Religion in Philadelphia

REL 0876: 002 Spring 2012 MWF 3:00-3:50, 28 Anderson Classroom Building Department of Religion College of Liberal Arts Temple University Ross Hennesy Office: 635 Anderson Hall Email: Rosshennesy@temple.edu Office hours: M/F 4-5pm

Course Description:
What makes Philadelphia the city of brotherly love? To understand Philadelphia you need to know about its religious history and character. Philadelphia, a city of many and varied racial and immigrant groups, has a rich religious history. We will explore how Philadelphias religions have played a role in the citys traditions of toleration and freedom, conflict and oppression. The course will examine the influences various religions have had on the fabric of Philadelphias history and cultural life. Well think together about how religion has interacted with other areas of urban life, including politics, art, education, journalism, and popular culture. We will explore religion in Philadelphia by visiting houses of worship, shrines and burial grounds. By the conclusion of the course you will think about religion and about Philadelphia in new and unexpected ways.

Course Goals and Learning Outcomes:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

To learn about Philadelphias religious life and history. To develop skills at observing religious and cultural expressions in Philadelphias neighborhoods and communities. To explore the inter-relationship of religious life with other aspects of the Philadelphia urban environment, including media, politics, and social services. To identify, access, and evaluate diverse sources of information about religion in the urban setting. To learn to be curious, not judgmental, when confronting new ideas and different religions.

In this course, students will learn by reading and reflecting on assigned texts, contributing to class discussions through thoughtful listening, informed questioning, and sharing of insights, and fulfillment of assignments that require active observation, personal engagement, and formal writing. Religion in Philadelphia also meets the U. S. society requirement of the General Education curriculum. The requirement is geared to develop your understanding of the history, society, culture and political systems of the U.S. These courses aim to teach you how to interpret historical and cultural materials and articulate your own point of view concerning them; enhance your critical thinking skills, information literacy, and ability to examine historical events in context, and broaden your engagement in the issues of our day.

Required Texts:
Students are not required to purchase any books for this course. Instead, the readings indicated in the Course Schedule below are to be accessed on e-reserve through the Temple library or on the course Blackboard site. The Course research website is: http://guides.temple.edu/religionphiladelphia

Attendance and participation:

We will have regular, if not daily reading quizzes. There is not an excessive amount of reading, but you will have to read before each class if you are going to make a good grade. You can make up three missed quizzes by bringing in an outline of the reading you missed, with a one page conclusion discussing what you found particularly interesting in the reading.

Evaluation; or, What Determines Your Final Grade?

Team Mapping Project = 20% Individual Ethnographic Project = 20% Midterm = 20% Final = 20% Total Quiz Grade = 20%

Team or Partnership Project: Mapping the Religious Landscape (20%)

You and your team (2-3 students in all) will canvass a discrete area (approximately 4 blocks by 4 blocks, or a 12 block strip) in the Greater Philadelphia area for public displays of religion. This project will introduce you to the variety of ways that religion appears throughout daily life in the city, and expand your awareness of the vibrant religious life in Philadelphia. How to proceed: Identify your group (we will do this together in class) and choose an area anywhere within Greater Philadelphia region. You must choose an area that has at least five diverse religious sites/displays/institutions. Broad Street, Germantown Avenue, or Fifth Street would be good places to look, as would Seventh Street in South Philly, Baltimore Ave in West Philly, Center City, Cheltenham Avenue, Rising Sun Avenue, Erie Avenue, or any number of streets in Old City, for example. Think broadly and creatively. Religious sites can include places of worship, statues, shrines, cemeteries, community organizations, schools, historic markers or other signs, bookstores, advertisements, murals or other art, graffiti, and religious symbols can be found on all these places AND on human beings and the things that they use to get around in or on. And then: submit a report of roughly 5 pages (photos included). To be successful, a report will include the following content: 1. 2. A clear identification of the area youve chosen and a brief synopsis of the areas history and social/economic/ethnic demographics. A visual map of the area that includes the exact location and identification of all religious sites (You can draw your own map, or use an existing one and add your sites to it). Your report will provide a brief description of the neighborhood (What is the neighborhood called? Is it residential or commercial? What kind of stores or housing? What do the people you see look like, seem like?) A digital photo of each religious site with a descriptive caption a caption. You will give a brief physical description of each of the five sites (What is most noticeable about
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the site? Is it unusual in any way? How large was it? What religious symbols did you observe?) 4. An analysis of your experience. What drew you to map this particular area? What surprised you about what you found there?

Individual Ethnography Project: (20%)

You will select a religious community to visit on an ongoing basis (three or more times) throughout the term. To best facilitate learning in this course, investigate a religious community that you found in the mapping project or one that had already piqued your interest, but not one in which you have previously participated in any extended way. Also, you must choose a religious community that is not of your religion. (You and your mapping partners may choose the same space, but the ethnography is an individual project.) Your ethnography will include a short autobiography discussing your own religious history and position, copies of your field notes, and a five-page paper explaining how members of the community do their religion. The following questions will help direct your paper: How did being present at the community make you feel? Why? How is it similar than what you are used to? How is it different? expectations and how did it surprise you? Why? How did it meet your

What were members of the community doing during sacred time? How did members interact with you? What did members do to make you feel part of the group? What did they do to make you feel like an outsider? How is power distributed/manifest in the community? How are decisions made? What role does race play in this community? Gender? What is this communitys relationship to the state? How is money talked about? What did you learn about the religion at-large from this local community? Was there a talk/discussion? What role does language play in this community? What role does symbolism play? Ritual?

Schedule of Class Topics and Assignments

18-Jan Introduction 20-Jan Robert Orsi, Gods of the City, ONLY 41-58 23-Jan Day, The Construction of Sacred Space 25-Jan M. H. Harrington, Chapter One ("Pantheon") in Religion and Ceremonies of the Lenape M. H. Harrington, Chapter Six ("Minsi Big House Ceremonies") in Religion and 27-Jan Ceremonies of the Lenape 30-Jan Dawn Marsh, Penns Peaceable Kingdom: On Shangri-la Revisited 1-Feb Steven Conn, Metropolitan Philadelphia, 29-69 3-Feb J. William Frost, Penns Experiment in the Wilderness: Promise and Legend

6-Feb Andrew Cornell, The Movement For a New Society,

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Donald F. Durnbaugh, "Work and Hope: The Spirituality of the Radical Pietist 8-Feb Communitarians Elizabeth W. Fisher, "'Prophecies and Revelations': German Cabbalists in Early 10-Feb Pennsylvania" 13-Feb Jon Butler, "Magic, Astrology, and the Early American Religious Heritage." 15-Feb Johannes Kelpius, "A Method of Prayer 17-Feb Lambert, "Introduction," in The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America 20-Feb Robert Bellah, "Civil Religion in America." David Chidester The Church of Baseball, the Fetish of Coca-Cola, and the Potlatch of Rock 'n' Roll: Theoretical Models for the Study of Religion in American Popular Culture 22-Feb Group Mapping Project Due 24-Feb Watt, Chapter 1 and "Conclusion" 27-Feb Watt, Chapter 2 Feb-29 Watt, Chapter 3 2-Mar Watt, Chapter 4 12-Mar Watt, Chapter 5 14-Mar Watt, Chapter 6 16-Mar Midterm 19-Mar Gary Nash Forging Freedom, 101-133 21-Mar Richard S. Newman, "Introduction: A Black Founder's Many Worlds" 23-Mar Gracie, Introduction: Other Sheep Have I. 26-Mar Arthur Fauset, Black Gods of the Metropolis, 52-67 28-Mar Assefa, Hizkias The MOVE Crisis in Philadelphia 8-28 Mar-11 Radical Friendship by Donna Jones in Conspire! Magazine Aminah McCloud, This is a Muslim Home in Making Muslim Space in North America and 2-Apr Europe, 65-73 4-Apr Aidis, "Jihadis in the Hood" 6-Apr Courtney Anne Lyons, "Burning Columbia Avenue" Bruce Dorsey, Freedom of Religion: Bibles, Public Schools, and Philadelphia's Bloody 9-Apr Riots of 1844 11-Apr Richard Juliani, The Italian Church in Philadelphia, in Priest, Parish, and People 13-Apr John P. McNamee, Diary of a City Priest, pp. 1-32. Vctor Vsquez, The Development of Pan-Latino Philadelphia. and Maria Mller and 16-Apr Kathryn E. Wilson, Images of Latino Philadelphia.
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Ram Cnaan, Latino Congregations in the Twenty-First Century in The Other 18 - Apr Philadelphia Story 20 Apr Field Trip to St. Malachy 23-Apr Capturing the Spirit of Voodoo and Year Dawns on New Roof Dianne Ashton, "The Founding of the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society, 1817-1830", 25-Apr in Rebecca Gratz Jordan Stanger-Ross, Neither Fight nor Flight: Urban Synagogues in Post-War 27-Apr Philadelphia 30-Apr Final Exam 3:00pm in our classroom. 7-May Individual Ethnography Project Due 3:00pm via email

Disability Statement This course is open to all students who meet the academic requirements for participation. Any student who has a need for accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact the instructor privately to discuss the specific situation as soon as possible. Contact Disability Resources and Services at 215-204-1280 in 100 Ritter Annex to coordinate reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities. Statement on Academic Freedom: Freedom to teach and freedom to learn are inseparable facets of academic freedom. The University has adopted a policy on Student and Faculty Academic Rights and Responsibilities (Policy # 03.70.02) which can be accessed through the following link: http://policies.temple.edu/getdoc.asp? policy_no=03.70.02. Policy on Academic Honesty: The following text in italics is quoted verbatim from the Temple University Bulletin from 20062007: Temple University believes strongly in academic honesty and integrity. Plagiarism and academic cheating are, therefore, prohibited. Essential to intellectual growth is the development of independent thought and a respect for the thoughts of others. The prohibition against plagiarism and cheating is intended to foster this independence and respect. Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use of another person's labor, another person's ideas, another person's words, another person's assistance. Normally, all work done for courses -- papers, examinations, homework exercises, laboratory reports, oral presentations -- is expected to be the individual effort of the student presenting the work. Any assistance must be reported to the instructor. If the work has entailed consulting other resources -- journals, books, or other media -these resources must be cited in a manner appropriate to the course. It is the instructor's responsibility to indicate the appropriate manner of citation. Everything used from other sources -suggestions for organization of ideas, ideas themselves, or actual language -- must be cited. Failure to cite borrowed material constitutes plagiarism. Undocumented use of materials from the World Wide Web is plagiarism. Academic cheating is, generally, the thwarting or breaking of the general rules of academic work or the specific rules of the individual courses. It includes falsifying data; submitting, without the instructor's approval, work in one course which was done for another; helping others to plagiarize or cheat from one's own or another's work; or actually doing the work of another person. It also includes presenting without full attribution ideas, phrases, or sentences, whether advertently or
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inadvertently, that originate from another person. When in doubt, please consult with the professor. The instructor reserves the right to refer any case of suspected plagiarism or cheating to the University Disciplinary Committee; the professor also reserves the right to assign a grade of F for any assignment in which plagiarism is involved.