Fred Glennon, Ph.D. (Courses)
Professor (RH 227)
Department of Religious Studies
Le Moyne College
Syracuse, New York 13214 
(315) 445-4774

REL 300
(50 Course Schedule)

 

Date

Class Topics and Reading Assignments

1/22

Introductions, Class Covenant and Review of materials on Blackboard and my course web site

  • Fred Glennon, "Promoting Freedom, Responsibility, Learning in the Classroom:  The Learning Covenant A Decade Later,” Teaching Theology and Religion, 2008, vol. 11 no. 1, pp 32–41. (This essay, on Blackboard, will provide a framework for the pedagogical style I use in this class.)
  • Read Syllabus and Learning Covenant materials (learning covenant guidelines, activity options) on Blackboard (http://blackboard.lemoyne.edu) or my web page (http://web.lemoyne.edu/~glennon/rel300.htm). Be ready to discuss them when we start class.

1/29

Why Religion and Healing?

  • Edith Turner, “Taking Seriously the Nature of Religious Healing in America,” in Religion and Healing in America, 387-404.
  • Horace Miner, "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" American Anthropologist (on Blackboard).

Religion and Medicine as Cultural Systems

  • Clifford Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System,” in Interpretation of Cultures (Basic Books 1977), 87-125 (on Blackboard).  (Click here for questions to help guide your reading of Geertz.)
  • David Kinsley, "The Ideology of Modern Medical Culture," in Health, Healing, and Religion, 168-184 (on Blackboard) 

2/5

Defining Health, Illness, Culture and Religion

·        Kinsey, Health, Healing and Religion (Prentice-Hall), chapter 8 (pp. 71-83 on electronic reserve).

·        Sered and Barnes, “Introduction,” in Religion and Healing in America (3-26).

A Spectrum of Religion and Healing

  • Martin Marty, "Religion and Healing: The Four Expectations," in Religion and Healing in America Barnes and Sered, 487-504

Supplemental Reading:

Caring for Patients from Different Cultures, 1-19, 50-63.

 

(Learning Covenants Due)

2/12

Mainline Christian

  • Bobbie McKay and Lewis Musil, “The ‘Spiritual Healing Project’:  A Study of the Meaning of Spiritual Healing in the United Church of Christ,” in Religion and Healing in America, 49-57.
  • Jennifer Hollis, “Healing into Wholeness in the Episcopal Church,” in Religion and Healing in America, 89-101.

Sectarian Christian

·         Claude Jacobs, “Rituals of Healing in African American Spiritual Churches,” in Religion and Healing in America, 333-341.

·         Stephie Mitchem, “’Jesus is My Doctor”:  Healing and Religion in African American Women’s Lives,” in Religion and Healing in America, 281-290.

2/19

Healing in Jewish and Islamic Traditions

  • Susan Sered, "Healing as Resistance: Reflections upon New Forms of American Jewish Healing," in Religion and Healing in America, 231-252. (Debbie Friedman songs)
  • Marcia Hermansen, "Dimensions of Islamic Religious Healing in America," in Religion and Healing in America, 407-422.

Asian Religions (Buddhist and Hindu)

  • Paul Numrich, "Complementary and Alternative Medicine in America's 'Two Buddhisms,'" in Religion and Healing in America, 343-358.
  • Prakash Desai, "Health, Faith Traditions, and South Asian Indians in North America," in Religion and Healing in America, 423-438.
  • Ayurvedic Medicine
  • "How Yoga Heals," from Yoga Basics

2/26

Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture

 

Vodun and Santeria

  • Karen McCarthy Brown, "Making Wanga: Reality Constructions and the Magical Manipulation of Power," in Religion and Healing in America, 173-194
  • Other readings TBA

3/5

New Age:  Energy Healing and Wicca

  • Robert Fuller, "Subtle Energy and the American Metaphysical Tradition," in Religion and Healing in America, 375-386.
  • Scientific American video, "Therapeutic Touch"
  • NIH, Reiki Video
  • Grove Harris, "Healing in Feminist Wicca," in Religion and Healing in America, 253-263.
  • J. Gordon Melton, "Wicca," at Religious Tolerance.Org
  • NIH, “Energy Medicine:  An Overview”

 

Metaphysical Traditions

 

·        Christian Science Healing

·        Mary Baker Eddy, “Science, Theology, and Medicine,” in Science and Health (www. Spirituality.com)

·        Christian Science Healing Resources

·        Helping Others Recover from Illness and Injuries,” Scientology Handbook (http://www.scientologyhandbook.org/SH6.HTM)

3/12

Spring Break (No Classes)

3/19

Shamanism

  • David Kinsley, “Shamanic Healing,” (on electronic reserve and Blackboard)
  • Phua Xiong, et. al, "Hmong Shamanism: Animist Spiritual Healing in America's Urban Heartland," in Religion and Healing in America, 439-454.
  • Shamanic Healing

 

Saints and Faith Healers

  • Robert Orsi, "The Cult of the Saints and the Reimagination of the Space and Time of Sickness in Twentieth-Century American Catholicism," in Religion and Healing in America, 29-48
  • Gaston Espinosa, "God Made a Miracle in My Life: Latino Pentecostal Healing in the Borderlands," in Religion and Healing in America, 123-138.

3/26

Exorcists and Exorcism

Pain, Suffering, Theodicy

  • Jerome Groopman, "Matt" (on Blackboard)
  • Arthur Frank, "The Quest Narrative" (on Blackboard)
  • Margaret E. Mohrmann, "Someone is Always Playing Job," 62-79 (on Blackboard)

Supplemental Reading:

Galanti, Caring for Patients from Different Cultures, 41-49.

4/2

Film Presentation and Book Discussion

  • C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

4/9

Easter Break (No class)

4/16

Religious Views of Sexuality (Homosexuality)

  • Tanya Erzen, "Sexual Healing: Self-Help and Therapeutic Christianity in the Ex-Gay Movement," in Religion and Healing in America, 265-280.

Medical Rejections of Religious Practice

(Ritual Observance Papers Due)

4/23

Religious Rejections of Medical Practice

  • "Healing by Prayer not Medicine," excerpts from ReligiousTolerance.org (on Blackboard)

The Faith Factor in Healing

  • Jeff Levin, God, Faith, and Health: Exploring the Spirituality-Healing Connection, chapter 1(on Blackboard).

 (Final revisions for learning covenants)

(Ritual Observance Papers Due)

4/30

Ethical Issues Surrounding Health Care Availability (Last Day of Class)

5/7

Final Exam (6:00-8:30pm)