State, Religion, Nationalism

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This is a seminar course aiming to discuss issues around state, religion and nationalism using a big questions driven and comparative approach. Some of the big topics we will include are state-building and state power, emergence of the nation-state, prevalence and use of nationalism in politics, meaning and shortcomings of democracy, problems arising at the intersection of religion and politics, such as secularism, fundamentalism, and right-wing politics. The main goals of this course will be to provide students with an overview of the building theoretical blocks from sociology in general and political sociology in particular to discuss these issues; and familiarize them with some of the analytic frameworks and tools sociologists use to understand the complications that arise from the use and abuse of the power that come with the state(s) appropriation and/or relationship with nationalism and religion that surround our lives today. Throughout the course we will use a range of classical theory readings and more contemporary works, a close look at American politics as well as lots of comparative studies from the Middle East and other parts of the developing world.