From the calendar: "The study of private and public rituals which relate society to the supernatural; magical beliefs and practices and the sociological and epistemological dimensions of witchcraft."

This is an advanced course in the anthropology of religion. Because the course is designed on an experimental, debate / dialogue model, having taken two or three religion or anthropology courses, or being an honours student in either field, will be beneficial.

Course Goals

The course is built around 4 questions and three ways of demonstrating your ability to answer them.

You will explore 1 question by participation in the debate process. Group members will assist in the evaluation process. After your team finishes, you will be given a tentative mark. At the end of the course, that mark can have as many as 10 percentage points added or subtracted it (it may also remain the same), based on evaluative questions such as: Which group (pro or con) won the debate? Which team did the best job with its question? Who most facilitated your learning? Did you attend class and participate in discussions? 1/3 of your final grade.

You will consider 1 of the questions in a written paper in dialogue format (8 pp. maximum, not counting endnotes and bibliography). PAPER DUE AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS, APRIL 3. You may submit it earlier if you wish. 1/3 of your final grade.

You will answer at 2 of the four questions on the final examination. The final will contain all four questions, but you may (or, have to) answer only the two that you have not yet dealt with. FINAL EXAM DATE SET BY REGISTRAR. 1/3 of your final grade.

1. David Young, ed., Being Changed. A collection of provocative but uneven essays on doing fieldwork and encountering hard-to-explain phenomena.

2. T.M. Luhrman, Persuasions of the Witch's Craft. A fieldstudy on witches by a single author.

3. Ronald Grimes, ed., Readings in Ritual Studies. A collection of key writings on the topic. The longest book, but only some of it will be read; has abstracts. The following selections are probably the ones most relevant to the dialogue / debate question: Bergesen, Crapanzano, d'Aquili, Davis-Floyd, Douglas, Driver, Durkheim, Freud, Geertz, Gill, Goffman, Grimes, Jennings, Kertzer, Laird, Levi-Strauss, Myerhoff, Rappaport, Schechner, Smith (J.Z.), Staal, Turner (x 2).

Optional (not required): Stanley Tambiah, Magic, Science, Religion and the Scope of Rationality. Philosophical and historical discussion of the difficulties in conceiving magic, science, and religion. A hard but short read.

Reserve: On reserve as some books about debating. It is worth spending a couple of hours with one of them.

The course is structured around four five-week cycles:

January

February

March

April

The class will be organized into 4 teams of approximately 12 members each. The job of each team is to facilitate the class's exploration of its question. The debate / dialogue is the main way of accomplishing this task, but others are possible, e.g., handouts, annotated bibliography of secondary resources, study suggestions regarding key articles, crucial quotations, etc. Each team is responsible for presenting a debate or dialogue in class on one of the following questions or a variant of it:

1. Each team will be divided into 2 groups of 6 members each: a pro group (that is, would answer the questions "yes") and a con group (would answer it "no"). It is not necessary to be in the group you think is right.

2. Members of each group will have to work closely together but may wish to work out a tentative or preliminary division of labor. For instance, here is one possibility:

3. Except for 4 introductory and concluding sessions, the course will be devoted to preparation and presentations of the four questions. Each team will have at its disposal 5 class sessions. Although they may be used in any way the team wishes, a suggested cycle is this:

4. The debates

These happen in the last session of each cycle. They should take a little over an hour.

Debates

Dialogues

5. Evaluations

Each debate is evaluated by use of a ballot. You are required to fill it out and to provide comments. These are for evaluating teams, not individuals.

Each team member is evaluated by other team members by yourself. You are required to fill out an evaluation that is both descriptive and evaluative. These are for individual group members.

The quality and quantity of your comments on both of these is taken into account in your final mark.

6. The Gallery

The gallery consists of students not on the current debate team.

Gallery members should attend the Pro and Con planning sessions but should not pass on information from one group to the other.

Gallery members may be asked to participate in discussions in both planning sessions and debates. Occasionally, they may be asked to refrain from participating.

As a gallery member, you should take notes during the debate or when your memory is still fresh, so as to

7. Class-, Team-, and Group-Communication

The computerized discussion list is fast becoming a standard device for scholarly discussion at a distance. On mach1 I have set up a discussion list for members of this course. It is called AR (for: anthropology / religion). Instructions for using it are appended to this syllabus. You should subscribe to it immediately. It is for general discussion and debate, also for coordinating teams and groups.

Teams, because they are large, may find it best to "converse" over this list rather than trying to find a meeting time. Groups too can converse over the list, but they will be more effective if they find a time for two or three face-to-face meetings. When you are querying a specific subdivision of the class, you will make it easier for all of us if you identify your message in the subject line as "TEAM 1," "TEAM 4, GROUP B," etc. If a group wants to have private e-mail discussion, consult Computing Services Help Desk about how to create a group in your Pine mailer.

A dialogue is not the same as a conversation, transcript, or interview.

A conversation usually meanders. It has dead ends, is repetitious, drifts among topics, and does not move directly to the heart of the matter. In contrast, a dialogue is written and edited to minimize deadens and small talk. It has a clear focus, moving toward a specified question.

An interview is a conversation in which one party functions as question-asker; the other, as answer-giver. Typically, the interviewer's lines are short; the interviewee's, long and speech-like. A dialogue, on the other hand, aims at mutual interchange.

A transcript is the written record of an actual conversation or interview. A dialogue, however, is edited and shaped; in this sense it is fictional, an imagined discussion, even if based on a real interview, real character, or real author.

The following are criteria upon which dialogues will be judged:

Cecilia: I thought that the two discussions might work well together. I think that the most powerful message in Black Elk Speaks is one of partnership, between two men who were able to bridge a vast gap in order to communicate and offer something valuable to both of their cultures.

Johnstone: I agree that their collaboration was unusual, but I also think that the differences between them create textual problems for later readers, both Indian and white.

Cecilia: What are the specific problems you see? Although the men spoke different languages and were part of disparate cultures, they created a book which has helped preserve one man's life story and spiritual vision, as well as an account of Lakota spirituality for younger generations. It's part of the "canon" of native literature now; Vine Deloria called it a "Bible".

Johnstone: But is the representation of that culture and of the Black Elk's life valid? Cecilia, you are ignoring all of the gaps in Neihardt's narrative, all of the misrepresentations and blatant omissions that obscure parts of Black Elk's life.

Cecilia: Are you referring to his role as a catechist in the Roman Catholic Church?

Johnstone: To that, yes, but more specifically to the way he used the English language to represent Black Elk, and...

Cecilia: Wait. Stop. Let's deal with this issue first. DeMallie (1984) suggests that the period of Black Elk's Catholicism presents the biggest gap in our understanding of the man. However, in the same article he refers to Black Elk's feeling that Neihardt had been sent to--and I think these are DeMallie's words -- "save his vision for the world" (DeMallie 1984: 118). Neither Black Elk nor Neihardt was interested in discussing Catholic religion. Black Elk wanted to transmit his vision, and Neihardt wanted to learn about Lakota religion and the Ghost Dance.

Johnstone: Your point is well taken. However, I still question the validity of a lifestory that ignores thirty years of a man's life. But I don't want to become sidetracked into a discussion of Catholicism. Let's look at the gaps within the actual narrative. For one thing, Neihardt minimized the emphasis on warfare in the vision, and foregrounded the parts of the vision that had to do with the power to heal (53). So this great vision that Indians and whites find so enchanting is missing integral elements of the old Lakota society.

Cecilia: Yes, Johnstone, but you forget that I've read the same article. On the next page DeMallie suggests that the warlike themes were suppressed by both Black Elk and Neihardt, albeit for different reasons, and that they developed a similar understanding of the vision (54). I really don't understand why you are trying to depreciate the value of this book. Over and over I hear critics speak of the powerful relationship between these two men.

Johnstone: I'm not trying to undermine the book, but I don't think we ought to get sentimental about what a wonderful heritage it is for young Indians to have this great work, and how fortunate it is that Neihardt happened to find Black Elk interesting and valuable. It is dangerous to ignore issues of power and control, even if there was a deep understanding between the two men. The book is still an example of a white man representing a colonized culture in white language; it is a white man's interpretation of Black Elk that is forming the so-called canon of American Indian literature.

Cecilia: I can't believe that you hold such a cynical view, that you completely ignore the energy between these two men. What about Neihardt's statement that there were times when "barriers of language" disappeared (Iverson 1994: 106), or DeMaille's suggestion that they had "kindred mystic souls" (DeMaille 1984: 124)?

Johnstone: I appreciate your admiration of the rapport these two men established, but you can't deny that Neidhardt had control of this situation. Black Elk narrated the story, but Neihardt had unchecked authority over the resulting narrative. And regardless of his best intentions, his position in the culture of power influenced the way he wrote the book.

There is a computer list for this course. It will allow us to communicate electronically about the content and learning process taking place in RE/AN322. After you have subscribed to this list, feel free to contribute to it in whatever ways seem best to you. If you contribute well, that is, in a way that enhances other people's learning, additional points may be added to your final mark.

Here's how to subscribe to this list:

How users can subscribe themselves

How to send a message to the list

How to receive mail from the list in digest form

Those NOT on Team 1: Remember that, if you are not on Team 1, you need to decide whether to write a dialogue on THE FIELDWORK QUESTION. If you are, it is due FEB. 4 (see syllabus), after the discussion following the actual debate. If you are not going to write a dialogue on the fieldwork question, it automatically becomes one of your final exam questions.

Come and listen to the discussions of Team 1's Pro and Con groups. Remember that you will not be writing a debate but rather a dialogue, and your dialogue must not merely imitate the debate (any more than you can write a paper which imitates one of your sources); use the debate as a source just as you would a book; give credit where credit is due. So take note of provocative and problematic interchanges.

Example of an interchange:

If you are planning to write a dialogue or use dialogue style on the exam, the discussions among group members may help you as much as the debates themselves.

Since the question has arisen: For a written dialogue, provide the basic question you are working on in the title. You may also, if you like, frame the question in a brief prose introduction or in the opening portion of the dialogue itself. You may wish to reframe the question. The question need not be identical with the debate resolution on the same topic, but it does need to be on the same general topic, e.g., fieldwork on extraordinary experiences, definitions of ritual, etc. Sub-questions arise in dialogues, and that is fine, but they should be related to your central question. A good dialogue does not jump around among various topics.

Also in response to a student query about dialogue characters: Work to create characters capable of challenging each other; they need to think differently from one another. Like a good play, a dialogue needs dramatic tension. Don't merely echo the author(s) of the book you are reading. Try to gain critical perspective. A dialogue is not just a place to summarize what you've read in a book or heard in a debate but rather a way to push at a topic's boundaries and an author's assumptions; in this respect, it is akin to a debate. Using other sources is one way to get some critical perspective; try to think through your author's claims, or your own, through the eyes of another writer.

How to unsubscribe from a list

Notes to the Gallery:

If you are not on a team that is currently working, you need to decide whether to write a dialogue on this team's question. If you are, it is due not long after the actual debate or dialogue. If you are not going to write a dialogue on the fieldwork question, it automatically becomes one of your final exam questions.

Come and listen to the discussions of Pro and Con groups. Remember that you may not be writing a debate but rather a dialogue, and your dialogue must not merely imitate the debate (any more than you can write a paper which imitates one of your sources); use the debate as a source just as you would a book; give credit where credit is due. So take note of provocative and problematic interchanges.

Example of an interchange:

If you are planning to write a dialogue or use dialogue style on the exam, the discussions among group members may help you as much as the debates themselves.

Notes

http://www.wlu.ca/~wwwaar/syllabi/religion_ritual_magic-grimes.html

Latest update: August 02, 2002
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