Interpreting Human Culture Through Religion/ Book Essay
The book to use for this assignment is called CROSSING & DWELLING: A theory of Religion, By: Thomas A. Tweed. It’s very important that this paper contains references and ideas from the book.
Assignment Details:
We are digging very deeply into considerations about how to analyze human culture. We are doing this by exploring religion as an experience of migration and homemaking. This is a highly theoretical unit, but the value in front-loading the theory in the course and using such a big topic as religion as a starting point is that it shows us how to experience something with which we’re all familiar in society in a new way. If we conceive of religion (our own religion, another person’s religion, a historical spiritual tradition, a particular religious practice in a specific geographical location, or all of the above!) as something that functions to orient humans in time and space and that operates, in Tweed’s words, as a “confluence of organic-cultural flows that intensify joy and confront suffering by drawing on human and suprahuman forces to make homes and cross boundaries” (54), then we might find that we understand practices, spaces, beliefs, and people who are “doing religion” in new ways and learn new things that we might not have otherwise been able to grasp quite as fully. The goal here is simply to understand human societies outside of our own a little better, and this is how we are starting that process.
So, for Unit 1, I’d like you to explore Tweed’s approach to understanding religion by analyzing and describing one human cultural product of any kind (whether religious or not) using this method of interpretation. I modeled it for you in the analysis of the Twelve Steps as a religion, and I’d like to see you thoroughly explore some aspect of humanity in any time and in any place through this interpretive framework. You can explore a sporting event, a building, a particular religious artifact or ritual, a text, or a work of art (or anything else you think would fit into this methodology). Think about some facet of human existence (preferably one that you aren’t overly familiar with) and use Tweed’s theory to explore it.
For this assignment, you’ll only need to reference Tweed and your own artifact/cultural product, so no formal citations are required (only page numbers and a bibliography with information on how to access any sources you used besides Tweed). For this very first assignment, I’m most interested in seeing that your brains are starting to process these abstract theories in a more material way and that you are generating new and thoughtful connections. So, while the assignment itself is not overly formal, I want to see some good thinking from you!
The required length for this assignment is 500-1000 words (approximately 2-4 pages). If you do use an outside source besides Tweed, please cite it using whatever citation style is appropriate for your field. For references to Tweed, simply note the page numbers that you’re referencing.
We can write this or a similar paper for you! Simply fill the order form!
