Anthropology 316MW - Magic, Witchcraft & Religion

Religion counts among anthropology's most central and enduring areas of interest. This course traces a history of anthropological attention to belief and ritual from the nineteenth century to the present. We will read classic and contemporary ethnographic studies of religious systems, covering topics that include spirits and animism, totemism, magic, witchcraft, mythology, taboo, sacrilege, orthodoxy and orthopraxy, religion and modernity, and secularism. The course will scrutinize religion itself as a cultural and analytical category, and it will question how an anthropological perspective alters perceptions of the global politics of religion today.

Prereq: 8 credits in Anthropology department.