New Light on Religious Studies?: A Response to Dutton

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Notes

See http://www.aarweb.org/Programs/Department_Services/Survey_Data/Undergraduate/default.asp, accessed April 19, 2010.

But the University of Aberdeen, from which Professor Dutton received his Ph.D., lists the following theoretical and methodological approaches as characterizing its religious studies program: “social scientific-anthropological, sociological, political and psychological-as well as literary, philosophical and historical.” See http://www.abdn.ac.uk/religious_studies/about.php. To take a single example of an undergraduate course, DR2535, “Encountering Buddhism” emphasizes both the “history and anthropology” of Buddhism; see http://www.abdn.ac.uk/registry/courses/course.php?Code=DR2535. Similarly, the University of Lancaster, which hosts the first department of religious studies in the United Kingdom, aims to introduce undergraduates to a variety of methods in addition to the anthropological. It includes “historical, textual, philosophical, theological, sociological, anthropological and psychological” methods. See http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/religstudies/courses/undergrad/intro.htm.

Christian K. Wedemeyer and Wendy Doniger, Eds., Hermeneutics, Politics, and the History of Religions: The Contested Legacies of Joachim Wach and Mircea Eliade (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010). The bibliographies of the individual articles will point the reader to the relevant critical scholarship on Eliade (and Wach).

An invaluable, though randomly produced, window on classroom is provided by the American Academy of Religion's “Syllabus Project.” See http://www.aarweb.org/Programs/Syllabus_Project/default.asp; accessed April 19, 2010.

See Gregory D. Alles, Ed., Religious Studies: A Global View (New York: Routledge, 2008).

College Learning for the New Global Century: A Report from the National Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America's Promise, Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2007.

See the annual statistics collected by the American Academy of Religion at http://www.aarweb.org/Programs/Career_Services/Employment_Trends/default.asp; accessed 19 April 2010.

See http://www.aarweb.org/Programs/Religion_Major_and_Liberal_Education/default.asp; accessed 19 April 2010.

On the extent to which students look to courses in religious studies to further their own personal religious and “spiritual” development see the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute report on “Spirituality in Higher Education: A National Study of College Students' Search for Meaning and Purpose” by Alexander W. Astin and Helen S. Astin at http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/spirituality.html and Barbara Walvoord, Teaching and Learning in College Introductory Courses (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), which makes direct use of the HERI study and her own surveys of students and teachers.

See L. Dee Fink, Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses (San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2003), p. 30.

Alles, Religious Studies: A Global View, p. 204.

See, for example, Regan A. R. Gurung, Nancy L. Chick, & Aeron Haynie, eds., Exploring Signature Pedagogies: Approaches to Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind (Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2008).

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Notes on contributors

Eugene V. Gallagher

Eugene V. Gallagher is the Rosemary Park Professor of Religious Studies and Gibney Faculty Fellow in the Center for Teaching and Learning at Connecticut College. He regularly teaches courses on Western Scriptures and Traditions, Theories of Religion, and New Religious Movements. He is a past winner of the American Academy of Religion Excellence in Teaching Award and the CASE/Carnegie Professor of the Year for the State of Connecticut. E-mail: [email protected]