In American public discourse, it is common to hear abortion referred to as a “religious issue.” But is abortion a religious issue? If so, in what ways, to whom, and why? In this course we will answer these questions by tracing the relationship between religion and abortion in American history. We will examine the kinds of claims religious groups have made about abortion; how religion has shaped the development of medical, legal, economic, and cultural perspectives on the topic; how debates over abortion have led to the rise of a certain kind of religious politics in the United States; and how issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, and the body are implicated in this conversation. Although the course will cover a range of time periods, religious traditions, and types of data (abortion records from Puritan New England, enslaved people’s use of herbal medicine to induce miscarriage, and Jewish considerations of the personhood of the fetus, among others), we will give particular attention to the significance of Christianity in legal and political debates about abortion in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. There are no prerequisites for this course, and no background in Religious Studies is required. However, this course may be particularly well-suited to students interested in thinking about how certain themes or areas of study-medicine and medical sciences, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, political science-converge with religion and Religious Studies.

 

Is there an American Jewish literature? At the heart of this question is a reckoning with what constitutes the American Jewish experience. Literary expression has played an outsized role in the way that American Jews view themselves, exploring a vocabulary and an idiom of immigration and religion, of ethnic identity, and of political consciousness. In this class we will study a selection of the fiction, poetry, essays and films of American Jewish experience with an eye towards the varieties of American-Jewish experience and the role of literature in forging that experience.

 

This course will follow the ongoing Presidential election of 2024 as it unfolds in real time during this quarter. We will read, as primary texts, newspapers from across the political spectrum and consider the claims therein. In parallel, we will explore theoretical and historical writing about democracy and its challenges. We will consider how religion and culture affect the American political process and critically examine social the competing truth claims and values that structure these processes.

 

In the United States, everything is for sale-including religion. Religious books, objects, and films are produced and marketed to recruit converts and to entertain and edify adherents. Churches can be seen as commodities as people “shop” for a new congregation or sect. Some scholars have suggested that consumption itself has become a religious act, with its own rites, rituals, and promises of salvation. In this course we will explore the intersecting histories of Christianity and consumer culture in the US from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Reading classic texts in history and sociology, as well as more contemporary scholarship on American consumer culture, we will attend to the questions that consumer culture poses for American Christians and for scholars of religion. Has consumer culture contributed to the secularization of American society? Has Christianity been corrupted by consumer culture? Can Christians redeem the marketplace? How can the study of religion help us understand our culture of consumption, and how can consumerism help us understand religion?