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Course module: UCHUMREL23
UCHUMREL23
Religions in the Public Domain
Course info
Course codeUCHUMREL23
EC7.5
Course goals
After completing this course students are able to:
  • Demonstrate basic knowledge about history and theology of Judaism and Islam, in particular related to their religious and cultural practices;
  • Identify why and how Judaism and Islam cope with pressures to manifest their religious identities either in a public or a private sphere;
  • Critically discuss texts, material culture and practices of Jews and Muslims and relate these to their historical contexts;
  • Operate with contemporary theories about religion and the body in the public domain in Western societies and to assess their heuristic value for studying historical contexts;
  • Analyze examples of body-practices in Judaism and Islam using adequate methods and theories
  • Relate contemporary examples of expressions of religious bodily presence in the public sphere with the surrounding culture;
  • Carry out a small scale research based on a critical analysis of secondary and primary sources.
Content
The course focuses on the idea of the body in the “public domain” as a key concept in social science to the formation, transmission, reception and shifting nature of Jewish and Muslim traditions past and present. It assesses meaning and function of the body to articulate and present religious identity in the public sphere. It also tries to tackle the question as to why it is so important for specific Jewish or Muslim groups to be visibly present in the public sphere; and why religion is not primarily structured as a privatized practice or set of convictions. In that sense, it will particularly take into account the question how Jewish and Muslim scholars have understood their physical presence in the non-Jewish/Muslim, European societies. Since various religious practices are expressed in forms of presentation and use of the body, three issues will be dealt with in particular: circumcision, clothing, including hairdressing, and purity.

In the part of Judaism, discussion of these issues is preceded by a general introduction in Judaism, each class discussing Jewish identity in its systematic, historical, or hermeneutic aspects. Following this, some in depth discussions of body-related religious practices introduce the main topics: circumcision, Jewish clothing, and ritual purity.

As for Islam, we will first of all focus on the foundational texts which shape the Muslim world view, especially religious performative practices as defined in Islamic law and manifested in the public sphere. By discussing various issues related to the human body and Islamic “revivalism,” we shall see how Muslims try to legitimate their action in public life. Are Muslim allowed to live in a non-Muslim domain? How far can they actively engage themselves in a non-Muslim majority society? Is apostasy in Islam public or private? How can we understand the issues of dress, veiling and male-female segregation in Islam between theory and practice? What are the limitations imposed on the autonomy of the human body?
 
Format
The course is divided into two sections, one about Judaism, one about Islam. The class meets twice a week for two hours. Students are expected to come to each session well prepared to discuss the readings and to make thoughtful contributions to the learning process. This includes executing tasks in advance set for the ‘Workshops’.

In each section each individual student makes a short theoretical exam that will check his/her knowledge of central terminology, basic historical facts and essential concepts of each religion, based on the theory presented in class and the literature studied during each section of the course. Following this, each student will prepare and execute a comparative research of a specific topic of Jewish and/or Islamic Bodily Presence as location of (religious) identity.
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Kies de Nederlandse taal