Religion and Movement Politics

This course considers the relationship between religion and social movements in democratic societies. Political theorists often invoke social movements and the Civil Rights Movement, in particular, as examples of salutary political uses of religion. But what does ‘religion’ mean in these debates? What is its relationship to race and gender? And under what conditions – and to whom – do religions and social movements pose problems for democratic politics? This course explores these questions using a range of theoretical sources as well as historical, ethnographic and personal accounts of twentieth- and twenty-first-century social movements.