RELG 346 - Religion & Politics in the United States

Credits: (3)
College Curriculum: COLL 200, COLL 350
Domain (Anchored): CSI
Domain (Reaching Out): ALV

A critical investigation of the relationship between religion, politics, and social identities in the United States, historically and today. Course topics may include: the contested meaning of, and diversity of appeals to, “religious freedom” (the “free exercise” of religion) in America; the separation of church and state (“disestablishment,” its history, and challenges to it); key Supreme Court cases impacting the place and shifting meaning of “religion” in American society; the influence of white Christian nationalism and the Religious Right in American politics; effects of settler colonialism and U.S. state actions upon Native American and African-American cultural and religious life; the relationship between race and religion; Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and challenges faced by religious minorities in the U.S.; and American discourses of multiculturalism, tolerance, and religious pluralism.