James German Course Syllabus
Prepared for the Center for the Study of Religion and American
Culture by:
James German
Department of History
University of Nebraska at Kearney
The Center is pleased to share with you the syllabi for
introductory courses in American religion that were developed
in seminars led by Dr. Harry S. Stout of Yale University.
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 Nebraska at Kearney is a public university
of about 8,000 students located near the lonely center of
the United States. Its mission, according to the regents
of the university system, centers on undergraduate education
and applied and integrative scholarship. Virtually all of
its students are Nebraskans. Most are from the small towns
and rural areas of the western three-quarters of the state,
but a sizable number also hail from the Nebraska metropolises
of Omaha and Lincoln. Middle class white men and women less
than a decade past high school graduation predominate. Despite
their visual homogeneity, they display an incredible range
of academic ability and interest in cultivating intellectual
life. By far, the most difficult task in the classroom is
to keep the really bright students challenged without losing
their classmates of moderate talent and motivation.
Although there is plenty of evidence that religious belief
and practice flourishes at UNK, it receives very little
scholarly attention. There is no department of religious
studies. Courses dealing with religion in Anthroplogy, Literature,
Philosophy, and Psychology, offered irregularly, never focus
on North America. My course is new. For political reasons
that have something to do with History's place in the campus
wide General Studies curriculum, the only lower division
courses that historians teach are broad integrative surveys.
Thus, Religion and American Culture will be offered at the
junior level. This will effectively limit enrollment to
twenty or twenty-five students, making it possible to use
a lecture/discussion format.
The design of the course grows out of my own scholarly
interests and teaching experience. The topics I've selected
for examination and the readings I've assigned surely betray
my proclivities to think about religion in terms of intellectual
and literary history. I suppose that one teaches best when
one teaches material that one knows and loves. That is the
essence of my justification for trying to teach about five
themes in some depth rather than about everything. Som e
of the sections, particularly the ones on New England and
on religion and intellectual life, explore the most traditional
themes. Others, such as the ones on religion and democracy
and religion and ethnicity, are more in tune with recent
work.
The basic structure of the course-five sections, primary
source readings, lecture/discussions, no exams, no research,
lots of papers-is modeled on two courses on American intellectual
history that I've taught several times with success. Students
face a constant grind of reading, talking, and writing.
Those who don't like it, quickly drop. Those who stay have
enough watch and discipline to insure that they finish successfully.
They seem to like primary sources better than monographs.
And, with guidance, they learn to perform the historian's
essential task of reading and interpreting primary texts.
I intend the readings sometimes to reinforce, and sometimes
to subvert, the material that I present in lectures. I've
also tried to juxtapose the readings in such a way as to
maximize opportunities for comparison and contrast. When
I'm lecturing about Puritan intellectual life, for instance,
students read the materials of captivity narratives. Figuring
out whether those narratives support or subvert the interpretation
that I'm ostensibly presenting will be the object of the
paper assignment. Although frustrated students sometimes
beg me to tell them the answers to the questions I pose,
this
pedagogical strategy is designed to force students to come
to terms with the material for themselves.
II. Introductory Course syllabus
HISTORY 301
RELIGIONS IN AMERICAN CULTURES
This course offers an historical examination of some of
the various expressions of religious belief and practice
in American culture. It focuses on the creation of the Protestant
establishment in the colonial period and the challenges
posed to that establishment by democaracy, wcience, multiple
competing cultures, and even the mainstream of American
culture. Class time will be evenly divided between lecture
and discussion. Regular reading, faithful attendance, and
informed participation are essential to the successful completion
of this course.
Required Texts:
- Gaustad, A Religious History of America (revised edition)
- Vaughan and Clark, eds., Puritans Among the Indians
- Emerson, Essays
- James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
- Balmer, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory
- Primary Source Reader
Optional Texts: (On Reserve in C.T. Ryan Library)
- Tony Hillerman, The Blessing Way
- John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany
- Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry
- Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcom X
- Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain
- Brian Moore, Black Robe
- Toni Morison, Beloved
- Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood
- Chaim Potok, My Name is Asher Lev
- Richard Rodriguez, Hunger of Memory
- John Updike, Rogers Version
- Kurt Vonnegut, Cats Cradle
Requirements:
Each student will write five papers, each five pages long
(typewritten, double-spaced) that answer a question or questions
posed by the professor. Each paper will examine one of the
main topics presented in the course. It will be based on
lecture, discussion m and assigned reading. Additional research
is not espected. Questions will be distributed when each
topic is introduced. Papers are due the class period when
the next topic is introduced. Late papers will be penalized
one-third letter grade per day. Students may elect to revise
and resubmit one paper for re-grading. Each student will
also write a five page critical review that compares and
contrasts the role of religion in American culture as portrayed
in three of the optional texts. Reviews are due at the time
scheduled for the final exam.
Grading:
Good papers fully answer the question or questions asked,
show a thorough familiarity with the assigned material,
have a thesis statement that is supported by logic and evidence,
and are grammatically and mechanically correct. They also
demonstrate independent thought. Each of the six
written assignments is worth one-seventh of the course grade.
Class discussion is worth the remaining one-seventh of the
final grade. Academic dishonesty (plagiarizing papers, for
example) will always result in expulsion from the class
and an F for the final grade.
Lecture and Discussion Outline
1/9 What is religion? What is American? What is culture?
The Reformed Establishment and Religious Liberty
1/11 The English Reformation
1/16 The New England Way - Winthrop
1/18 Dissenters and Outsiders - Hutchison
1/23 Revivalism and Separatism - Edwards & Heaton
1/25 A Protestant Revolution and a Secular State - Adams
& Jefferson
II. Religion and Democracy in Antebellum America
1/30 Religion and the Republic - Tocqueville
2/1 New Protestants: Evangelical Explosion - Lee
2/6 Post-Protestants: Radical Religious Communities - Noyes
2/8 Religion, Sex, and the Family - Grimke
2/13 Evangelical Reform - Stowe
2/15 Transcendentalism - Emerson
III. Religion and Intellectual Life: 1790-1914
2/20 The Legacy of the Enlightenment - Palmer
2/22 Common Sense Christianity - Hodge
2/27 Darwinism and The Possibility of Unbelief - Adams (Henry)
2/29 The Pragmatic Solution (or Evasion) - James
3/5 The Social Gospel - Addams
3/7 Modernism and Fundamentalism - Mathews & Machen
IV. Cultural Diversity and (White) Protestant Authority
3/12 Native American Religions - Black Elk
3/14 Accommodation and Resistance - Lame Deer
3/26 Slave Religion - Douglass & Turner
3/28 Race and Religion - DuBois
4/2 American Catholicism - Hecker & Brownson
4/4 The Immigrant Church
V. Center and Periphery at the End of the Modern Era
4/9 The American Way of Life - Herberg
4/11 Feminist Theology - Daly
4/16 Race and Religion - King and Malcolm X
4/18 New Theologies foe a New Age - Peale & Schuller
4/23 Evangelical Revival - Balmer
4/25 Concluding Discussion
Paper Assignments
- Describe the various meanings of religious liberty in
colonial America. To what extent (and in what sense) would
Winthrop, Hutchinson, Edwrds, Heaton, Jefferson and the
captive Puritans (and their captors) in Vaughn and Clark
have agreed with John Adams's assertion that it was a
love of universal liberty, and a hatred, a dread, an horror
of the infernal confederacy between ecclesiastical and
civil tyranny that projected, conducted, and accomplished
the settlement of America.
- I look for the new Teacher, wrote Emerson, that shall
follow so far those shining laws that he shall see them
come full circle; shall see their rounding complete grace;
shall see the world to be the mirror of the soul; shall
see the identity of the law of gravitation with purity
of heart; and shall show that the
Ought, that Duty, is one thing with Science, with beauty,
and with Joy. What sort of teacher was Emerson looking
for? What was wrong with the old teachers? To what extent
would he be satisfied (or dissatisfied) with Lee, Grimke,
Noyes, and Stowe as candidates for the new Teacher?
- Describe the intellectual problems that Enlion with
the assertion that for practical life, at any rate, the
chance of salvation is enough. No fact in human nature
is more characteristic than its willingness to live on
a chance. The existence of the chance to make a difference
...between a life of which the keynote is resignation
and a life of which the keynote is hope. To what extent
does this assertion contribute to an understanding of
the religion of the dispossessed peoples of America, as
exemplified by Black Elk, Lame Deer, Douglass, Turner,
and DuBois? Does it help explain the role of religion
inthe lives of new immigrants?
- How does religion in the hands of King, Malcom X, and
Daly serve to challenge the American way of life as described
by Herberg? To what extent do the religious beliefs described
by Peale, Schuller, and Balmer legitimize (or delegitimize)
that way of life?
Primary Source Reader
- John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity
- Anne Hutchinson, The Examination of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson
- Jonathan Edwards, A Divine and Supernatural Light
- Hannah Heaton, The World of Hannah Heaton
- John Adams, Selection from Dissertation on the Canon
and the Feudal Law
- Thomas Jefferson, Selection from Notes on the State
of Virginia
- Thomas Jefferson, A Bill for Establishing Religious
Freedom
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Selection from Democracy in America
- Jarena Lee, The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena
Lee
- John Humphrey Noyes, Selection from Letters on the Equality
of the Sexes
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