REL 627: Globalization and Religion:
Processes and Problems
Tuesdays: 3:30-6:15 Hall of Languages 504
Joanne
Punzo Waghorne
HL 521
Email: jpwaghor@syr.edu / jwaghorn@twcny.rr.com
These are the
book-length reading—I will combine theoretical works with some case studies—I
also have a growing collection of journal articles in pdf format.
Keane, John. 2003. Global Civil Society? Cambridge University Press.
Goodchild, Philip.
2002. Capitalism
and Religion: The Price of Piety. Routledge
Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2003. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence.
3rd ed. University of California Press.
King, Anthony D. 2004. Spaces of Global
Cultures: Architecture, Cities and
Globalisation: Taylor & Francis, Inc.
Dawson, Lorne L and Douglas E. Cowan. 2004.
Religion Online: Finding Faith on the
Internet. Routledge
Lucas, Phillip Charles and Thomas Robbins,
eds. 2004. New Religious Movements in the 21st
Century. Routledge.
Bond, George D. Buddhism at Work: Community
Development, Social Empowerment and the Sarovodaya Movement. Kumarian Press, 2004.
Vasquez, Manuel A. and Marie Friedmann
Marquardt. 2003. Globalizing
the Sacred: Religion Across the Americas. Rutgers University Press.
Orientation to the
Problem
Just two years ago, economics dominated the
discussion of processes of globalization; the very term seemed to derive from
the new liberal trade policies that allowed a burgeoning worldwide trade
network. Discussion of the place of religion
within this discourse was rare. The
dominance of economics gave way to recognition of the cultural aspects of
globalization and then to economic historians, especially Immanuel Wallerstein
who finally coined the term “geo-culture” and left a window open for
consideration of religion and religious organizations. But in the last two years again the field
has shifted, this time to political philosophers who theorize the notion of
Global Civil Society and the growth of organizations that operate in this
assumed/proposed sphere. Within this conceptual
framework, suddenly political theorists are thinking about religion especially
religious organizations in a global framework.
For the seminar this spring, I want to focus
in the first section on the discussion of Global Civil Society and the place of
“religion” within it. The two terms
share surprising similarity since neither Religion
nor Global Civil Society seem to
exist as entities—rather they both function as performative concepts. Although the actual location and nature of
global civil society remains ambiguous, when religious organizations operate in
this new “space”, they do appear to transform in stature, organizational
structure, and in the content of their message. What happens when an openly
religious organization leaves the borders of the nation-state and enters into
this global realm? Is the new Global
Civil Society really new? Does the entrance of religious discourse threaten the
civility or create that very respect in this kind of civil society? What kinds of religious organizations are
entering Global Civil Society? How can we understand the new wave of
missionary-evangelical work of both the Christian and Muslim variety? And how can we understand this push to
globalization in the context of the equally powerful equation of religion and
the state in the United States as well as in India, Israel and several
Muslim-majority counties? Clearly
these are major issues but at least we can begin.
Issues of Global
Civil Society tend to focus on ethics, values, issues of human
rights, but this perspective cannot do justice to all forms of globalization
that transform religions and in turn are transformed by religious consciousness
and practice. Globalization creates
changing spaces within with religious organizations now operate. These new spaces can be architectural or
that curious place of cyberspace.
Within this new space of technology, new religious movements seem to
thrive. Another unexpected space that
also opens: renewed sense of local. Older indigenous traditions ironically may
have a global voice where they were once silenced by the nation-state.
For the study of religion, this new era
redraws our maps of the world questioning basic shibboleths about processes of
universalization, secularization, and modernization.
Requirements:
Each week by
Monday morning at 9am prior to the seminar on Tuesday, each member must send to everyone
by email reflections on the reading for each session. I will collate all of these along with my comments and print a
copy each week for the seminar. The
reflections may be as short as a few paragraphs or as long as two pages but NO
more. Look for issues that you consider
key and that we need to discuss.
Reflect on the relevance of the reading for the study of religion. Consider aspects of the reading that seemed
problematic to you or especially helpful.
In addition each seminar member should develop a project on a particular
religious organization operating in global civil society that interest you and
that is relevant for your current or future work. You will report on your own projects in the seminar. The project should result in a short paper
of 20-25 pages, which along with the weeks of reflections will constitute the
written work for the seminar.
Grading Criteria: The seminar has three major requirements,
the weekly responses, active participation in the seminar, and the final
project. These aspects will be weighted
as follows:
Quality
of weekly written responses…………………… …50%
Quality
of oral participation in the seminars………………10%
Quality
of final project……………………………………….40%
Reading Schedule:
January 18: The new
global rise of religion
ISSUES to CONSIDER:
q Basic (sometimes competing)
concepts: civil society, public sphere, transnational (Global) Civil society;
geoculture; world-wide civilizations
q Is global civil
society/globalization really new? —A turn to historical controversies and the
place of “religion”
q Considering new spaces in the global
technological world.
q Re-forming “mainstream” religions in
a Global age—another universalism
q The issue of global fundamentalisms
q Rise of Christian global evangelical
movement—Africa and Latin America
q Global networked community—cyberspace
q Capitalistic forms and religion
q Indigenous religions in a global age
q New religious movements
q Cases-1 Buddhist movements in Sri
Lanka
q Case-2. Evangelical churches in Latin America
Part ONE: Global Civil
Society—“a new world-view radically different from any
that has existed before”?
Week 1 January 25: John Keane—a political philosopher considers Global
Civil Society.
Week- 2
February 1: Global Civil Society in
Religion/s—essays from Sociology
of Religion 2001, 62:4 and Social
Research; Winter 2001; 68, 4
Week-
3 February
8: Returning to history and the question of the
difference between the current globalization and earlier global system:
Readings from Habermas, The Structural
Transformation of the Public Sphere [1962] 1989 and Janet
Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The
World System A.D. 1250-1350. and John Voll, “Islam as a Special
World-System.
Week- 4 February 15: Capitalistic
culture and religions. Philip Goodchild,
Capitalism and Religion: The Price of Piety
Week- 5 February 22: King, Global religious systems on
the margins of Global Civil Society: Fundamentalism. Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2003.
Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence
Part Two: Processes and
places of religion and globalization
Week- 6 March 1: Anthony D. 2004. Spaces of Global
Cultures: Architecture, Cities and
Globalisation
Week- 7 March 8: Dawson, Lorne L and Douglas E. Cowan. 2004.
Religion Online: Finding Faith on the
Internet. Routledge
(March 15-spring break)
Week- 8 March 22: The Contours of New Religious Movements-- Lucas,
Phillip Charles and Thomas Robbins, eds. 2004. New
Religious Movements in the 21st Century.
Week- 9 March 29: Global-Local:
Indigenous religions in global (not national) space—reading?
Part three: cases
Week- 10 April 5: Bond, George D. Buddhism at Work:
Community Development, Social Empowerment and the Sarovodaya Movement
Week-
11 April
12: Vasquez, Manuel A. and Marie Friedmann Marquardt. 2003.
Globalizing the Sacred: Religion
Across the Americas
Week-
12 April 19
Research
Presentations
Week-
13 April 26
Week- 14 May 3 : Final discussion
Resources:
FINDING relevant journal
articles
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Use
Syracuse Library-then to DATA BASES-GENERAL-ARTICLESFIRST-log on with your SU
id-then try topics like:
religion
and globalization; religion and civil society
Most
articles can be downloaded as PDF files
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