This 2021 course by Chelsea Starr at Eastern New Mexico University is an introduction to the basic perspectives with which sociologists analyze the relationship between religion and society. Explores the social processes at work in congregations and denominations, new religious movements, conversion/deconversion, religious identity, secularization, minority religions, inequalities and religion, and current trends.
A 2019 course by Madison Tarleton at the University of Denver/Illiff School of Theology introduces “students to the academic study of religion” through a survey of “early theorists and anthropologists as well as examine how these theories evolved over time.”
A 2018 course by Jill DeTemple at Southern Methodist University introduces “several social scientific approaches to the academic study of religion. We will investigate the history and use of anthropological, sociological, and psychological theory and method in relation to the study of religion, especially as these fields relate religion to broader cultural, societal, and physiological fields of knowledge.”
A 2017 course by Jill DeTemple at Southern Methodist University introduces “International Economic Development as a global social institution which often intersects with social constructions of gender, religious institutions, and religious world views.”
A 2018 course by Jill DeTemple at Southern Methodist University “is designed as an intermediate course” to introduce students to “the border as a geographic and cognitive location rooted in history.”
A 2019 course by Peter Gottschalk at Wesleyan University considers religion “as a phenomenon . . . the meaning of ‘sacredness’ & ‘the sacred’ and question their comparative use” in various religious traditions.
A course by Martha Reineke at the University of Northern Iowa explores “from a psychoanalytic perspective the emergence of the capacity for religious belief in children,” with particular attention to Freudians, “object relations theorists,” and Lacanians.
A 2013 course by Wendy Cadge at Brandeis University asks “what religion is, how it is present and influential in public and private life, and how and where people from different religious traditions interact in the contemporary United States. Specific attention is devoted to peopleâs religious practices, religious communities, and the identities people develop through their religious traditions.”
A 2011 course by Jennell Botello at Florida International University traces “the historical development and influence of religion in the United States and particularly its influence on American culture.”
A course by Stephanie Mitchem at the University of South Carolina employs anthropology of religion methods to study religious healing.
