Colloquium 225 - Writing Spiritual Lives: The Craft of Religious Biography

Students in this course will read religious biographies of prominent U.S. historical figures and visit historical centers to learn the process of crafting a religious biography. This inquiry into “spiritual lives” includes figures who are well known for their religiosity, individuals whose spirituality is not well known, and those who claimed no religion and may have even been hostile toward it. As a small research seminar, we will seek to understand the religious contributions of these individuals, the religious contexts that shaped their worlds, and how their lives are remembered (and reconstructed) well after their death. This research colloquium will include visits to museums and archives, including the Mark Twain House and Museum,  the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, and  the W.E.B. DuBois Center. The course will include archival research at Amherst College’s own Archives and Special Collections, where the Jerry Cohen Papers are kept. Cohen (Class of 1963) served as the General Counsel of the United Farm Workers during the Union’s heyday, having taken copious notes and research files on the movement’s strategy, internal affairs, and more. Students interested in continuing research into the summer will read about Cesar Chavez from different biographical perspectives and engage in further archival research at Amherst College and the extensive oral histories and interview materials compiled by Jacques Levy, Chavez’s biographer. 

This course is part of a model of tutorials at Amherst designed to enable students to engage in substantive research with faculty in the humanities and humanistic social sciences.

Priority given to Religion and LLAS majors.

Open to sophomores and juniors interested in research. Limited to 6 students. Spring semester. Professor Barba.

How to handle overenrollment: Priority given to Religion and LLAS majors

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: an emphasis on written work and readings.