Feeling Religion

What is the relationship of emotion to religion? What’s at stake when joy, sadness, disgust, outrage, boredom, and fear have religious significance? How are individuals and communities taught to feel religiously or to sense something as spiritual? And how do understandings of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age and ability shape these feelings? In this course, we will wrestle with these questions and others through critical examination of weekly case studies ranging from government debates over sacred Pueblo Indian dances to the emotional terrain of religion, American football, and nationalism.