SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION (Freshman Seminar)

This is a course on the sociology of religion. It is planned as a freshman seminar. If there is room for non-freshman, so much the better; but we are going to run it as a freshman seminar. By which I mean: I assume that participants are new to college and new to sociology, much less to the sociology of religion. So at the same time that we shall learn something about the social bases of a rather fundamental feature of human life – the practice of religion – we are also going to learn about learning in college, and about sociology more generally.

The seminar will be organized around reading books, three most likely: One about some general ideas in the sociology of religion; one about the dynamic history of congregations and sects in the United States; and one about evangelicals and race, also in the United States. Sometimes we shall be using sociological ideas to understand the organization of religion.

Sometimes we shall use problems in religion to learn about general issues in the social sciences, such as the problem of collective action. This is a fancy-sounding term for something you may have encountered already: How do you get people to work together for a common purpose when any one person can reap the advantages of whatever the group is doing without actively participating: This is as much a problem when you are trying to run a religion as when you are trying to keep a common space in a dorm clean. There will also be an emphasis during the seminar in learning how to read, discuss, and think in an organized, productive fashion.