This course is designed to familiarize students with the anthropology of religion by addressing central topics and major thinkers. Lectures will be organized around key topics that have formed debate in the anthropology of religion, and which continue to be of fundamental importance for anthropologists today. This course will include the question of belief (associated with the debate and overlaps between science and religion), the classification of nature, the definition of efficacy of ritual, rites of passage, moralization (Durkheim) and theories of myth. In addition, we will focus on the “disenchantment of the world” and Weber's approach to religion and discuss the relationship between religion and ideology.
Roles of religions in processes of social change, functions of religions in contemporary world, secularism-religion, religion-nation-state relations, anthropological history of religion, religious experiences, dynamics of religious change, dreams, myths, rituals, fortune telling, theories of magic, shamanism, healing.