Course Syllabus
Syllabus: Winter Term 2013
Pilgrimage in Comparative Perspective
Tuesdays 1-4:30 p.m.
4 Credits
Instructor: Dr. Sophia Shafi Office: I-302
Extension: 303-765-3124 E-mail: sshafi@iliff.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 12-12:50 p.m.
Course Description
Pilgrimage is found across numerous religious traditions and is also situated in many secular or non-religious spaces. This course explores the theoretical issues inherent in understanding these journeys as well as the rituals themselves. In addition to questions surrounding ritual, tourism, and sacredness, we will look at key pilgrimage sites and the individuals who visit them. This class places special emphasis on the traditions associated with Islam, from hajj to the tombs and funerary complexes associated with followers of Shi’a and tasawwuf (Sufi) expressions of Islam.
Course Procedures and Evaluation
You are required to attend all class sessions unless there is a medical reason or a family emergency.
All course readings should be completed before the class on which they are due. Please bring relevant texts or articles to class.
No electronic devices should be out during class unless you are referring to a class reading posted on Canvas or taking notes. Please refrain from Facebook, Twitter, and texting during class time.
Attendance counts for 10% of your grade.
You get 1 point deducted for every class you miss.
Participation counts for 20% of your grade.
Posing questions, contributing to discussions, and demonstrating you have read the assigned texts will help you earn these 20 points.
Your mid-quarter presentation is worth 30% of your grade.
Each student will give a presentation between weeks 5 and 9 on a pilgrimage not represented in the class readings. Parameters will be outlined in an assignment sheet.
The final paper is worth 40% of your grade.
Each student will write a paper of 8 pages in length on a particular tradition (architecture, clothing, souvenir, religious memento, religious authority) related to a pilgrimage, either overtly “religious” (i.e. Karbala, Jerusalem) or “not” (i.e. Graceland, Burning Man).
Required Texts
Albera, Dionigi and Maria Couroucli, editors. Sharing Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean: Christians, Muslims, and Jews at Shrines and Sanctuaries [New Anthropologies of Europe]. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012.
Keiner, Shaul. Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage, and Israeli Birthright. New York: NYU Press, 2010.
Khosronejad, Pedram, editor. Saints and Their Pilgrims in Iran and Neighboring Countries. Wantage: Sean Kingston Publishing, 2012.
** All other readings will be posted on Canvas.
Course Schedule
Week One: The Pilgrimage
Communitas and Meaning-Making
Reading: Victor Turner, “Introduction: Pilgrimage as a Liminoid Phenomenon,” Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 1-39, Simon Coleman, “Do You Believe in Pilgrimage? Communitas, Contestation, and Beyond,” Anthropological Theory 2.3 (2002): 355-68.
Week Two: Power and Place
Religious Authority and the Pilgrim
Reading: Oleg Grabar, “The Earliest Islamic Commemorative Structures, Notes and Documents,” Ars Orientals 6 (1966): 7-46, Pierre-Jean Luizard, “The Revival of Shia Rituals in Iraq Since the Fall of Saddam Hussein’s Regime: Permanence and Evolution,” in Saints and Their Pilgrims in Iran and Neighboring Countries, ed. Pedram Khosronejad (Wantage: Sean Kingston Publishing, 2012), 143-63.
Week Three: Pilgrimage and Tourism
Religion, Commerce, and the Souvenir
Readings: Erik Cohen, “Pilgrimage and Tourism: Convergence and Divergence,” in Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage, ed. Alan Morinis (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1992), 47-64, Kristen K. Swanson and Dallen J. Timothy, “Souvenirs: Icons of Meaning, Commercialization and Commodification,” Tourism Management 33 (2012): 489-499.
Week Four: Hinduism and Buddhism
Crossing Boundaries and Remembrance
Readings: Diana Eck, “India’s Tirthas: Crossings in Sacred Geography,” History of Religions 204 (1981): 323-44, J. Russell, “The Eight Places of Buddhist Pilgrimage,” in G. Mullin and N. Ribush, eds. Teachings at Tushita (1981): 138-61.
Week Five: Judaism
Exile and Return
Reading: Shaul Keiner, Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage, and Israeli Birthright (New York: NYU Press, 2010), Sharing Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean: Christians, Muslims, and Jews at Shrines and Sanctuaries [New Anthropologies of Europe] [excerpts].
Week Six: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Portability and Place, Shared Traditions and Sites
Readings: Shaul Keiner, Josef W. Meri, The Cult of Saints Among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria (New York: Oxford Oriental Monographs, 2003) [excerpt], Dionigi Albera and Maria Couroucli, eds., Sharing Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean: Christians, Muslims, and Jews at Shrines and Sanctuaries [New Anthropologies of Europe] [excerpts].
Week Seven: Islam
Hajj, the Uber-Pilgrimage
Readings: Tariq Ramadan, “Coming Home” and “At Home, Over There,” in In the Footsteps of the Prophet (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 165-97, Khosronejad, Introduction, plus Chapters 1 and 2.
Film: Journey to Mecca: In the Footsteps of Ibn Battuta
Week Eight: Islam
Ziyarat (Sunni, Shi’a)
Reading: Yahya Michot, “On Ibn Taymiyya,”@ http://britishmisk.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/ibntaymiyya_tomb.pdf, Khosronejad, Chapters 4 and 5.
Film on Imam Reza’s Shrine at Mashhad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOwa0N09vKc “Ya Zamane Ahu” (Oh, Protector of the Gazelle)
Week Nine: Islam
Ziyarat (Sufi)
Readings: “An Indo-Persian Guide to Sufi Shrine Pilgrimage,” in Manifestations of Sainthood in Islam, eds. Grace Martin and Carl W. Ernst (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1993), 43-67, Seema Golestaneh, “Listening, Non-Knowledge, and the Auditory Body: Understanding Sufi Zikr Ritual and Sama as Sites of Aesthetic Experience,” in Saints and Their Pilgrims in Iran and Neighboring Countries, ed. Pedram Khosronejad (Wantage: Sean Kingston Publishing, 2012), 61-81.
Week Ten: Mock-Conference on Pilgrimage Studies
No Readings
Papers Due in Class
Course Summary:
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