宗教人類學專題

九十一學年度第二學期
授課老師：王梅霞
授課時間：每周三下午2:00-5:00；人類學系系館313 研究室：人類學系系館311
電話：23630231分機3298
Email：meihsia@ccms.ntu.edu.tw

課程宗旨：這門課程著重在引導學生思考：不同學派（例如涂爾幹學派、主知論、韋伯學派、馬克思主義、宇宙觀論者）的人類學家在各自的知識諭立場下，如何論證宗教和社會的關係。其中尤其針對某些議題深入分析，包括：轉換儀式、巫術和理性、宗教和資本主義、權力的合法化、象徵性的反抗。最後討論社會變遷的動態性質，尤其著重殖民與後殖民時期“國家”與“西方宗教”與當地社會文化相互轉化的過程。

修課要求：上課同學必須事先閱讀該週必讀（打*號者；原則上每週兩篇文章，若份量較多則分兩星期讀），並參與課堂討論。每人須選擇四週作課堂報告，並寫成書面報告，在該週上課結束時繳交。學期末再交一份研究報告，主題須先與授課老師討論。。

評分方式：課堂討論 30%
　　　　　四篇書面報告 40%
　　　　　期末報告 30%




Week1: Introduction (19 Feb.)

Week2: Durkheim on Religion and Society (26 Feb.)
What does Durkheim mean by ‘mechanical’ and ‘organic solidarity’, and how are they related to the division of labour? Are traditions, tribal societies characterized by mechanical solidarity, and are they made of homogenous segments? What are ‘collective representations’? How does the ‘sacred’ symbolize society, and how is religion socially determined? What is the social function f religious ritual?
*Durkheim, E.
1915(1907) The elementary forms of the religious life, especially Introduction, Book1 chapter1, Book3 chapter5, Conclusion.
Morris, B
1987 Anthropological studies of religion, ch.3
Pickering, W.
1984 Durkheim’s sociology on religion, especially ch.7

Week3: Mauss on Bodily Techniques and the Notion of Person (5 March)
What are ‘bodily techniques’ and how are they socially constructed? How is the body used to symbolize social organization and how is it culturally constituted? How should we consider the ‘person’ cross-culturally? What was the thrust of Mauss’s essay, and what were his claims about the crucial stages of evolution from ‘person’ to ‘individual’? Is the ‘individual’ a creation of a particular kind of religion?
*Mauss, M.
1979(1950) Sociology and psychology, especially part3 & 4
Durkheim, E. & Mauss, M.
1963(1903) Primitive Classification
Hertz, R.
1960 Death and the right hand
Carrithers, M. et al. (eds)
1985 The category of the person

Week4: Structural-Functionalism and Functionalism (12 March)
Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski prioritize issues of ‘social statics’ over those of ‘social dynamics’. But are some of the assumptions of structural-functionalism still shared with the way evolutionism conceptualizes the nature of society?
*Radcliffe-Brown, A.
1952 ‘Religion and society’, in A.R. Radcliffe-Brown Structure and function I primitive society, pp153-77
*Maliowski, B.
1948 Magic, Science and Religion
Middleton, J.
1960 Lugbara religion: ritual and authority among an east African people
Gluckman, M.
1963 Order and Rebellion in tribal Africa
Kuper, A.
1988 The invention of primitive society
Goody, J.
1995 The expansive moment: anthropology in Britain and Africa 1918-1970

Week5 & 6: Rituals of Transition (19 & 26 March)
Why should changes in status be an occasion for ritual and ceremony? Why is ritual inversion a common feature of rites of passage? How are roles conferred and differentiated through ritual? How does ritual transmit cultural values and knowledge?
*Turner, V.
1969 The ritual process, especially chs.3,4,5
1967 The forest of symbols, especially chapters 1,2,4,7
Van Gennep, A.
1960(1909) The rite of passage
Barth, F.
1989 Cosmologies in the making
Bloch, M. & Parry, J. (eds.)
1982 Death and regeneration of life
1992 Prey into hunter
Week7 & 8: Rationality and Order (2 & 9 April)
How are witchcraft and spirit possession used in the explanation of misfortune? In what circumstances may these phenomena appear as 1.products of social tension; 2. means of social control; 3.moral concepts? Why do magic and witchcraft pose problems concerning rationality? Do anthropologists exaggerate the extent to which the religions of non-literate societies constitute ‘ordered’ system? How might literacy affect the systematization of religion?
*Evans-Prichard, E.E.
1937 Witchcraft, oracles and magic among the Azande.
Levi-Bruhl, L.
1926(1912) How natives think
Wilson, B.
1970 Rationality
Hollis, M. & Lukes, S. (eds)
1982 Rationality and relativism.
Goody, J.
1986 The logic of Writing and the organization of society.
Horton,R.
1993 Patterns of thought in Africa and the West: essays on magic, religion and science

Week9 & 10: Structuralism (23 & 30 April)
Levi-Strauss has expressed differences between the cognitive processes of members of simple and complex societies in terms of binary contrasts. Is this approach satisfactory? How are the concepts of structure, mind, relation, transformation, communication, sign, contradiction, code, nature and culture, etc. used? How does Levi-Strauss analyzed that totemic societies and caste societies are inverted transformations of each other?
Levi-Strauss, C.
*1963 Totemism
*1966 The savage mind.
1982 The way of the masks

Leach, E.
1970 Levi-Strauss

Week11: Weber on Religion and Capitalism (7 May)
What is the ‘spirit of capitalism’, what is relation to religious belief, and how – according to Weber – did it contribute to the rise of capitalism? What is meant by ‘elective affinity’, and how does Weber’s sociology differ from Durkheim’s?
*Weber, M.
1956 The sociology of religion.
Weber, M.
1946 ‘The social psychology of the world religion’, in H.H. Gerth & C. Wright Mills (eds) From Max Weber: Essays in sociology, pp267-301
1958 The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism.

Week12: Geertz (14 May)
Does Weber’s concept of rationality suggest ways to understand the relation between contemporary religion and social change outside Western society? Given the fixed text and authority for religious doctrine, how would you explain religious variation in Muslim society?
Geertz, C.
*1960 The religion of Java
1968 Islam observed
1973 The interpretation of cultures
1983 Local knowledge

Week13 Marxists: Religion: Stability and Legitimation (21 May)
Marx argued that the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas of the epoch. How has anthropological research modified this view? Why are the origins of power and authority so often placed in the realm of the transcendental? Does religion provide the machinery for generating political change or does it legitimate changing political relations?
*Bloch, M.
1986 From blessing to violence: history and ideology in the circumcision ritual of the Merina of Maddagascar, especially chapters 1, 3, 4, 7 & 8
Godellier, M.
1977 Perspectives in Marxist Anthropology
Bloch, M.
1989 ‘The past and the present in the present’, in M. Bloch, Ritual history and power
1989 ‘Symbol, song, dance and features of articulation: is religion an extreme form of traditional authority?’ in M. Bloch, Ritual history and power.

Week14: Religion and Political Resistance (28 May)
Can religions of ‘traditional authority’ also be religions of political ‘resistance’? Can conversion religions also be religions of political ‘resistance’? And how should we use the term ‘resistance’ in anthropological writing?
Comaroff, Jean
*1985 Body of power, spirit of resistance, especially part 1 & 2
1991 Of revolution and revelation: Christianity, colonialism and consciousness in south Africa, especially chapters 2,3,6
1992 Ethnography and the historical imagination, especially chapters 7,9
Whitehouse, H.
1995 Inside the cult: religious innovation and transmission in Papua New Guinea.
1996 ‘Rites of terror: emotion, metaphor and memory in Melanesian initiation cults’, in J.R.A.I. 2(4): 703-16
1998 ‘From mission to movement: the impact of Christianity on patterns of political association in Papua New Guinea’, in J.R.A.I 4(1): 143-64

Week15: Spirit Possession and Shamanism (11 June)
What is the distinction between ‘shamanic’ and ‘chiefly’ forms of authority? How have spirit-related practices figured in recent ethnographies of complex, post-colonial situations, and how are these ethnographies born out the earlier images of spirit possession?
* Humphrey, C.
1994 ‘Shamanic practice and the state in Northern Asia: views from the center and periphery’, in Thomas, T. & Humphrey, C. (eds.) Shamanism, history and the state.
*Bloch, M.
1994 ‘The slaves, the king and Mary in the slums of Antanamarivo’, in Thomas, T. & Humphrey, C. (eds.) Shamanism, history and the state
Atkinson, J. M
1989 The art and politics of Wana shamanship.
Steedly, M. M.
1995 Embodying colonial memories: spirit possession, power and the Hanka in West Africa.