Global Religion and Politics, 14FS
This fall semester, I had the opportunity to take an honors seminar that focused around the relationship between religion and politics around the world. I felt that this class would be beneficial for me specifically since I’m getting a minor in anthropology and also since environmental issues can be entrapped within larger political and/or religious issues in certain regions.
The course was based mainly around class discussion, and we were given the chance to talk about readings and issues that relate to themes within global religion and politics. Our professor, Dr. Laura Jenkins, chose themes such as communities, memories (or how religion affects the way political issues are remembered in the long term), and freedom in the religious and political sphere. Hearing the different points of view of my peers was especially beneficial for me because I don’t feel like I know very much about religion and its relationship to politics in general—aside, at least, from topics that are currently popular in world news. Because this was an honors seminar, we all came from different disciplinary backgrounds and had different interests/levels of knowledge about the topics brought up in class. I think this made the class even more interesting because we all brought our own views to the table, helping to create more in depth class conversation.
What I enjoyed most about the course though were the field trips to institutions representing different religions, mainly because I know that without this course, I would have never taken the time to educate myself about religion in a hands-on way. We had three different trips: the Skirball Museum at Hebrew Union College, the Islamic Association of Cincinnati (otherwise referred to as the Clifton Mosque), and the Creation Museum, which is associated with Christian Fundamentalism. Growing up in an Orthodox Christian family, I knew very little about these religious affiliations prior to our visits, so I learned a lot through these trips. I will admit though that, especially as a former anthropology major and now minor, the Creation Museum was hard for me to swallow as it seemed a sort of ridiculous and non-educational representation of its affiliated religion (hence why I took the most photos there). I went in there really trying to have an open mind, but I still couldn’t help but visibly cringe at most of the exhibits, so that may be the only lesson I learned from that visit.
I also had the opportunity in this class to explore a topic of my choice relating to religion and politics through a research paper, which we worked on throughout the entire semester and presented to our peers on the final few days of the class. I chose to explore feminism for Hindu women, specifically in India, and how female figures within Hinduism can be utilized to promote feminism for Hindu women and can strengthen the Hindu feminist movement. I wanted to explore this topic because feminism is so different all throughout the world, and Hindu women in India face vastly different issues related to oppression than I do. I believe that as a feminist—and especially as a white, Western feminist—one has to be inclusive of the issues that women in other regions of the world face and understand their versions of feminism to be supportive of one another. Western, white feminism gets a bad reputation for historically not being inclusive, so I feel that by looking into this issue, it helped me put feminism in perspective more, and has in some part also prepared me for my trip to Gujarat, India with my Environmental Journalism course this March. Because of the personal importance of this project, I have included my research paper and the presentation that accompanied it as my artifacts for this course along with some pictures from the Skirball Museum and the Creation Museum (I didn’t take photos in the Mosque mainly out of respect).
The course was based mainly around class discussion, and we were given the chance to talk about readings and issues that relate to themes within global religion and politics. Our professor, Dr. Laura Jenkins, chose themes such as communities, memories (or how religion affects the way political issues are remembered in the long term), and freedom in the religious and political sphere. Hearing the different points of view of my peers was especially beneficial for me because I don’t feel like I know very much about religion and its relationship to politics in general—aside, at least, from topics that are currently popular in world news. Because this was an honors seminar, we all came from different disciplinary backgrounds and had different interests/levels of knowledge about the topics brought up in class. I think this made the class even more interesting because we all brought our own views to the table, helping to create more in depth class conversation.
What I enjoyed most about the course though were the field trips to institutions representing different religions, mainly because I know that without this course, I would have never taken the time to educate myself about religion in a hands-on way. We had three different trips: the Skirball Museum at Hebrew Union College, the Islamic Association of Cincinnati (otherwise referred to as the Clifton Mosque), and the Creation Museum, which is associated with Christian Fundamentalism. Growing up in an Orthodox Christian family, I knew very little about these religious affiliations prior to our visits, so I learned a lot through these trips. I will admit though that, especially as a former anthropology major and now minor, the Creation Museum was hard for me to swallow as it seemed a sort of ridiculous and non-educational representation of its affiliated religion (hence why I took the most photos there). I went in there really trying to have an open mind, but I still couldn’t help but visibly cringe at most of the exhibits, so that may be the only lesson I learned from that visit.
I also had the opportunity in this class to explore a topic of my choice relating to religion and politics through a research paper, which we worked on throughout the entire semester and presented to our peers on the final few days of the class. I chose to explore feminism for Hindu women, specifically in India, and how female figures within Hinduism can be utilized to promote feminism for Hindu women and can strengthen the Hindu feminist movement. I wanted to explore this topic because feminism is so different all throughout the world, and Hindu women in India face vastly different issues related to oppression than I do. I believe that as a feminist—and especially as a white, Western feminist—one has to be inclusive of the issues that women in other regions of the world face and understand their versions of feminism to be supportive of one another. Western, white feminism gets a bad reputation for historically not being inclusive, so I feel that by looking into this issue, it helped me put feminism in perspective more, and has in some part also prepared me for my trip to Gujarat, India with my Environmental Journalism course this March. Because of the personal importance of this project, I have included my research paper and the presentation that accompanied it as my artifacts for this course along with some pictures from the Skirball Museum and the Creation Museum (I didn’t take photos in the Mosque mainly out of respect).
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