QUTVRELIG Religion, Society and Power in South Asia Course description

The Faculty of Education and International Studies (LUI) at Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences (HiOA) offers a one semester full-time program (30 ECTS) in Religion and Power in Pondicherry, India. The program is a joint venture between LUI/HiOA and Kulturstudier (Culture Studies), an independent Oslo-based organization that offers international academic courses at study centres in Vietnam, India, Ghana, Argentina and Nicaragua.

The program Religion and Power incorporates perspectives from anthropology and religious studies. The objective of the program is to give students an understanding of substantive issues related to the relationship between religion and politics. The program joins a general approach to the topic with a specific regional focus on South Asia. A combination of academic lectures, lectures on topics of contemporary national and international concerns, seminars, discussions, excursions, and interaction with the immediate surroundings offers broad perspectives on the relation between religions and politics and various approaches to its study. The course language is English.

No prerequisites.

The objective of the course Religion and Power is to give students an interdisciplinary understanding of the relationship between religion and politics, in general and in the South Asian region in particular. These two dimensions, the regional and the general, are integrated in a mutually reinforcing way. This provides students with a rare opportunity to exemplify general, analytical insights with present-day local and national concerns, drawing on experiences and material from the immediate surroundings. The course puts particular emphasis on how religion and socio-religious structures affect gender roles. Not only does this serve to situate the broader subject of religion and power within a particular empirical topic; it also facilitates a study that is particularly tuned to contemporary debates on religion, which frequently are coined in the language of gender relations and power.

Knowledge

• Relationship between religion and politics.
• Gender relations and power.
• Religious diversity and pluralism in the South Asian region.
• Contemporary theories and perspectives within anthropology and religious studies.
• Religion as a sociocultural phenomenon.

Skills

• Ability to reflect analytically on various ways in which politics affect religious structures, practices and beliefs.
• Ability to reflect analytically on various ways in which religion and religious discourses affect politics, including contemporary employments of religion as a political resource.
• Ability to reflect analytically on the religious component of contemporary conflicts, wars, riots and issues of national and global security.
• Ability to reflect analytically on the dynamics of pluralistic and multicultural societies.
• Ability to reflect analytically on the complexity of alterations in gendered hierarchies that follow socio-religious change.
• Ability to reflect analytically on the relation between economic development and religious continuity and change.
• Ability to reflect analytically on processes of local negotiation and appropriation of globalized religious ideologies and discourses.

General competence

The overall aim of the course is interdisciplinary. Nonetheless, the separate modules present perspectives and insights gained from anthropology and religious studies respectively. With a firm grounding in these disciplinary bases, the students are well equipped for an interdisciplinary approach to relations between religion and power.

The main purpose of the course is to improve the students' ability to communicate in English both in writing and orally in a professional context. The course is cross-curricular since a large part of the syllabus is related to subjects within business and economics. It will prepare the students to deal with real situations in the business world.

No prerequisites.

Knowledge

The student

• has a wide vocabulary in economic/administrative English
• knows the main oral and written genres of business communication
• knows the main points of grammar necessary for correct and idiomatic usage of the English language
• has knowledge of various cross-curricular business topics
• has knowledge of several issues in American society
• is familiar with some works of fiction in English

Skills

The student

• can write professional English
• can speak fluently about several business topics and various aspects of society and culture in English
• can deal with professional situations in the business world
• can understand spoken and written English used in a business context
• can use professional vocabulary in oral and written contexts
• is able to discuss, analyse and reflect on various issues in English
• has developed his/her practical problem-solving skills

Competence

The student

• has developed his/her communicative competence in English, which includes linguistic, intercultural and strategic competencies
• can function well in most professional situations internationally
• can apply his/her skills and knowledge of business English
• can understand English language curricula and lectures in other subjects better

The teaching consists of about 55 periods.

In addition to lectures there are case studies, group work, assignment review, discussions, student presentations, and written assignments. Regular attendance and active participation in classroom activities are expected. Independent study is required.

The following assignments are obligatory:

- One short (300-500 words) written assignment based on one of the cases (attendance is mandatory for the case the student writes about)

- An essay, approximately 500 words, on an assigned topic

- An individual 7-minute oral presentation

Feedback will be given on all assignments. The essay must adhere to the rules established in -Mal for oppgaveskriving ved SAM- (available on the SAM home pages). In order to take the final exam, all obligatory assignments must be approved by the instructor. Students will be given the opportunity to re-submit obligatory assignments that have not been approved. If assignments are not approved after re-submission(s), students will not be allowed to take the exam.