ANTH 270 - Anthropology of Religion

FC SSCI CD

4 credits
This course covers current approaches to topics in the anthropology of religion. This includes: myth, ritual, practice and belief, sacrifice, ideology, phenomenology, and ethics. Students will be introduced to key concepts that inform contemporary understandings of religion as shaping public life, personal experience, and understandings of history. Finally, students will be asked to take a critical eye to the category of “religion” itself and its role in anthropological analysis. Other topics include: religion and secularism; shamanism; witchcraft, magic, and sorcery; “world” religions; animism and human/nonhuman relations; the supernatural; science and rationality; lifeworlds and the ontological turn; and ways of knowing. Field trip(s) required. Recommended Preparation: ANTH 101.