Department of Religious Studies

This course thinks about U.S. society as a simultaneous racial, religious, and political formation. Special attention will be given to “Whiteness” as the crux of American society and as operating as “religion” where religion is to be understood as a mode of social organization. Driving “American religion” as American culture as American race are such ideals as democracy, freedom, citizenship, and equality before the law. We will draw on artists, writers, and poets to get at alternative understandings of “America,” “religion,” and “democracy” beyond the racial imagination’s grip.