Religion, Power, and Practice

The turns to power and practice are among the most important recent events in the academic study of religion, and in the humanities generally. Power speaks of the ways in which social arrangements produce social differences, resulting in domination, cooperation, and resistance across lines of class, race, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. Practice speaks of what people do , a broader emphasis than prior emphases on what people think . This seminar will look at the social theorists who initiated these methodologies and some of the figures who have appropriated these theorists in the field of religious studies. Open to graduate students only.