Syllabus

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Overview: This course introduces students to methods and theories in the study of religion by examining contemporary intersections of religion and popular culture:

• Religion IN popular culture
• Popular culture IN religion
• Popular culture AS religion
• Religion and Popular culture in DIALOGUE

Student Learning Outcomes:

The student who successfully completes this course will demonstrate mastery of:

1) Effective written communication: The student will demonstrate command of the mechanics of written English (spelling, grammar, sentence structure) and compose organized and coherent essays that support a clearly stated thesis (claim) with evidence from assigned texts and outside research, and with clear, logical reasoning.

2) Critical Thinking: The student will demonstrate command of clear, logical reasoning by producing original and convincing arguments, analyzing and evaluating the arguments of others, and reflecting on his or her own personal and cultural assumptions openly and with rigor.

3) Information Literacy: The student will demonstrate command of discovering, evaluating, and making use of a variety of information resources that include digital archives, academic organization web sites, academic conference sites, online and print journals, book databases, departmental web sites, and digital representations of popular culture.

4) Reading for Deeper Understanding: The student will demonstrate command of interpretive strategies for assigned and researched academic texts, digital texts, and cultural texts and objects.

5) Skills of Scholarship: The student will navigate and engage online scholarly resources such as journals, academic organizations, departmental websites and mission statements, and academic conference programs; the student will master core writing formats such as the review essay, the abstract and proposal, the research essay, and the professional blog post and blog comment.

6) Disciplinary Engagement: The student will examine and engage the histories of the fields of Religious Studies and Cultural Studies, the contexts for their emergence, their rationales, core debates, and internal divisions.

Tradition of Honor

As a member of the Albertus Magnus College Community, each student taking this course agrees to uphold the principles of honor set forth by this community, to defend these principles against abuse or misuse and to abide by the regulations of the College.  To this end, every student must write and sign the following statement at the end of each examination: “I declare the honor pledge”.

Special Needs and Accommodations

Please advise the instructor of any special problems or needs at the beginning of the semester or mod.  Those students seeking accommodations based on disabilities should provide a Faculty Contact Sheet obtained through the Academic Development Center in Aquinas Hall, (203) 773-8590.

Plagiarism is using ideas directly or in paraphrased form and claiming them as one’s own. The most common type of plagiarism today is material borrowed from the internet. AMC faculty members have resources for detecting plagiarism, and those resources will be put to use in this course. Any student caught borrowing material will receive a grade of zero on the assignment. On the second occurrence of plagiarism, OR if it occurs on the final paper (even if this is the first occurrence), the student will automatically receive a grade of F for the entire course and the instructor will initiate disciplinary action from the College.

Late work is NOT accepted UNLESS prior permission was requested and granted by the instructor for unusual circumstances. Otherwise, anything submitted late will receive a grade of zero. Computer issues are not accepted as justifications for late work.

Texts: You do not need to purchase a text for this course. All of the texts are available online. Links are located on the Schedule page.