Religion in American Culture

A survey conducted in 2011 by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life recently found, based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, -that religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid . . . constant movement characterizes the American religious marketplace, as every major religious group is simultaneously gaining and losing adherents.- This finding seems consistent with ingrained American beliefs about identity, namely the idea that it remains highly malleable, that one can choose to adopt or discard certain traits that other parts of the world may regard as inborn, among them religion. In a land of immigrants exposed to the idea that -all men are created equal- is it much of a stretch to believe that all identities are equally malleable or that religion is part of that malleable identity? America remains the country with the -can-do- and why not? attitude. This attitude is of course helped along by the American constitutional right to religious freedom. The course will address these and other questions about American attitudes toward religion, for instance, how Thomas Jefferson's ideas about the need for separation between church and state work (or don't), how religion influences politics, and how Americans experience religious belief and conversion. A reader, which will include some influential colonial writers, including Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and Mary Rowlandson, as well as the -from crook-to Christian- conversion experience of the Watergate burgler Charles Colson, will be available at the Reckhammerweg copy shop, and students should purchase the following: Fighting Words, by Robin Morgan (2006) Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander (2007) In the Land of Believers by Gina Welch (2010)

Anglistik Universität Duisburg-Essen SS 2012 Bachelor, Bachelor Dr. Knox Raab Melissa