey
as well as concentrate on historiographical issues they
raise.
(Again, in terms of sharing teaching tips among colleagues,
one of the Young Scholars participants encouraged me to
note the following. I try to enable good discussion to take
place by several means. First, I require the papers written
in advance. Second, I often begin the class period itself
with a short, "prewriting" assignment in which
students take five minutes or so to respond to one clear
and provocative question. They don't hand these in to me,
normally. This helps them immediately focus on the class
and distance themselves from their preoccupations. Third,
I usually have them get into small groups of three-to-five
to discuss the assigned questions and any others I add.
This lets them try out their ideas on each other without
the Authority Figure around--shy people often are more apt
to speak up, and controversy can more easily ensue when
there's no Referee involved. It also means that many more
people can participate in a unit of class time. I sit back
and monitor them all from my chair, often "disappearing"
into some activity on the spot [like reading my mail!] in
order to embolden reticent persons. Then we resume as a
whole group and begin our discussion together.)
In April, several periods are devoted to presentation and
discussion of student papers. I take a couple of lectures
to relate all of this to the students' own context, namely
contemporary Canada, and then we wrap up.
A final note. Most of the other syllabi--perhaps all of
them--are much more detailed in terms of actual class progression
through topics period-by-period. I have not taught this
course before in this context, so anything more specific
I should submit at this time would be very artificial and
possibly misleading. I generally do not give students highly-detailed
syllabi anyway, though, as it lets me adjust to currents
in the class as things go along--particularly when one conducts
a course over an entire academic year. But I do tell students
at the beginning of each section what they are expected
to read and do, and I remind them frequently so as to maintain
an appropriate structure. This syllabus, then, will be less
useful than some in this regard, but possibly still of use
in what it does set out.
II. Course Syllabus
RELIGION IN AMERICAN CULTURE
Religion 20.352
1992-93
Dr. John G. Stackhouse, Jr.
Fletcher Argue 331; 474-6277
Office Hours: Monday 1:30-2:30;
Tuesday and Thursday 2:30-3:30; and by appointment
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION
"This course will develop an understanding of American
religious life and thought through an examination of some
of the major movements, thinkers, issues, and problems of
its history."
QUESTIONS AND PURPOSES
- What is the shape of religion in American culture? -->
Description of contemporary American religion.
- How did it get that way? --> Description of processes
of development, with special attention to variations according
to region, subculture, ethnicity, and so on.
- How have religion and culture related in America? -->
Discussion of a variety of interpretive themes.
- How and why does the history of religion in America
vary from interpreter to interpreter? --> Discussion
of historiography.
- How does this compare with the Canadian story? -->
Brief comparison of the two.
- What benefits are there in all this for university
students? --> (a) Students now encounter, and will
continue to encounter, religious influences from the United
States, and this course should help them understand and
respond to them better. (b) The question of religion and
culture is a basic issue in understanding human individuals
and groups, and this course will help students appreciate
this relationship in private and public life. (c) Students
should also profit from the disciplined discussion of
various religions which, while encouraging personal decision
about truth and value, emphasizes careful description
first and courtesy throughout. (d) Finally, students should
improve their thinking and their particular skills of
reading, speaking, and writing in a stimulating and rigorous
context.
PROCEDURE
Class periods will vary in emphasis between lectures and
discussions, with the former predominating from September
until January and the latter in the course thereafter. But
I encourage student participation in each period: questions,
observations, applications, and so on are welcome in every
situation.
ASSIGNMENTS AND EVALUATION
- 15%--Discussion: Students will be assigned a grade for
the quality of their participation in class discussion,
including question periods during lectures. I will give
some consideration to the quantity of participation (regular
engagement is commended). But other virtues of good conversation
also will be credited, such as politeness, contributing
to the general thrust of the discussion, drawing the discussion
back from tangents, suggesting another point of view,
providing appropriate criticism of one's own or another's
ideas, deferring to other students who participate less,
and so on.
(Note: students may ask at any time--and should ask
at least once by the middle of the course--how I have
evaluated their participation to that point in order
to make improvements.)
-
10%--Discussion Papers: Each student will prepare answers
to questions assigned in advance for each discussion
period and will have them at hand at the beginning of
the class periods. Please be sure to answer all of the
questions assigned.
These short papers (300-500 words) may be hand-written
in ink, as long as they are clearly legible (otherwise
it is in the student's interest to type them); they
should be written on one side of the page only, with
one-inch margins all round (including the foot of the
page), and securely fastened.
Students will begin the course with ten (10) marks.
One-half mark (½) will be deducted for each failure
to conform the papers to proper style. Otherwise unsatisfactory
papers will receive further penalties. Late discussion
papers will be accepted only with extraordinary excuse:
students must be prepared for these sessions.
-
5% x 2 = 10%--Reports: Each student will prepare two
5-7 minute presentations on a particular individual
in the history of religion in America, one for early
in the fall term (roughly A.D. 1500-1800) and one for
the later part of it (roughly A.D. 1800-1990). The presentations
will include (1) a biographical sketch, which will include
some sense of cultural context; (2) a statement of the
significance of the individual in terms of his or her
own day and in terms of the history of religion in America
(i.e., how did this person influence the evolution of
American religion?); (3) reference to any important
book-length studies of the person (bring a copy of each
to class, if possible); and (4) one or two aspects of
this person which particularly impressed (whether positively
or negatively) the student presenter.
Students should strive to make these presentations
clear and substantial, but also interesting and polished.
Please consider using whatever audio-visual aids you
profitably can (if you need to coordinate this use with
me, please do so several days in advance). The development
of good public-speaking skills, that is, will be in
view here.
-
20%--Research Paper: Each student will prepare a paper
on a theme selected from those suggested by the professor
or on some other topic agreed-upon by student and professor.
A paper may reflect any one of the disciplines characteristic
of the academic study of religion, or any appropriate
combination of disciplines.
Students must select their topics in consultation with
me before the end of classes in the fall term. Working
outlines and bibliographies must be submitted for review
by the mid-February break. (Penalties will be assessed
on the final paper grade if these deadlines are not
observed,)
Papers must be 3000-3500 words in length, including
reference material. Please conform the papers to one
of the following three styles: The Canadian Style (Dundurn);
Turabian/Chicago; or MLA. Papers are due at the start
of the first class period in April. Please bring all
excuses to my attention as quickly as possible, as late
papers without excuse will be penalized as follows:
one-third of a grade (e.g., from "B+" to "B")
on the first day late, and another one-third of a grade
for every two days late after that.
- 20 + 25 = 45%--Examinations: Examinations will be set
for the December and April periods. The final examination
in April will be comprehensive. These examinations will
combine "short-answer" tests of content knowledge
and essay tests of analysis and synthesis.
ABSENCES
Students, of course, are expected to attend every class.
Grades for class participation naturally will be lowered
if a student is absent without excuse (normally an allowance
is made for one class per term). If one does have an excuse,
however, this should be brought to the instructor's attention
at the next class. Students are responsible entirely for
instructions, notes, etc. for the reception of which they
are absent.
INTEGRITY
Integrity is essential to the academic enterprise and community.
We must trust each other, even as we question each other,
since no one can or should try to learn everything independently.
So we must be able to trust each other. Giving credit for
information or ideas to another when it is due, stating
clearly the limits of one's knowledge (sources, opinions,
etc.), acknowledging the cogency of another's argument,
and so on are not pleasantries: they are basic to the pursuit
of truth and therefore to the ethos of the university.Compromises
of integrity in this course, therefore, will be dealt with
firmly. Plagiarism--the act of passing off as one's own
what is the intellectual work of another--will not be tolerated,
and students in doubt about the definition of this term
should consult the professor before committing themselves
in print. Misrepresenting one's argument or those of others
is a constant temptation for everyone, and great care must
be taken to do justice to all concerned- -whether in papers
or in class discussions.A religion professor in particular
should take into account the weaknesses of human nature,
and I will. Students are under moral obligation to report
breaches of honor of this sort to me, whether their own
mistakes or others'. Only in this way can the discipline
and advancement of the community as well as of its constitutent
individuals be maintained. Far better, that is, to report
such a problem and have it dealt with fairly and, if at
all possible, redemptively, than to let this moral disease
go unchecked.
TEXTS
Required:
Albanese, America: Religions and Religion
Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith Gaustad, ed., A Documentary
History of Religion in America (2 vols.) Gaustad, A Religious
History of America Marsden, Religion and American Culture
Mead, The Lively Experiment Moore, Religious Outsiders and
the Making of Americans Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American
ReligionRecommended for Reference: Reid, ed., Dictionary
of Christianity in America
OUTLINE
September
Introduction to the Course and Class Introduction to the
Subject: The Historiography of Religion in America
A Brief Overview of American History
Native American Religions
October
European Origins
Colonial America
November
The Great Awakening and American Revolution
The Early Republic
December
The Civil War and Beyond
January
From Reconstruction to World War I
The Twentieth Century
February
Interpretations: Mead and Butler
March
Interpretations: Albanese, Moore, and Wuthnow
April
Discussion of Student Papers
Comparison with Canada
Conclusion
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