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.

Mangler info.

The following work requirements must be met before the examination may be set:

A five week self-study period prior to arrival in Pondicherry, where students read assigned parts of the course literature and write a paper of between 500 and 600 words that summarizes the applications of -power- in the readings; and an oral presentation in English of the chosen topic for the Religion, society and power in South Asia course to teachers/seminar leaders and co-students at the study center in Pondicherry. Should the seminar leaders find that either of the work requirements fail to meet satisfactory academic standards, the student will have to revise and resubmit the paper/prepare a new oral presentation based on feedback from the seminar leaders, at a new date set by the seminar leaders.

Anthropology: Religion and power: individual home exam, with deadline ten days after handout. Essay of 3,500 words (+/- 10 %), not including list of references. English or either of the Scandinavian languages is admissible. The paper must be submitted electronically in Word or PDF format within the deadline. More information about it may be obtained from HiOAs web pages. The home exam is graded A-E for passed and F for failed. Two internal examiners will assess the paper.

Religion, society and power in South Asia: essay on topic of choice, with supervision from either lecturer or seminar leader. 6,000 words (+/- 10 %) not including list of references. Deadline Dec. 10/June 1. English or either of the Scandinavian languages is admissible. The essay must be submitted electronically in Word or PDF format within the deadline. More information about it may be obtained from HiOAs web pages. The essay is graded A-E for passed and F for failed. One internal and one external examiner will assess the essay.

Students who fail their examination, or who pass but wish to improve their grade, may submit a new paper in connection with the ordinary examinations the following term. This also applies for students with valid absence.

Regulations for new or postponed examinations are available in Regulations relating to studies and examinations at Oslo University College . Students must register for a new or postponed examination. More detailed information about registration and times for new or postponed examinations is available on the web site.

A-E as pass grades and F as fail grade.

Mangler info.