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The Rigor of Feeling: Spotlighting Affective Experience as Theory and Method in Religious Studies
Proposal abstract :
When first introduced to religious studies, students are often skeptical of the various truth claims and appeals to religious authority they encounter. Too often, the overriding notion that this discipline is only “rigorous” and “critical” when framed through the lens deductive reasoning continues to permeate class discussions, whereby something must be testable and replicable for us to arrive at “truth.” This project counters these assumptions by spotlighting affective ways of knowing as a method for minoritized thinkers to lay claim to religious epistemologies, making room for the power of shared experience over individual religious tutelage. By redesigning three lesson plans from 1) the premodern era, 2) the history of the early United States, and 3) 20th century Black experiences, students will be trained to account for and incorporate affect, emotion, and lived experience into conceptualizations of “heaven” and “hell.”
When first introduced to religious studies, students are often skeptical of the various truth claims and appeals to religious authority they encounter. Too often, the overriding notion that this discipline is only “rigorous” and “critical” when framed through the lens deductive reasoning continues to permeate class discussions, whereby something must be testable and replicable for us to arrive at “truth.” This project counters these assumptions by spotlighting affective ways of knowing as a method for minoritized thinkers to lay claim to religious epistemologies, making room for the power of shared experience over individual religious tutelage. By redesigning three lesson plans from 1) the premodern era, 2) the history of the early United States, and 3) 20th century Black experiences, students will be trained to account for and incorporate affect, emotion, and lived experience into conceptualizations of “heaven” and “hell.”