Religion 322

Religion and Sexuality

Tuesday/Thursday, 1 - 2:15 p.m.
White Hall 208
Fall 2015

TEACHING TEAM:

Gary Laderman, Professor, Department of Religion

Email: gladerm@emory.edu

Charles Barber, Graduate Student, American Religious Cultures

Email: charles.barber@emory.edu

Nicole S. Symmonds, Graduate Student, Ethics and Society

Email: nicole.sarita.symmonds@emory.edu

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Like death, sexuality is a biological fact of lifean inescapable reality of the world we live in, a
force at work in every nook and cranny of society and culture, found in the home, office, mall,
classroom, hospital; imaged on television, computer, theater, and mental screens; aroused at
sporting events, clubs, parties, funerals, and weddings. It is no wonder sexuality, along with
death and health, is of the utmost importance in the worlds religious traditions, most of which
seek to regulate and monitor the body generally, but most especially the terms on and by which
sexual desires and sexual identities can be accepted and integrative, or seen as transgressive and
harmful. Religious traditions thrive on intimacy with and access to the body, its experience of
suffering, sorrow, and sickness, as well as rapture, delight, and bliss. Its obvious and
overwhelming role as a primary, primal factor in evolution and communication throughout the
animal kingdom makes sexuality even more confounding to humans who are not really animals
and are often sexual like other animals in ways that dont always have to do with reproduction.
The powers of sex and sexuality, however, are entangled in phenomena that cannot be reduced to
bodily processes, or easily measured with brain-imaging technologies. How these powers are
defined and understood varies across and within cultures but they are never simply neutral and
always bear on the sacred. The intricacies of sexuality in human culturesits political,
economic, mythic, moral, ritual, emotional dimensionsbelie any easy generalizations. This
course will explore the connections and intersections linking religion and sexuality across
different religious cultures, within the history of Christianity, and in American society in the past
and present.

TEXT:

Sex and Religion, ed. Christel Manning and Phil Zuckerman. Wadsworth, 2005
ADDITIONAL READINGS:
-Heike Bauer, Sexuality in Enlightenment Popular Culture, in A Cultural History of Sexuality
in the Enlightenment, ed. Julie Peakman. London: Berg, 2011.

-Anne Fausto-Sterling, Two Sexes are Not Enough, Nova Channel online, posted October,
2001.
-Lawrence Foster, A New Heaven and a New Earth: The Millennial Impulse and the Creation of
Alternative Family Systems and Radical Products of the Great Revivals: Reflections on
Religion, the Family, and Social Change, in Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons,
and the Oneida Community. University of Illinois Press, 1984.
-Michel Foucault, We `Other Victorians, The History of Sexuality: Volume 1: An Introduction.
New York: Vintage, 1980.
-Sigmund Freud, The Return of Totemism in Childhood, Totem and Taboo. New York: Norton,
1950.
-Marie Griffith, The Religious Encounters of Alfred C. Kinsey, The Journal of American
History (2008) 95 (2): 349-377.
-Laura Kipnis, Against Love, New York Times Magazine, October 2001.
-Gary Laderman, Sexuality, Sacred Matters: Celebrity Worship, Sexual Ecstasies, The Living
Dead, and Other Signs of Religious Life in the United States. New York: New Press, 2009
-Cotton Mather, Warnings from the Dead, Boston. 1693.
-Gay Robins, Gender and Sexuality, A Companion to Ancient Egyptian Art, ed. Melinda K.
Hartwig. London: Wiley Blackwell, 2015.
-Gayle Rubin, Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality, in
Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, ed. Carole S. Vance. Boston: Routledge,
1984.
-Gordon Sayre, Native American Sexuality in the Eyes of the Beholders, 1535-1710 in Sex
and Sexaulity in Early America, ed. Merril D. Smith. New York University Press, 1998.
-Kathleen Verduin, `Our Cursed Natures: Sexuality and the Puritan Conscience, The New
England Quarterly, v. 56,no. 2 (June 1993): 220-237.
-Deborah Gray White, Men, Women, and Families, in Arnt I a Woman?: Female Slaves in
the Plantation South. New York: Norton, 1998.
-Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, Christianity to 1500 and Protestantism in Europe, in Christianity
and Sexuality in the Early Modern World: Regulating Desire, Reforming Practice. London:
Routledge, 2000.

GRADING AND OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

Your final grade will be based on the following:

Five in class exams: 15 points each/15 multiple choice questions (75 points total)
Five in class blog posts: 5 points each/5 written responses to blog prompts that are
relatively short (250-500 words), smart and coherent, and well written, demonstrating
some reflection on the content of the course (25 points total).

Extra credit: students will receive 5 extra points if they attend class consistently for the
second half of the semester (5 points).

Key terms and concepts to review for both the exams and the blogs will be identified during
lectures. They will not be written up and distributed nor written up especially for any particular
student who misses class for whatever reason. Im hoping this will ensure higher attendance
though of course you can get these terms from your mates who are attending. Again, these terms
and concepts will be specifically pointed out in lectures and will be the basis for creating the
exam questions and the blog prompt.
You should bring your laptops. Exams and blogs will be administered through Blackboard.
There is no extra credit in this course.
Please keep in mind Emorys Honor Code at all times while you are enrolled in the course.
The purposes of the course include the usual goals and objectives, like expanding your
knowledge, refining your critical thinking, appreciating the value of comparative religious
studies, etc., etc. Some of my more subversive goals here include:

Confusing the hell out of you, and through that confusion helping you to embrace the
centrality of ambiguity and context in the study of religion and religious cultures.
Empowering you to figure it all out on your ownboth your own religious identitie(s)
and the role of religion in your world.
Encouraging you to question all of your assumptions about religion and sexuality, and
especially what youve been taught in church, by parents, or in schools.
Waking you up to the truth about the Matrix (jk, thats only a movie).
Demonstrating how knowledge is contentious and unstable, shifting and changing
through time and according to political and cultural forces.

SCHEDULE OF TOPICS AND READING ASSIGNMENTS:

Introductions and Orientations, in Theory and Practice
8/27, Thursday: Introductions
-Go over syllabus
9/1, Tuesday: Introductions: Instructors and Topics
-Manning and Zuckerman, eds, Sex and Religion, 1-17
- Laderman, Sexuality, Sacred Matters, 141-160
9/3, Thursday: Positions and Orientations
-Huffington Post Religion and Sexuality homepage
-excerpt from Freud, The Return of Totemism in Childhood (Section 5)
-excerpt from Foucault, We `Other Victorians.
-Laura Kipnis, Against Love
-Anne Fausto-Sterling, Two Sexes are Not Enough
9/8, Tuesday: What do you know?
-Test 1
- Discussion and blogging
Part I: A Brief Survey of Religion and Sexuality Across Cultures and Through Time
9/10, Thursday: Buddhism
-Buddhism, in Manning and Zuckerman, 41-59
9/15, Tuesday: Hinduism
-Hinduism, in Manning and Zuckerman, 18-40
9/17, Thursday: Chinese Religion
-Chinese Religion, in Manning and Zuckerman, 60-92
9/22, Tuesday: Judaism
-Judaism, in Manning and Zuckerman, 93-116
9/24, Thursday: Islam
-Islam, in Manning and Zuckerman, 181-197

9/29, Tuesday: What do you know?

-Test 2
-Discussion and blogging
Part II: Sexuality in Western Cultural History: Contact, Conflict, and Counter Narratives
10/1, Thursday: Sexuality in Western Culture
-class discussion
10/6, Tuesday: Sexuality in the Ancient World,
-Robins, Gender and Sexuality.
10/8, Thursday: Christianities: Overview
-Christianity, in Manning and Zuckerman, 117-141
10/13, Tuesday, Fall Break
-Wiesner-Hanks, Christianity to 1500.
10/15, Thursday: Sexuality and Christian Authorities
-Wiesner-Hanks, Protestantism in Europe.
10/20, Tuesday: Enlightenment and the New Authorities
-Bauer, Sexuality in Enlightenment Popular Culture.
10/22, Thursday: What do you know?
-Test 3
-Discussion and blog
Part III: Not Just Puritanical: Religion and Sexuality in American History
10/27, Tuesday: European Views of Native American Views on Sexuality
-Sayre, Native American Sexuality in the Eyes of the Beholders, 1535-1710
10/29, Thursday: Puritans in Colonial America
-Verduin, `Our Cursed Natures: Sexuality and the Puritan Conscience.
-Mather, Warnings from the Dead.
11/3, Tuesday: Sexuality in the Ancient Americas
-Reading assignment tbd
11/5, Thursday: African and African American Cultures in the Nineteenth Century
-White, Men, Women, and Families

11/10, Tuesday: What do you know?

-Test 4
-Discussion and blogging
11/12, Thursday: Mainstreaming Sexuality and Sexuality on the Margins in the Nineteenth
Century
- Foster, A New Heaven and a New Earth and Radical Products of the Great Revivals
11/17: From Victorian to Modern America: Sexual Mores Change
-Griffith, The Religious Encounters with Alfred C. Kinsey
11/19, Thursday: Tuesday: 1960s Sexual Revolutions and Beginnings of the Culture Wars
-Rubin, Thinking Sex.
11/24, Tuesday: Religion and Sexuality Now, Part 1
11/26, Thursday: Thanksgiving
12/1, Tuesday: Religion and Sexuality Now, Part 2
12/3, Thursday: Religion and Sexuality Now, Part 3
12/8, Tuesday:
-Test 5
-Discussion and blogging