Project Description
The purpose of The Project on Religion, Culture, and Globalization is to bring together University of Maryland faculty, staff, students, and community members to encourage research, dialogue, and the sharing of resources on academic issues that traditionally have not been addressed by the campus community. The Project will be housed in the Department of American Studies, and its primary focus will be to advance the understanding of American Culture in a global context by adding religion as a category of analysis to the study of culture and society. Religion is to be treated as an epistemological and philosophical phenomenon as well as a spiritual phenomenon. Doing so will provide a heretofore untapped opportunity to understand the deep-rooted--and typically unspoken--assumptions on which individuals and peoples base their worldviews.
Among the questions Project members hope to discuss are the following. What can we learn about cultures--and the ways in which peoples interact with each other--if we treat religion as an epistemological, rather than spiritual, phenomenon? Can a better understanding of different religious traditions improve our understanding of American culture? Can it help us understand the U.S. in a global context? Can it help us avoid or resolve conflicts--whether economic, social, or political--between peoples and nations? Do religious traditions offer insights into modern life that traditional academic knowledge has failed to provide? What tools do religious traditions offer that can help students make meaning in their own lives? What tools do different religious traditions provide that can help us become better teachers?
Studies of religion in the humanities and social sciences have typically focused on religion as a set of beliefs, practices, and rituals. Treating religion as an epistemological phenomenon as well can help shed new light on studies of culture and society. For example, it allows for a deeper understanding of the conflicts that took place in early America, as Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans interacted with each other based on frequently incompatible worldviews. Similarly, among the issues that Americans are confronted with today is the degree to which American culture is compatible with other cultures in the current period of rapid globalization. As global cultures become more economically interdependent, it behooves us to understand the worldviews that different peoples use to understand themselves and others in order to forestall further global conflict, injustice, and violence.
Interest in religion has increased since September 11, 2001, among researchers, students, and teachers. While global religious violence has been increasing for many years, the dramatic attacks on 9-11, the subsequent rise of Orientalism, and U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq (itself infused with religious imagery), have led to a flurry of ad hoc and unscientific studies of the role of religion around the world. Thus, this project is uniquely situated to address issues of interest to the public, while also providing a corrective to the questionable hypotheses and rhetoric currently promulgated by--among others--politicians and mass media.
Another purpose of the Project is to address pedagogical issues related to religion. Instructors often have difficulty in teaching religion, and in navigating conflicts based in religious beliefs. This Project can serve as a forum for both students and teachers who would like to receive feedback on their teaching methods and would like to discuss responses to possible conflicts.
The Project will also be a forum for pedagogical issues of specific interest to students. One of its pedagogical goals is to provide access to individuals who have engaged in the kind of self reflection that the college experience encourages, and who can help students--and, in fact, everyone--understand what tools various religious traditions offer that can help people make meaning in their own lives.
The Project will address the issues described above through three avenues: informal meetings of members; a speaker series; and a web site that will contain a weblog. All three will be available to members of the campus community as well as any other interested individuals.
