Course Description:

This course will explore the relationship between religion and ethnicity in the context of American culture.  Topics to be discussed include: 1.  theoretical approaches to religion and ethnicity--specifically to what extent can one consider religion an ethnic experience? and, conversely, to what extent is ethnicity a religious experience?  2.  What commonalties can be seen in ethno-religious groups that allow these groups the designation of "American"? and finally, how do race, class, and gender affect one's sense of ethnic and religious identity. 

Among the groups under consideration include: African-Americans, Jews, White Southerners, Italian, and German Roman Catholics, Vodou practitioners, Christian Fundamentalists, Mormons, and Chinese immigrants.  Enrollment will be limited to 15 students..

Course requirements:

The course will meet from 2:00 to 3:20 PM. Mondays and Thursdays in the Humanities Conference Room on Cook Hall.

• Weekly response papers. In every week except when there is an exam or paper due, you will be responsible for posting to the class discussion board. Each week’s post must be made by 10 pm on Wednesday evening. A basic gauge of paragraph size is 10 complex sentences or 250 words. Please log in using your NCF email account ONLY. Topics are already posted.
• Each week one students will serve as discussion leader.
• Term Paper.  A fifteen to twenty-page term paper on a topic chosen in consultation with the instructor. A rough draft will be due two weeks prior to the end of the semester and will be workshoped in small student led groups.

Attendance Policy:  As participation is an essential component of my evaluation of your abilities attendance in class is mandatory. Attendence is helpful insofar as one participates in the discussions. Therefore, failure to regularly contribute in class is grounds for an Unsatisfactory evaluation.

Important Dates:

Required Texts:

• Robert Orsi.  The Madonna of 115^th Street Faith and Community in Harlem. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300042647.
• Karen McCarthy Brown.  Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn Updated and Expanded Edition. University of California Press. ISBN: 0520224752.
• Grace Hale. Making Whiteness: the Culture of Segregation in the South 1890-1940. Pantheon Books. ISBN: 0679442624.
• R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans.  Oxford University Press. ISBN: 019505188.
• Jill Watts. God: Harlem, USA: The Father Divine Story. University of California Press. ISBN: 0520074556.
• Craig Prentiss, Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity: An Introduction. New York University Press. ISBN: 0814767001X.

Course Schedule:

Week 1

August 28

Introduction: Melting Pots, Kaleidoscopes, Mosaics, Outsiders, and Americans

Oscar Handlin, Immigration as a Factor in American History.  (Prentice-Hall, 1959): Part I and Part II (Online)

 R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans.  3-24, 201-211.

Week 2

September 7

No class Labor Day September 4

Methodological Foundations

Timothy L. Smith, "Religion and Ethnicity in America."  In American Historical Review 83 (1978): 1155-1185. (Online)

Paul Harvey, “A Servant of Servants Shall He Be: The Construction of Race in American Religious Mythologies” from Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity: An Introduction. New York University Press: New York, 2003. 13-27.

Week 3

September 14

German Catholics

R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans.  48-72.

Otto Holzapfel. "Singing from the Right Songbook: Ethnic Identity and Language transformation in German American Hymnals." in Music in the American Religious Experience. Edited by Philip Bohlman, Edith Blumhofer and Maria Chow. Oxford University Press, New York, 2006.175-194. (Online)
Paul Westermeyer. "The Evolution of German American Protestants in Their Hymnody: A Case Study from an American Perpective" in Music in the American Religious Experience. Edited by Philip Bohlman, Edith Blumhofer and Maria Chow. Oxford University Press, New York, 2006.175-194. (Online)

Week 4

September 18, 21

Italian Catholics

Robert Orsi.  The Madonna of 115^th

Week 5

September 25, 28

The Origins of African-American Culture

Eddie Glaude Jr., “Myth and African American Self-Identity” from Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity: An Introduction. New York University Press: New York, 2003. 28-42. (X

W.E.B. DuBois The Souls of Black Folk. Vintage Books: New York, 1990. 3-25. (Online) Please read: Of Our Spiritual Strivings and Of the Faith of Our Fathers.

Albert Rabateau, “The Rule of Gospel Order: Religious Life in the Slave Community." (E-reserve)

R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans.  173-200.

Week 6

October 2, 5

Nativism: Redefining American

R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans. 105-172.

Douglas Cowan. “Theologizing Race: The Construction of a Christian Identity” from Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity: An Introduction. New York University Press: New York, 2003. 112-123.

Joisah Strong. Our Country: Its Present Future and Its Present Crisis. The American Home Mission Society, 1885. ii-x, 40-46, 159-180. (X)

Week 7

October 9, 11

Southerners in White and Black

Grace Hale. Making Whiteness

[Paper Proposals Due]

October 16-20

Fall Break

Week 8

October 23, 26

Latter Day Saints

R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans.  25-47.

The Book of Mormon. 1 Nephi 13-42. Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints, 1978. 22-25. (X)

Craig Prentis, “Lothesome Unto Thy People: The Latter-Day Saints and Racial Catagorization” from Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity: An Introduction. New York University Press: New York, 2003. 124-139.

Week 9

October 30, November 2

Judaism

R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans: 72-104.

Isaac Wise, Reminiscences. Leo Wise & Co., New York, 1901. 324-339 (Online)

Selections from Portal to America: The Lower East Side, 1870-1925: 58-59, 62-64 (Online)

Abraham Cahan, Grandma Never Lived in America. Edited by Moses Rischin. (Indiana University Press): 53-56. 70-73, 92-95, 207-213, 371-377. (Online)

Jacob Neusner, “Jew and Judist: Ethnic and Religious: How They Mix in America” from Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity: An Introduction. New York University Press: New York, 2003. 85-100.

Movie: "Hester Street"

[Proposal and Bibliography for paper due at end of class]

Week 10

November 6, 9
Black Muslims

Susan Nance. "Mystery of the Moorish Science Temple: Southern Blacks and American Alternative Spirituality in 1920s Chicago" in Religion and American Culture, Vol. 12, No. 2. (Summer, 2002), pp. 123-166.
Lawrence H. Mamiya "From Black Muslim to Bilalian: The Evolution of a Movement" in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 21, No. 2. (Jun., 1982), pp. 138-152.
Aminah B. McCloud. "Blackness in the Nation of Islam." from Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity: An Introduction. New York University Press: New York, 2003. 124-139.

Week 11

November 13, 16

Father Divine

Jill Watts God: Harlem, USA: The Father Divine Story

Week 12

November 20

Research Week/Thanksgiving Break

NO CLASS

Week 13

November 27, 30

Afro-Caribbean Emigration

Karen McCarthy Brown. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn

[Rough Drafts Due]

Week 14

December 4, 7
Presentations and Peer Review