Sociology of Religion: Dead White Men and Beyond

This survey course in the sociology of religion is designed for a class of thirty undergraduate majors in Sociology. The emphasis is on theory and qualitative methods, while exposing the student to a wide variety of authors and themes. The beginning of the course leads the student through the several conceptual frameworks created by the founding fathers of the academic study of religion including: Durkheim, Weber, Marx and Freud. The latter portion expands the course to consider feminist and multi-cultural perspectives and ends with consideration of the problem of individualism in a post-modern world.

This syllabus was created for the Young Scholars in American Religion program.