Politics and religion

Discussions: 1 session / week, 2 hours / session

This course surveys recent social science literature on politics and religion. The first objective of the course is to familiarize students with the existing theoretical literature and empirical research. The second objective to evaluate recent research on the role of religious actors, institutions, and ideologies in policymaking, state-building, democratic politics, regime change, conflict, war, and other political processes.

Because this course is primarily a reading seminar, class attendance and participation are crucial. Everyone is expected to complete the reading before class every week and to contribute actively to class discussions. "Cold calls" may sometimes be used, although comments contributed will only help, and not hurt, one's grade.

Participants will write five short response papers (750 - 1000 words) that critically discuss a given week's readings. You may also write more than five papers and drop the least successful one from your grade. To ensure unbiased grading, please put your name on a separate page at the end of the paper.

Each seminar participant is also expected to serve as discussion leader for a class session in a week for which they have not written a response paper.

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