Religious Bodies
Spring 2014
RELST UA 642.001
ANTH UA 29.001
Tu-Th 11-12:15
Professor Angela Zito office hours Tu 3-5 726 Broadway, Rm 560 x2-9656
TA Tyler Zoanni office hours by appt.
tzoanni@nyu.edu
angela.zito@nyu.edu
Human physicality is something that we share in our “natures”, yet constantly elaborate differently in our
“cultures”. This course will explore some of the rich and often conflicted relationships between cultures
of religious practices and the human body—the body as medium both for ritual and religious experience;
the body as locus for virtue and sin; the split between mind and body. We will look at the body in various
situations—gendered, sexualized, covered, naked, suffering, disabled, altered, missing, ecstatic,
monstrous—and interrogate notions of representations and ideals: from the religious ban on representing
the human body to divine anthropomorphism. This course is cross-listed with Anthropology, looks at a
variety of religions and practices, and does not have prerequisites.
Evaluation:
Attentive presence, participation in discussion, and short reading responses 20%
First essay on choice of assigned topics 6-7 pages 25% (due Mar 4)
Second ethnographic analysis of a ritual event using our course readings 10 pp. 30% (Due Apr 15)
Final essay 6-7 pages 25% (Due May 8, last day)
Attendance
Attendance is expected at all times. In case of emergency, please notify me before class. More than two
unexcused absences will result in a lower grade. Class participation is also a key to your success. You
can bring food during class, but use of laptops and cell phones is not allowed.
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Assignments
All written assignments are due in hard copy in class on time. The only exception to this rule is a family
emergency, in which case the instructor should be informed before deadline; otherwise a grade point will
be taken off for each overdue day. Plagiarism (as in: the use of the words or ideas of others without
properly indicating the original source) will incur an F and, sad to say, possibly open you to further
disciplinary action.
Note on the final essay assignment: (6-7 pages, due May 8, last day of class) You will write an essay on
one of Krista Tippett’s radio interviews (see below for choices). This will allow you to use resources
from the course in analyzing a contemporary problem of religious embodiment. (Detailed assignment
prompt will come later.)
- Matthew Sanford: The mind-body connection through yoga and paraplegia
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2010/bodys-grace/
- Muslim Women and Other Misunderstandings
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/muslimwomen/particulars.shtml
- A theological perspective on cloning (Laurie Zoloth)
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/cloning/index.shtml
- Laying the dead to rest (Forensic Anthropologists in Argentina)
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2010/laying-the-dead/particulars.shtml
- Jean Vanier: L'Arche, a community of brokenness and beauty
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/larche/index.shtml
-Arthur Zajonc uses contemplation to investigate life from the inside; it is teaching him about living with
Parkinson's Disease.
http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2010/holding-life-consciously/
-Esther Sternberg on the science of healing places
http://www.onbeing.org/program/the-science-of-healing-places/4856
-Nadia Bolz-Weber on tattoos, tradition and grace
http://www.onbeing.org/program/nadia-bolz-weber-on-seeing-the-underside-and-seeing-god-tattoostradition-and-grace/5896
-David Gushee and Frances Kissling: Pro-life, pro-choice, pro-dialogue
http://www.onbeing.org/program/pro-life-pro-choice-pro-dialogue/4863
-Gender and the syntax of being: Identity and transition, Joy Ladin’s body did not match her soul..
http://www.onbeing.org/program/gender-and-the-syntax-of-being-joy-ladin-on-identity-and-transition/5646
-Neuroscientist Richard Davidson uses research on meditation to discuss ADHD, autism, kindness.
http://www.onbeing.org/program/investigating-healthy-minds-richard-davidson/251
-Gardening and Orthodox Easter: a call the senses that gives meaning to incarnation, death and eternity
http://www.onbeing.org/program/restoring-senses-gardening-and-orthodox-easter/164
Readings:
These *books are required in their entirety—find them at the NYU bookstore
* Connerton, Paul. How Societies remember
* Eck, Diana, Darshan
All other assigned readings are on Classes, or online. Their complete bibliographic info is attached to the syllabus
for proper citation in your writing.
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1. Jan 28 Introductions
Jan 30 The Problem of the Buddha’s Finger
Zito, “Body” a keyword essay in Material Religion
Background: Collins, “The Body in Theravada Buddhist Monasticism” in Sarah Coakley, ed. 85-204.
2. Feb 4-6 Religion as object of social inquiry: experience or/as evidence?
Rudolf Otto, “The idea of the holy” 74-81
Clifford Geertz, “”From the native’s point of view: ” 50-63
Raymond Firth, “An anthropological approach to the study of religion” 114-123
and then:
Rosalind Shaw, “Feminist anthropology and the gendering of religious studies” 104-113
Jonathan Z. Smith, “Religion, religions, religious” 69-84
3. Feb 11-13 Inscription and incorporation
*Paul Connerton, How societies remember (entire book)
4. Feb 18-20 The body as a medium
Talal Asad, “Remarks on the Anthropology of the Body” in Sarah Coakley, ed. 42-52
Thomas Csordas, “Somatic modes of attention” 135-156
and then:
Dierdre Sklar. “Can Bodylore Be Brought to Its Senses?” 9-22
Michael Mason: “’I Bow My Head to the Ground:’ The Creation of Bodily Experience in a Cuban
American Santería Initiation” 23-39.
Martin Jaffee. "A Rabbinic Ontology of the Written and Spoken Word: On Discipleship,
Transformative Knowledge, and the Living Texts of Oral Torah," 525-550.
NOTE: Feb 20 topics give out for first essay
5. Feb 25-27 Religion sourced in social life
Emile Durkheim, excerpts from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life 25-46, 140-182.
Mary Douglas, two chapters from Purity and Danger 114-139.
and then:
Nancy Munn, “The spatial presentation of cosmic order in Walbiri iconography” 193-220
Jonathan Spencer, “Fatima and the Enchanted Toffees: an essay on contingency, narrative and therapy”
693-710
6.
Mar 4 FIRST PAPER DUE IN CLASS for discussion
Mar 6 Ritual: mediating social life begins on Thursday
Processione, short film with in-class writing. Kicking off “Ritual”
Victor Turner, “Ritual symbolism, morality and social structure among the Ndembu” 79-95
__________, “Betwixt and between: the liminal period in `Rites de passage’” 93-111
Jean Comaroff, “Epilogue: Defying disenchantment: reflections on ritual history and power” 301-314
7. Mar 11-13 Rituals producing spaces and communities
*Diana Eck, Darshan, (The entire book)
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Lawrence Babb. “Visual Interaction in Hinduism” 387-401.
Joanne Waghorne. “The Hindu gods in a split-level world the Sri-Siva Vishnu Temple in suburban
Washington, DC,” pp. 103-130.
Note: Mar 11 (Tuesday) Guidelines given for ethnography of a religious ritual: you’ll have about a
month for this assignment.
NO CLASS MAR 18-20 SPRING BREAK
8. MAR 25-27 Rituals and boundaries; life and death
Walter Whitaker III, “The contemporary American funeral ritual” 304-310
Film: Final Rest
and then:
Stuart E. Thompson, “Death, food and fertility” 71-110
Maurice Bloch, “Death, women and power” 211-230
9. Apr 1- 3 The God(s) among us
Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, Intro, ch. 1, People of the body: Jews and Judaism in embodied perspective 1-46.
Andrew Louth, “The body in Western Catholic Christianity” in Sarah Coakley, ed. 111-130
David Tripp, “The image of the body in the formative phases of the Protestant Reformation” in Sarah
Coakley, ed. 131-152 LOSE THIS ARTICLE
Louis Jacobs “The body in Jewish worship…” in Sarah Coakley, 71-89 LOSE THIS TOO
10. Apr 8-10 (Ad)dressing ourselves: The body as sign:
Aileen Ribeiro, excerpts from Dress and Morality, 12-41
Linda Arthur: Religion, Dress, and the Body 1-29
Judith Weisenfeld, “Spiritual complexions: On race & the body in the Moorish Science Temple of America” 413428
and then:
Dominic McGoldrick, Human Rights and Religion—The Islamic Headscarf Debate in Europe. Pp. 1-33
Welsh and Endicott from Taking Sides “Has the Islamic revolution in Iran subjugated women? 200-221
11.
Apr 15 Ritual analyses due IN CLASS for a workshop
Apr 17 Mind/Body
Mary Midgley: “The Soul’s Successor: Philosophy and the ‘Body,’” in: Sara Coakley ed.:pp.53-68
Drew Leder “To form one body” 149-173
12.
Apr 22 Pain and suffering
Tilley, Margaret A. "The Ascetic Body and the (Un)Making of the World of the Martyr,"
Jennifer Cole. “Painful Memories: Ritual and the transformation of community trauma” : 87-105.
Arthur and Joan Kleinman. “How Bodies Remember: Social Memory and Bodily Experience of
Criticism, Resistance, and Delegitimation following China's Cultural Revolution.” 707-72
Apr 24
Our monsters ourselves
Timothy Beal, from Religion and its Monsters. Introduction1-12; Chaos Gods 13-12; the Bible and
Horror 23-34; The Sleep of Wisdom35-45; To the Devil 71-88; Other Gods 103-122; The Blood is the
Life 123-140.
David Keyworth, “The Aetiology of Vampires and Revenants,” 158-173.
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NOTE: APR 24 Guidelines for final essay given out.
13. Apr 29-May 1
Difference and healing: Ability and gender
Erinn Staley. “Sensing exclusions: Disability and the Protestant worship environment.” 429-433.
Eislund and Saliers, eds. Human Disability and the Service of God: Reassessing Religious Practice 1-30.
In that pdf, find three essays:
-Avalos, “Disability and Liturgy in Ancient and modern religious traditions”;
-Grant, “Reinterpreting the healing narratives”;
-Parnell, “Risking redemption: a case study in HIV/SIDS and the healing of Christian liturgy”
and then:
Allyson Jule, ed. Gender and the Language of Religion. In that pdf, find two essays:
-Tekcan, “An overview of God and gender in religion” 9-24
-Britto, “The Gender of God: Judeo -Christian Feminist Debates,” 25-40.
Jennifer Manlowe, excerpt from her “Faith born of seduction” 59-78.
14. May 6 Bioethics: the case of surrogacy
Joseph Schenker “Religious views regarding treatment of infertility by assisted reproductive
technologies” (pdf)
Arthur L. Greil. “The religious response to reproductive technology” http://www.religiononline.org/showarticle.asp?title=807 see next page
Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff. “Jewish surrogate motherhood”
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/beliefs/Issues/Bioethics/Fertility_Technology/Surrogacy.shtml
Fatima Husain, “Reproductive issues from the Islamic Perspective” (pdf)
Amana Fontanella-Khan, “India, the rent-a-womb capital of the world” http://www.slate.com/id/2263136/
May 8 LAST DAY OF CLASS Final papers due on Krista Tippett show analysis for discussion.
References
Arthur, linda: Religion, Dress, and the Body. Oxford/New York: Berg, 1999, pp. 1-29.
Asad,Talal: “Remarks on the Anthropology of the Body,” in Sara Coakley (ed.) pp. 42-52.
Babb, Lawrence. “Visual Interaction in Hinduism”. Journal of Anthropological Research 37.4 (Winter
1981): 387-401.
Beal, Timothy K. Religion and its Monsters. NY: Routledge, 2002.
Bloch, Maurice, “Death, women and power” In Death and the regeneration of life, ed. Maurice Bloch and
Jonathan Parry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982): 211-230.
Britto, Francis. “The Gender of God: Judeo-Christian Feminist Debates,” in Allyson Jule (ed.): Gender
and the Language of Religion. New York/London: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2005, pp. 25-40.
Coakley, Sarah, ed. Religion and the Body, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
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Cole, Jennifer. “Painful Memories: Ritual and the transformation of community trauma” Culture
medicine and psychiatry 28.1 (2004): 87-105.
Collins, Steven. “The Body in Theravada Buddhist Monasticism,” in Sara Coakley (ed.) pp.185-204.
Comaroff, Jean, “Epilogue: Defying disenchantment: reflection on ritual history and power”, in. Asian
visions of authority: religion and the modern states of East and Southeast Asia. Charles F. Keyes, Laurel
Kendall and Helen Hardacre eds. University of Hawaii Press, 1994. pp. 301-314.
Csordas, Thomas J. . “Somatic modes of attention” Cultural Anthropology 8.2 (May 1993): 135-156.
Dorff, Rabbi Elliot N. “Jewish surrogate motherhood”
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/beliefs/Issues/Bioethics/Fertility_Technology/Surrogacy.shtml
accessed on 8-17-11.
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger. NY: Routledge, 1966. pp. 41-57, 114-139.
Durkheim, Emile, excerpts from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans. Carol Cosman.
Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 25-46, 140-182.
Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard, ed. People of the body: Jews and Judaism from an embodied perspective.
SUNY Press, 1992. pp. 1-46
Eiesland, Nancy and Don Saliers eds. Human Disability and the Service of God: Reassessing Religious
Practice. Nashville: Abingdon press, 1998.
Firth, Raymond, “An anthropological approach to the study of religion” in McCutcheon (see below): 114123.
Fontanella-Khan, Amana. “India, the Rent-a-Womb Capital of the World: The country's booming market
for surrogacy” updated Monday, Aug. 23, 2010, at 7:03 am ET http://www.slate.com/id/2263136/
accessed on 8-17-11
Geertz, Clifford. “From the native’s point of view: On the Nature of anthropological understanding”. In
McCutcheon (see below): 50-63.
Greil, Arthur L. “The religious response to reproductive technology” http://www.religiononline.org/showarticle.asp?title=807 accessed on 8-17-11.
Husain, Fatima. “Reproductive issues from the Islamic Perspective” Human Fertility 3 (2000): 124–128
Jacobs, Louis. “The body in Jewish worship…” in Sarah Coakley, 71-89
Jaffee, Martin. "A Rabbinic Ontology of the Written and Spoken Word: On Discipleship, Transformative
Knowledge, and the Living Texts of Oral Torah," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 65:3
(1997): 525-549.
Jule, Allyson ed. Gender and the Language of Religion. New York/London: algrave/Macmillan,
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2005.
Keyworth, David. “The Aetiology of Vampiresnad Revenants: Theological Debate and Popular Belief”
Journal of Religious History 34.2 (June 2010): 158-173.
Kleinman, Arthur and Joan Kleinman. “How Bodies Remember: Social Memory and Bodily Experience
of Criticism, Resistance, and Delegitimation following China's Cultural Revolution.” New Literary
History 25.3 (Summer, 1994): 707-723.
Leder, Drew. “To Form one body” in The Absent Body. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990, pp.
149-173.
Louth, Andrw. “The body in Western Catholic Christianity” in Sarah Coakley, ed. 111-130
Manlowe, Jennifer. Faith Born of Seduction. New York: New York University Press, 1995,pp. 59-78.
Mason, Michael Atwood. "I Bow My Head to the Ground": The Creation of Bodily Experience in a
Cuban American Santería Initiation.” The Journal of American Folklore 107.423 Bodylore (Winter,
1994): 23- 39.
McGoldrick, Dominic. Human Rights and Religion—The Islamic Headscarf Debate in Europe. Oxford
and Portland: Hart, 2006, pp. 1-24.
McCutcheon, Russell, ed. The Insider/Outsider problem in the study of religion: a reader. London:
Cassell, 1999.
Midgley, Mary. “The Soul’s Successor: Philosophy and the ‘Body,’” in Sara Coakley ed. pp.53-68
Munn, Nancy. “The spatial presentation of cosmic order in Walbiri iconography” . In Primitive art and
society, ed. A Forge. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967. pp. 193-220.
Otto, Rudolph. “The idea of the holy” in McCutcheon (see above), pp. 74-81.
Ribeiro, Aileen. Dress and Morality. New York/Oxford: Berg, 2003, pp. 12-41.
Schenker, Joseph G. “Religious Views Regarding Treatment of Infertility by Assisted Reproductive
Technologies” Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics 9.1 (1992): 3-8.
Shaw, Rosalind. “Feminist anthropology and the gendering of religious studies”, in McCutcheon (see
above). pp.104-113.
Deirdre Sklar. “Can Bodylore Be Brought to Its Senses?” The Journal of American Folklore, 107. 43
(Winter, 1994): 9-22
Smith, Jonathan Z., “Religion, religions, religious” in Critical terms for religious studies, ed. Mark C.
Taylor. Unversity of Chicago Press, 1998. pp.69-84.
Spencer, Jonathan. Fatima and the enchanted toffees: an essay on contingency , narrative and therapy”
7
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 3.4 (Dec. 1997):693-710.
Staley, Erinn. “Sensing exclusions: Disability and the Protestant worship environment.” In Sensational
religion: Sensory cultures in material practice, Sally M. Promey, ed. (Yale University Press, 2014). Pp.
429-433.
Tripp, David. “The image of the body in the formative phases of the Protestant Reformation” in Sarah
Coakley, ed. 131-152
Tekcan, Munevver. “An overview of God and gender in religion” in Allyson Jule ed. (see above)
pp. 9-24.
Thompson, Stuart E., “Death, food and fertility” in Death ritual in late imperial and modern China, eds.
James. L Watson and Evelyn S. Rawski (University of California Press, 1988): 71-110
Tilley, Margaret A. "The Ascetic Body and the (Un)Making of the World of the Martyr,"
Journal of the America Academy of Religion 59 (1991): 467-479.
Turner, Victor, “Ritual symbolism, morality and social structure among the Ndembu” in African systems
of thought (Oxford University Press, 1965): 79-95.
Turner, Victor, “Betwixt and between: the liminal period in`Rites de passage’, in his The Forest of
symbols: aspects of Ndembu ritual (Cornell University Press, 1967): 93-111.
Waghorne, Joanne. “The Hindu gods in a split-level world: the Sri-Siva Vishnu Temple in suburban
Washington, DC” in Gods of the City: Religion and the Amerian landscape. Orsi, Robert,ed . Indian
University Press, 1999. pp. 103-130.
Weisenfeld, Judith. “Spiritual complexions: On race & the body in the Moorish Science Temple of
America.” In Sensational religion: Sensory cultures in material practice, Sally M. Promey, ed. (Yale
University Press, 2014. Pp. 413-428
Welsh, Robert and Kirk Endicott. Taking Sides: Clashing views on controversial issues in cultural
anthropology. Issue 10: Has the Islamic revolution in Iran subjugated women. McGraw Hill, 2003 , pp.
198-221.
Whitaker, Walter III. “The contemporary American funeral ritual,” in Ritual and Belief,
Readings in Anthropology of religion. David Hicks, ed. NY: McGraw-Hill, 2002, pp. 304-310.
Zito, Angela. “Body” Material Religion 7.1 (March 2011): 18-25.
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