About This Course

This course is designed to introduce students to key themes in theoretical and ethnographic writings on religion and ritual, from the early work of Emile Durkheim, Mary Douglas, Max Weber, and Victor Turner to more recent contributions on the relation between religion, embodiment, language and materiality. At the offset it is important to state that the course has a particular focus on Abrahamic religions, in particular Islam and Christianity. Although we will briefly explore anthropological debates on indigenous religions, this is not the focus of this course.