Religion and Violence

Abstract

OBJECTIVES Since September 11, 2001 the academy has committed considerable energies to the compound theme of “religion and violence.” (Some recent scholarship in this area has even been the work of specialists in the academic study of religion!) The fundamental aim of this course is to develop critical perspectives on such recent scholarly hyperactivity, especially as regards two marked tendencies. First, there is the widespread assumption that the events of 9-11 represented new experience or even a unique phenomenon. From a global historical perspective, however, this is highly unlikely. Thus this course will consider other case studies of “religious violence” in order to redirect the trend towards universalizing conclusions drawn from this most recent American experience. Second, the rubric “religion and violence,” which has been accepted in the academy to a remarkable degree since 9-11, will itself be scrutinized. Far from self-evident, the formulation is embedded in a considerable theoretical and ideological complex, including basic assumptions about the nature of violence as objective and absolute and the nature of religion as subjective, culturally relative, and so forth...