Introduces the study of beliefs about the supernatural by examining diverse approaches to the description and analysis of belief traditions and religious culture.
Grading Options:
Optional; see degree guide or catalog for degree requirements
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June 30:
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July 2:
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July 10:
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July 10:
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Expanded Course Description
This course introduces students to the research questions and theoretical models used by folklorists and other cultural theorists in the study of beliefs that express the relationship of human beings to the "supernatural." We will examine a diversity of belief traditions and encounters as these are reflected within the context of narrative, ritual, healing, apparitions, pilgrimage, visions, and possession states. The course focuses on people’s lived experiences, beliefs, and practices—the “folk” or vernacular expressive culture that exists apart from institutionalized doctrine and authority. This class is not concerned with attempts to prove or disprove the existence of supernatural phenomena, but with the expression of popular beliefs, experiences, and traditions as these have been analyzed from various ethnographic and theoretical perspectives.
The course is organized to reflect specific topics and areas of research that have preoccupied folklorists and other scholars, and we will explore the issues and approaches that have informed their studies. Particular attention is given to the personal and cultural meanings of supernatural beliefs in relation to issues of community, gender, and ethnicity; the dynamics of religious institutional power and vernacular belief; the hegemonic or potentially oppositional aspects of supernatural belief; and the ways that folk beliefs about the supernatural may reflect existential anxieties and issues of ultimate concern.
This course fulfills a lower division requirement for the Folklore major and minor.
Course Fees: