Dr. Richley H. Crapo                                                                 Study Guide 1         
Office: Main 245 C                                                                    Study Guide 2         
Office Hours: MWF, 10:30 - 11:20 AM                                    Study Guide 3
Telephone: (435) 797-1080
Email: Richley.Crapo@usu.edu
Websites: http://www.usu.edu/~sswa/menu.html
http://www/geocities/Heartland/Meadows/4377/

Anthropology Program Learning Goals Relevant to this Course:
    Disciplinary Knowledge:  Develop recognition of and respect for human differences.
    Skills and Career Competencies: Comprehend reading material appropriate to course levels.

Course Description:

Theoretical analysis of religion as a cultural phenomenon. The functional relationships between religion, culture, society, and the individual.

Text: Richley Crapo, Anthropology of Religion, McGraw-Hill, 2002

Recommended Readings: These are not required, but are simply made available for those who wish to explore a topic further. They are available in the Merrill Library as both hardcopy and electronic reserve materials. The password for the electronic copies is CRA3160.

Other required materials: 3 the large 8 1/2 by 11 inch, blue Scantrons from bookstore.

Tests: There will be three tests during the quarter (two midterms and a final), all of equal weight. Tests will cover both readings and the material discussed in class. Participation in classroom discussions is encouraged and may be rewarded with extra credit at the discretion of the instructor.

Accommodation to Disabilities: In cooperation with the Disability Resource Center, course material may be provided in alternative formats--e.g., large print, audio, diskette or Braille upon request. Any student who has a disability that will likely require some accommodation by the instructor should contact the instructor as early in the quarter as possible so that appropriate arrangements can be made. Additional supportive services are available through the Disability Resource Center.

Policy on Plagiarism and Cheating: A grade of "F" will be given for any assignment in which a student is found to have plagiarized or cheated. A second offense will result in a grade of "F" for the course.

Dropping Courses, Pass/Fail Option, and Incomplete Grades: It is your responsibility to monitor your own progress and to know the deadline for dropping the course if you are not satisfied with the grade you anticipate receiving. College policy does not permit to give incompletes to help students avoid an unsatisfactory grade. Incompletes are to be given only when unavoidable circumstances make it impossible for students to complete the course during the scheduled quarter.
 

COURSE OUTLINE AND ASSIGNMENTS:
 

TOPIC 1: TOWARD A DEFINITION OF RELIGION

Reading Assignment: Crapo, Forward and Chapter 1, "Anthropological Viewpoints about Religion"

1. Discussion: What is more central to religion--supernatural beliefs, a sense of the sacred, or values?

2. Discussion: How do religion and science differ in their methods and concepts? Are they complementary or incompatible?
 

Optional Supplementary Reading:

Different Approaches to Defining Religion:
W. Richard Comstock et al., "Toward a Definition of Religion"
Clifford Geertz, "Religion"
Clifford Geertz, "Religion as a Cultural System"
Rudolf Otto, "The Idea of the Holy" and "Mysterium Tremendum"

Science and Religion as Different Ways of Knowing:
David Knowlton, "No One Can Serve Two Masters: Or Native Anthropologist as Oxymoron"
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, "Witchcraft Explains Unfortunate Events"
James Lett, "Science, Religion, and Anthropology"
Lesslie A. White, "The Expansion of the Scope of Science"

Cognitive Definitions of Religion:
Edward Burnett Tylor, "Animism"
Stewart Elliott Guthrie, "The Origin of an Illusion"
Stewart Elliott Guthrie, "Religion, What is it?"
Richley H. Crapo, "More on a Cognitive Theory of Religion"
Richley H. Crapo, "A Cognitive Process View of Religion"
 

TOPIC 2: THE DIVERSITY OF RELIGIONS

Reading Assignment: Crapo, Chapter 2, "Diversity and Unity in the World's Religions"

3. Discussion: The diversity of religious beliefs and practices

4. Discussion:  Limitations on the diversity of religious beliefs and practices
 

Optional Supplementary Reading:

Ghosts and Fear of the Dead:
John Beattie, "The Ghost Cult of the Bunyoro"
Melford E. Spiro, "Ghosts, Ifaluk, and Teleological Functionalism"
Morris E. Opler, "An Interpretation of Ambivalence of Two American Indian Tribes"
 

TOPIC 3: EXPLORING THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION

Reading Assignment: Crapo, Chapter 3, "The Psychology of Religion"

5. Discussion: Stress, emotion, rituals, and catharsis in religion

6a. Film: Magical Death

6b. Discussion: Yanomamo Religion as Projection of Aggression

7. Discussion: The psychological functions of religion: religion and mental health

8a. Discussion: Altered states of consciousness: visions and hallucinations --the neuropsychology of religious experiences.

8b. Discussion: How are religious trance states related to socialization, societal tensions, and personality types?

9. Discussion: What do traditional religious healers and western psychotherapists have in common?

Article:  "Madness and Religion"
 

Optional Supplementary Readings:

The Visionary Experience:
Michael Harner, "Jivaro Souls"
Robert Lowie, "The Vision Quest Among the North American Indians"
Joan B. Townsend, "Shamanism"
Mircea Eliade, "Initiatory Dreams of the Samoyed Shamans"
Knud Rasmussen, "A Shaman's Journey to the Sea Spirit"

The Psychology of Witchcraft and Sorcery:
Edward J. Moody, "Urban Witches"
John Fritscher, "Straight From the Witch's Mouth"
S.F. Nadel, "Witchcraft in Four African Societies: An Essay in Comparison"
Anton LeVay, "Straight from the Witch's Mouth"

The Psychology of Ritual and Worship:
Anthony F.C. Wallace, "Rituals as Salvation"
Victor Turner, "Liminality and Communitas"
Anthony F.C. Wallace, "Dreams as Wishes of the Soul: A Type of Psychoanalytic Theory Among the Seventeenth Century Iroquois"

Altered States of Consciousness:
Michael Harner, "The Sound of Rushing Water"
Rodney Needham, "Percussion and Transition"
Michael Winkelman, "Altered States of Consciousness and Religious Behavior"
W.E.H. Stanner, "The Dreaming"
William F. Price and Richley H. Crapo, "Dreams from Culture to Culture"
Lehmann & Myers, Chapter 5, "Ethnomedicine: Religion and Healing"
Lehmann & Myers, Chapter 6, "Witchcraft and Sorcery"

The Religious use of Drugs:
Linnda R. Caporael, "Ergotism: The Satan Loosed in Salem?"
J.S. Slotkin, "The Peyote Way"
William F. Price and Richley H. Crapo, "Alcohol, Drugs, and Religion"

Spirit Possession and Spirit Travel Trances:
Erika Bourguignon, "Spirit Possession and Altered States of Consciousness"
Stanley A. and Ruth S. Freed, "Spirit Possession as Illness in a North Indian Village"
Simon D. Messing, "Group Therapy and Social Status in the Zar Cult of Ethiopia"
Harry D. Eastwell, "Voodoo Death and the Mechanism for Dispatch of the Dying in East Arnhem, Australia"

Exorcism and Curing:
Tamar Gordon, "The Interpretation of Conflict and Motives of the Dead in Tongan Spirit Possession"
John Gillin, "Magical Fright"
Knud Rasmussen, "An Eskimo Shaman Purifies a Sick Person"

The Psychology of Religious Curing:
Claude Levi-Strauss, "The Sorcerer and His Magic"
Robert Bergman, "A School for Medicine Men"
Milton Erikson, Ernest Rossi, & Sheila Rossi, "Multiple Levels of Communication: Analogy, Puns, Metaphor, Jokes, and Folk Language" and "Summary" from Hypnotic Realities

STUDY GUIDE FOR TEST 1

TOPIC 4: RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF SYMBOLS

Reading Assignment: Crapo, Chapter 4, "Religious Myths and Symbols"

10. Discussion: What do religious taboos reveal about the values of a society and how do taboos reinforce social stability?

11. Discussion: Is religion merely society's worship of itself?

12. Film: Moonblood

13. Discussion:  the structural analysis of myths--classic examples

14. Discussion:  the structural analysis of myths--contemporary examples
 

Optional Supplementary Reading:

Mana, Taboo and the Symbolic Order:
E. S. Craighill Handy, "Mana in Polynesia"
Mary Douglas, "Animals in Lele Religious Thought"
Robert Paul, "The Sherpa Temple as a Model of the Psyche"
Mary Douglas, "The Abominations of Leviticus"
Mary Douglas, "Taboo"

Myth and Symbols as Charter for Society:
Emile Durkheim, "The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life"
A.P. Elkin, "The Nature of Australian Totemism"
Eric Wolf, "The Virgin of Guadelupe: A Mexican National Symbol"

The Structural Study of Myths:

Mircea Eliade, "Myth"
Clyde Kluckhohn, "Myths and Rituals: A General Theory"
Claude Levi-Straus, "The Structural Study of Myth"
Richley Crapo, "Mormon Priesthood and Pantheon"
 

TOPIC 5: RELIGION AS EXPRESSIVE CULTURE

Reading Assignment: Crapo, Chapter 5, "Religion as Expressive Culture"

14. Discussion: Religion, play, art, love, and mental disorders: the fuzzy boundaries

15. Discussion: Natural symbols

16. Discussion: What does a religion reveal about a society's structure and values?
 
 

Optional Supplementary Reading:

Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown, "Taboo"
Guy Swanson, "The Supernatural: Its Nature and Origins"
 

17. TEST I
 

TOPIC 6: LANGUAGE AND RELIGION

Reading Assignment: Crapo, Chapter 6, "Language, Belief, and Religion"
    Barry Hoberman, "Translating the Bible" (Library Reserve)
    Harvey Minkoff, "Course Language in the Bible? It's Culture Shocking" (Library Reserve)

18. Discussion: Diversity within religion

19. Discussion: Religious language as a restricted code

20. Discussion: Is it possible to translate the sacred texts without distorting their religious messages?

21. Discussion: How does language influence religious thought?
 

Optional Supplementary Reading:

The Said and the Unsaid
David Clark Knowlton, "Intellectual Politics and the Unspeakable in Mormonism"
Richley Crapo, "LDS Rhetoric and the Politics of Same-Sex Marriage"
Gordon Shepherd, "The Social Construction of a Religious Prophecy"
John L. Sorenson, "'Being Wrong' in Mormon Thought"
Richley Crapo and Sharon Cannon, "Sex Role Values as Revealed by a Content Analysis of Official Teaching Materials: A Comparison and Evaluation"
Richley Crapo and Sharon Cannon, "LDS (Mormon) Values as Revealed by a Content Analysis of Official Teaching Materials"
 

TOPIC 7: ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE JUDEA-CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES

Reading Assignment (Library Reserve):
    Richley Crapo, "An Anthropologist Looks at the Judeo-Christian Scriptures"
    Gerald A. Larue, "How the Old Testament Was Written"
    Brian Hoberman, "Translating the Bible: An Endless Task"
    Jeffery L. Sheler, "Who Wrote the Bible?"

22. Discussion: Is the Bible simply a variant of ancient Near Eastern religions?

23. Discussion: The evolution of monotheism in ancient Judaism

24. Discussion: The origin of the Judeo-Christian canon

25. Discussion: The virtual archaeology of the Temple Mount
 

Optional Supplementary Reading:
The Origin of the Bible
Relationships with Other Near Eastern Cultures
"The Sumerian King List"
The Flood story from the "Epic of Gilgamesh"
Selections form "Genesis"
Samuel Noah Kramer, "Myths and Epics from Mesopotamia: A Sumerian Myth"
E.A. Speiser, "Akkadian Myths and Epics: The Creation Epic" and "Adapa"
 

TOPIC 8: RELIGIOUS PRACTICE: RITUAL, DIVINATION, AND MAGIC

Reading Assignment: Crapo, Chapter 7, "Religious Ritual"

26. Discussion: What are the psychological and social functions of ritual?

27. Discussion: Why do people practice rituals?

28. Discussion: How could magic be both "false" and "useful" at the same time?

29a. Film, "The Curing Ceremony"

29b. Discussion: How do rituals symbolize the stresses and tensions of social life?
 

Optional Supplementary Reading:

Magic and Ritual:
Anthony F.C. Wallace, "The Ritual Process"
Nathan L. Gerrard, "The Serpent-Handling Religions of West Virginia"
Mary Lee Daugherty, "Serpent-Handling as a Sacrament"
Bronislaw Malinowski, "The Role of Magic and Religion"

The Psychological Functions of Ritual:
James G. Frazer, "Sympathetic Magic"
Bronislaw Malinowski, "Rational Mastery by Man of His Surroundings"
Daniel K. Judd, "Religiosity, Mental Health, and the Latter-day Saints: A Preliminary Review of Literature (1923-1995)

The Process of Divination:
Lucy Mair, "Divination"
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, "Consulting the Poison Oracle Among the Azande"
Evon Z. Vogt, "Water Witching: An Interpretation of a Ritual Pattern in a Rural American Community"

The Social Functions of Ritual:
Max Gluckman, "Ritual"
Michael F. Brown, "Thinking About Magic"
David Knowlton, "Belief, Metaphor, and Rhetoric: The Mormon Practice of Testimony Bearing"
Richley H. Crapo, "Free Will and Obedience: The Role of Paradox in Mormon Myth and Ritual"
 

30. TEST II
 

TOPIC 9: THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF RELIGION

Reading Assignment: Crapo, Chapter 8, "Religious Social Organization"

31. Film "Pomo Shaman"

32. Discussion: How do shamans, priests, and prophets differ?

33. Discussion: What causes the professionalization of religious specialists and the declining role of charisma?

34. Discussion: Does growth inevitably change the nature of religious organizations and leadership?

35. Film: The Holy Ghost People

36. Discussion: Is religious ideology best defined by the beliefs of religious specialists or the beliefs of other followers, and how is it possible for the two to differ?
 

Optional Supplementary Reading:

Shamans and Prophets: Rituals and Trance States:
William Howells, "The Shaman: A Siberian Spiritualist"
Victor W. Turner, "Religious Specialists"
Brian Wilson, "Kut: Catharsis, Ritual Healing or Redressive Strategy?"
Asen Balikci, "Shamanistic Behavior Among the Netsilik Eskimos"
Julian Silverman, "When Schizophrenia Helps"

Priests, Pastors, and Theologians:
Robert H. Lowie, "Shamans and Priests Among the Plains Indians"
Bernardino de Sahagun, "Aztec Sacrifice"
Joachim Wach, "The Priest"

Bureaucratization:
Richley Crapo, "Schismatic Movements in Contemporary Mormonism: An Evaluation of Weber's Concepts of Religious Change"
D. Michael Quinn, "From Sacred Grove to Sacral Power Structure"

Diversity Within Religion--The Mormon Case:
Janet L. Dolgin, "Latter-Day Saint Sense and Substance"
John L. Sorenson, "Mormon Folk and Mormon Elite"
Richley H. Crapo, "Grass-Roots Deviance from Official Doctrine: A Study of Latter-Day Saint (Mormon) Folk Beliefs"
John Heeren, Donald B. Lindsey, and Maylee Mason, "The Mormon Concept of Mother in Heaven: A Sociological Account of Its Origins and Development"
 

TOPIC 10: RELIGION AND SOCIETY

Reading assignment:  Crapo, chapter 9, "Religion and Society"

37a. Discussion: Religion, politics, and the social order

37b. Discussion:  State churches and civil religion

38. Film: To Serve the Gods

39. Discussion: Religion and economics

40a. Discussion: Religion and gender

40b. Film: "Our God is a Woman"
 

Optional Supplementary Readings:

Myths, Symbols, and Gender

Peggy Reeves Sanday, "Scripts for Female Power"
Bonnie Glass-Coffin, "Female Healers"
Mary Nelson, "Why Witches Were Women"
Phyllis Chesler, "The Walls Came Tumbling Down"
Charles F. Keyes, "Mother or Mistress But Never a Monk"
Mary Daly, "Indian Suttee"
David Kinsley, "Devotion as an Alternative to Marriage in the Lives of Some Hindu Women Devotees"
Asha Ramesh and H.P. Philomena, "The Devadasi Problem"
Niki Holmes Kantzios, "Holy Harlots and Temple Dogs - Sacred Prostitution in the Ancient Near East"
Anders Sandberg, "The Priestesses of Inanna"
 
 

TOPIC 11: THE CULTURAL ECOLOGY OF RELIGION

Reading Assignment: Crapo, chapter 10, "Religious Adaptation and Change"

(Library Reserve):

Marvin Harris, "Riddle of the Pig"
Marvin Harris, "Mother Cow"
Omar Khayyam Moore, "Divination--A New Perspective"
George Gmelch, "Baseball Magic"

41. Discussion: What role does religion play in the survival of a society?

42. Discussion: The adaptive functions of the Hebrew forbidden pig.

43. Discussion: The adaptive functions of the Hindu sacred cow.
 

Supplementary Reading:

Leonard Arrington, "An Economic Interpretation of the 'Word of Wisdom'"
Marvin Harris, "Broomsticks and Sabbats"
Marvin Harris, "The Great Witch Craze"
 

TOPIC 12: STABILITY AND CHANGE IN RELIGION
 

Reading Assignment: Crapo, Chapter 9, "Religious Adaptation and Change"

44. Discussion: How do rituals influence our feelings and our sense of belonging to a human community?

45. Discussion: Why does societal stress give birth to new religious movements?

46. Discussion: How can science and modernization stimulate religious fundamentalism?
 
 

Supplementary Reading:

The Adaptive Basis of Religious Practice:
Michael Harner, "The Ecological Basis of Aztec Cannibalism"
Roy A. Rappaport, "Ritual Regulation of Environmental Relations Among a New Guinea People"
J. Stephen Lansing, "Balinese 'Water Temples' and the Management of Irrigation"

Adaptation and Change:
Robert N. Bellah, "Religious Evolution"
Rodney Stark, "The Rise of New World Faith"
Rodney Stark, "The Basis of Mormon Success: A Theoretical Application"

Syncretism:
Melville J. Herskovits, "African Gods and Catholic Saints in New World Religious Belief"
Karen McCarthy Brown, "Voodoo"
Richley Crapo: "Zuni Art and Roman Catholicism in New Mexico"

The Revitilization Process:
Cyril S. Belshaw, "The Significance of Modern Cults in Melanesian Development"
Marvin Harris, "Phantom Cargo"
A.F.C. Wallace, "Revitilization Movements"
Peter M. Worsley, "Cargo Cults"

Fundamentalism and the Stresses of Modernization:
Harold W. Pfautz, "The Sociology of Secularization: Religious Groups"
David Knowlton, "On Mormon Masculinity"
Stan L. Albrecht, Marie Cornwall, and Perry H. Cunningham, "Religious Leave-Taking: Disengagement and Disaffiliation Among Mormons"

Secularization:
Bryan Wilson, "Secularization and Its Discontents"
Fatima Mernissi, "Muslim Women and Fundamentalism"
Robert N. Bellah, "America's Civil Religion"
Stan L. Albrecht and Tim B. Heaton, "Secularization, Higher Education, and Religiosity"
 

47. FINAL EXAM