Core Topics in Anthropology of Religion

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Core Topics in Anthropology of Religion

• 758200302, 10op/4ov

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• Times Wed 12-14
• Location U 40, ls 13
• Email toomas.gross_at_helsinki.fi
• Phone [phone]
• Office Hours Wed 16-17, E308

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Course description

• Aim
• General introduction to anthropology of religion
• Topics covered
• I Theory
• Origin, function, rationalism
• II Cosmology
• Symbols, systems of classification, myths
• III Praxis
• Rituals, religious specialists, religious
  movements

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Course format

• 10 classes
• lecture-discussion format
• videos
• ppt presentations
• Posted by 11 am on Wednesdays
• http//www.helsinki.fi/antropologia/opetus.htm

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Course requirements

• 3 essays
• One under each thematic block
• Theory / Cosmology / Praxis
• 5-6 pages
• In Finnish or in English
• Use of at least four texts (articles or books)
• Pregiven topics
• 2 under each lecture topic
• Suggested readings

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Course requirements

• Essays
• Due on 8 Nov, 29 Nov, and 31 Dec (by email)
• Feedback during next lecture
• Late submissions
• - 5 per day
• But not more than -40
• All essays to be submitted by 8 Jan

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"Reflection papers"

• Concise summaries of your thoughts
• Based on required readings
• authors main arguments
• their strong and weak points
• Short (max 700 words, 1-2 pages)
• Not an essay
• May be hand-written
• In English or in Finnish
• Submission
• after the repsective class
• By email if missing the class (by 12 am on Wed)
• Late submission not accepted

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Evaluation

• Reflection papers 30 (10 x 3)
• Essays 60 (3 x 20)
• Participation 10

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Texts and reading materials

• Required readings
• Master copies by D112 at Unioninkatu 38.
• Further readings
• Textbooks and readers

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1. Lecture (4.10) Religion as an object of
anthropological study

• Readings
• Asad, T. 1982. The Construction of Religion as an
  Anthropological Category.
• Geertz, C. 1973. Religion as a cultural system.
• Discussion topics
• Introduction to anthropology of religion
• Problems of studying religion anthropologically

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2. Lecture (11.10) Anthropological debates on
definition and origin

• Readings
• Durkheim, E. 1995 1912. The Elementary Forms of
  the Religious Life (excerpts).
• Tylor, E.B. 1873. Animism
• Discussion topics
• Herbert Spencer
• Sir Edward B. Tylor
• Sir James Frazer
• Emile Durkheim
• William Robertson Smith

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3. Lecture (18.10) Anthropological debates on
function

• Readings
• Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 1937. Witchcraft Explains
  Unfortunate Events
• Malinowski, B. 1931. The Role of Magic and
  Religion
• Film
• Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande
• Discussion topics  
• Functionalist approach to religion
• Evans-Pritchard on magic and witchcraft

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• (25.10 - No lecture)

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4. Lecture (1.11) Anthropological debates on
rationality and modes of thought

• Readings
• Lukes, S 1967. Some Problems about Rationality.
• Horton, R. 1967. African Traditional Thought and
  Western Science.
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• Discussion topics
• Rationality ? religious thought
• Frazer, Lévy-Bruhl, Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard
• Rationality debate of the 1960s/70s

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5. Lecture (8.11) Symbols

• Readings
• Hallpike, C. 1969. Social Hair.
• Ortner, S. 1973. On Key Symbols.
• Discussion topics
• Geertz religion as a system of symbols
• Firth index, signal, icon, symbol
• Turner use of symbols in rituals
• Douglas "natural symbols"
• Leach vs Hallpike on hair symbolism

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6. Lecture (15.11)Classification and taboo

• Readings
• Dubisch, J. 2001. You Are What You Eat Religious
  Aspects of the Health Food Movement.
• Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. 1939. Taboo.
• Discussion topics
• Taboo
• Radcliffe-Brown, Freud vs Westermarck,
  Lévi-Strauss
• Classification systems
• Durkheim and Mauss, Douglas, Leach

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7. Lecture (22.11) Myth

• Readings
• Lévi-Strauss, C. 1955. The Structural Study of
  Myth.
• Dundes, A. 1962. Earth-Diver Creation of the
  Mythopoeic Male.
• Discussion topics
• Myth vs legend vs folklore
• Anthropological approaches to myth
• Rationalist
• Functionalist
• Psychoanalytical (Dundes)
• Structuralist (Lévi-Strauss)

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8. Lecture (29.11) Ritual

• Readings
• Metcalf, P., and R. Huntington 1991. Death
  Rituals and Life Values Rites of Passage
  Reconsidered (In Celebrations of Death The
  Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual).
• Turner, V. 1969. Liminality and Communitas.
• Film
• Mirja Metsolas Kuoleman juhlat (Celebrations of
  Death)
• Discussion topics
• Definitions and types of ritual
• Anthropological approaches to ritual
• Functionalist, Marxist, psychoanalytical,
  structuralist
• Body and death rituals

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• (6.12 - No lecture)

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9. Lecture (13.12) Religious specialists
shamanism

• Readings
• Turner, V.  2001 1989. Religious Specialists.
• Wolf, M. 2002. The Woman Who Didnt Become a
  Shaman. (In Hicks)
• Discussion topics
• Types of religious specialists
• Weber, LessaVogt, Firth
• Anthropological studies of shamanism
• Anthropological studies of spirit possession
• Religious use of drugs

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10. Lecture (?) Religious movements cargo
cults

• Readings
• Worsley, P. 1959. Cargo Cults.
• Lattas Telephones, Cameras and Technology in
  West New Britain Cargo Cults (in Oceania 70,
  2000)
• Discussion topics
• Melanesian cargo cults
• General characteristics and history
• Ethnographic examples
• Anthropological approaches
• Functionalist
• Culturalist/contextualist

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Religion as an object of anthropological study
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Readings

• Geertz, C. Religion as a Cultural System
• Asad, T. The Construction of Religion as an
  Anthropological Category

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3 stages of thematic and theoretical focus

• 1860s-1900
• Study of origin
• Evolutionism
• Tylor, Robertson Smith, Frazer, Spencer, Durkheim
• 1900-1950
• Study of function
• Functionalism
• Durkheim, Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown,
  Evans-Pritchard
• 1950-1980s
• Study of meaning
• Symbolic anthropology, structuralism
• Evans-Pritchard, Geertz, Douglas, Leach,
  Lévi-Strauss

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1860s-1900

• Earliest anthropological studies
• Mainly by armchair anthropologists
• Evolutionary approach
• Religion
• A primitive way of explaining the world
• Often opposed to science
• Non-rational, non-modern
• Evolution (magic gt) religion gt science

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1860s-1900

• Religion is universal
• non-rational / non-modern elements in any society
• all societies have some notion of the sacred
• Exceptions?
• Sir Samuel Baker (1866) about Nilotic people
• Without any exception they are without a belief
  in a supreme being, neither have they any form of
  worship or idolatry nor is the darkness of their
  minds enlightened by even a ray of superstition.

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1860s-1900

• Ethnographic focus
• primitive religions
• Thematic focus
• Definition of religion
• Tylor minimal definition of religion
• belief in supernatural beings ( animism)
• Durkheim definition through sacred
• Origin of religion

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1860s-1900

• Origin of religion
• How / Why did religion evolve?
• How has religion changed in human evolution?
• Polytheism gt monotheism?
• (When did religion evolve?)
• The question of Archaeology
• Homo (sapiens) nenderthalensis
• 100 000 years ago

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1900-1950

• Early 20th c
• Neglection of evolutionist assumptions
• Thematic focus
• Function of religion
• What does religion do for people and for social
  groups?
• Two trends within functionalism
• Sociological
• Societys perspective
• Psychological
• Individuals perspective

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1900-1950

• Sociological functionalism
• gt Religion integrates community (eg. rituals),
  maintains social solidarity
• eg. Durkheim and the French sociological school
• eg. Radcliffe-Brown
• Psychological functionalism
• gt religion reduces anxiety
• eg. Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard
• eg. Freud
• religious thought ltgt unconscious motivations
• religion
• a collective attempt to resolve the guilt and
  anxiety
• a neurotic need that humans would eventually
  outgrow

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1950s-1980s

• Thematic focus
• Meaning of religion
• Roots in Webers ideas, phenomenology and
  hermeneutics
• Religious symbols
• Symbolic anthropology / interpretive anthropology
• Geertz, Turner, Leach, Douglas
• Structure (eg myth)
• Structuralist anthropology
• Lévi-Strauss

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1980s -

• Theoretical focus mixed
• Thematic focus new topics
• Religion and gender
• Religion and power
• New religious movements in the West
• Religious change, conversion etc
• Especially Latin America
• Religion and violence
• Religious fundamentalism (esp. Islamic)

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Problems of anthropology of religion

• Philosophical
• Reductionism
• Objectivity
• Methodological
• Difficulties of studying belief
• Schism within social scientific study of religion
• Theoretical
• Problems with definition and terminology
• Concepual division between tribal and world
  religions
• Assumptions about of skepticism

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Reductionism

• Anthropological studies of religion
• explain away religion
• reduce it to social, psychological, political or
  other needs
• Eg. Marxist, Durkheimian and Freudian approaches
• Eg. conversion
• Various theories of conversion
• pushes and pulls
• Pushes
• Economic deprivation
• Pulls
• promise of reward in the next life
• more immediate psychic compensators

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Rudolf Otto

• The Idea of the Holy (1917)
• Emphasis on numinous experience
• A feeling of awe and mystery
• An experience of something wholly other
• Numen (Latin) supernatural
• Those who have not experienced the feeling of
  numinous, need not bother to read the book.

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Mircea Eliade

• Religion
• A phenomenon sui generis a religious phenonenon
• must be understood within its own frame of
  reference
• Religious experience
• fundamentally irreducible
• to try to grasp the essence of such a phenomenon
  by means of physiology, psychology, sociology,
  economics, linguistics, art or any other study is
  false it misses the one unique and irreducible
  element in it the element of the sacred.

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The question of objectivity

• Religious background of anthropologists
  themselves
• Tylor Quaker
• Frazer Presbyterian
• Malinowski Catholic
• Durkheim, Lévy-Bruhl, Freud Jewish
• Evans-Pritchard Catholic

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The question of objectivity

• Truth vs falsity of religious thought?
• Most anthropological research of religion
  phenomenological
• Comparative study of observable phenomena
• Evans-Pritchard
• Anthropologist is not concerned with the truth
  or falsity of religious though. ... there is no
  possibility of knowing whether the spiritual
  being of primitive religions or of any others
  have any existence or not, and since that is the
  case he cannot take the question into
  consideration.

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The question of objectivity

• Anthropology as science based on empiricism and
  rationality
• If something demonstrably false, it should be
  stated
• James Lett
• The obligation to expose religious beliefs as
  nonsensical is an ethical one incumbent upon
  every anthropological scientist for the simple
  reason that the essential ethos of science lies
  in an unwavering commitment to truth.
• Rationality debate of the 1960s

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Methodological problems

• Difficulties of studying belief
• How do we know what people really believe?
• Unjustified separation between sociology and
  anthropology
• Sociology of religion
• Christianity
• Other world / historical religions (to a
  lesser extent)
• Secularism
• Anthropology of religion
• Tribal religion
• emphasis on more exotic aspects of religion

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Problems with definition and terminology

• Universalizing culture-specific terminology, use
  of non-native terms
• religion, belief no necessary equivalent
  everywhere
• shamanism, totemism etc
• Eg. Intellectual baggage of the word belief
• Asad
• Emphasis on belief specific ot modern, private
  Christianity
• Evans-Pritchard
• The Nuer language does not have a word for
  believe
• Needham
• Belief, Language, and Experience (1972)
• The concept of belief is dependent on the word
  that describes it

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Problems with definition and terminology

• Colonial / missionary encounter
• Creation of new words
• Eg. fetishism
• by Portuguese and Dutch slave traders
• on the Gold Coast of Africa (16th, 17th c)
• A hybrid object of bone, beads and feathers
• gt irrationality of local religion
• Later taken up by Marx
• Commodity fetishism
• irrationality of Western modernity

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Problems with definition and terminology

• Colonial / missionary encounter
• Reinterpretation of old words
• Eg. syncretism
• Erasmus of Rotterdam (1519)
• reconciliation and tolerance among Christians
• Missionaries
• contaminated Christianity

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Problems with definition and terminology

• Perception of religion as distinct, bounded
  entity
• Four-field approach in anthropology
• Religion
• Politics
• Economics
• Kinship
• Too tidy concepts
• in reality a diffuse phenomenon
• Christianity as the prototype of true religion
• Many theoretical assumptions derive from
  Christianity

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Problems with definition and terminology

• Various ideologies
• features of religion
• rituals, myths, sacred etc
• eg. communism, fascism
• civil religion
• Eg. Dubisch You Are What You Eat Religious
  Aspects of the Health Food Movement.

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World religions vs tribal religions

• World religions
• Based on written scriptures
• Other-worldly orientation
• messianic (Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad)
• Have universal potential
• missionary and imperialistic
• exclusiveness (intolerance towards other faiths)
• Form a separate sphere of activity
• Tribal religions
• Oral
• This-worldly orientation
• Confined to a single language or ethnic group
• Religion and social life inseparable

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World religions vs tribal religions

• Problems
• Based on elite / doctirnal forms rather than
  folk manifestations
• Distinction
• gt not always justified
• Eg Confucianism / Taoism rather local
• Many African religios global appeal
• gt leads to different theoretical treatment

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World religions vs tribal religions

• 1) religious systems of preliterate cultures
• gt basis for
• General discussions of religion
• Debates on the origins and functions of religion
• e.g. rationality debate (late 1960s)
• Science vs religion
• Religion traditional thought of preliterate
  cultures

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Tribal religions vs world religions

• 2) Different treatment
• historical world religions
• treated as conceptual entities
• tribal cultures
• dismembered and treated piecemeal
• Eg. most general texts on comparative religion
• World religions
• separate chapters on eg. Islam, Buddhism, and
  Judaism
• Tribal religions
• separate chapters on eg. mana, taboo, totemism,
  magic, shamanism, myth

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Assumptions about skepticism

• Skepticism
• treated primarily as a Western phenomenon
• Emerged only with modernity
• Non-western / premodern societies
• immersed into religious and mythological thought
• In reality
• skeptical views of religion are universal
• naturalistic worldview has a long history