Prof. Ryan Harper
Religious Studies Program
Office: 726 Broadway, Suite 554
Phone: 212.992.9846
E-mail: ryan.harper@nyu.edu
Office Hours: 11:00am-12:00pm
Description
This course is an examination of the religions of African Americans, from the period of slavery to the present. We will also pay attention to the ways various African American religions have been and are shaped by contact with each other and with other traditions, beliefs, and practices.
A good way to understand our approach is to consider the questions we might ask of the course’s title:
--What is African American religion—in the singular? Is there something that unifies African Americans’ religious and spiritual experiences, or are they too diffuse to speak about them in the singular? What would be gained or lost were we to focus on, say, African American Islam(s), or African American religions in the South, or African American women’s religious experiences?
--What is African American religion? What happens to people of African descent—and their spiritualities—on the North American continent? To what extent does physical, cultural, and theological contact with Africa matter? How do the beliefs and practices of, say, Afro-Caribbean people, or people of African descent living in Europe, interact with black religion in the United States?
--What is African American religion? How does contact with people and traditions from Europe, South America, and Asia affect African American religions? How do African American and Euro-American forms of Christianity shape each other—through conscious and unconscious reaction and cooperation?
--What is African American religion? How do we know when we are investigating a phenomenon called “religion?” Do we attend to beliefs? Practices? Experience? How does our inquiry involve theological treatises, art, liturgy, or personal testimony? How might all of these aspects of human endeavor shape what we understand to be religion?
In this course, we will keep these questions before us, and we will examine the ways in which practitioners and observers of African American religions have tried to answer them.
Students will…
…sharpen and exercise critical reading and listening skills, as we examine texts, songs, and visual materials.
…learn and develop research skills conducive not only to the study of religion but also translatable to the humanities more broadly.
…develop and demonstrate habits of citizenship in a creative, deliberative space, as we as a class discuss the problems, promises, and challenges faced by our subjects and ourselves as inquirers.
…develop and demonstrate the ability to synthesize information across time, space, and cultures, as we try to make sense of particular historical and intellectual phenomena in light of larger trends and patterns.
Evaluation
Participation/leading class discussions: 20%
Paper Prospectus: 5%
Bibliography: 5%
Exam One: 10%
Exam Two: 15%
Exam Three: 20%
Paper: 25%
Assignments
Attendance/Participation: Students are not expected to miss more than one session without letting me know (and I would greatly appreciate knowing in all cases, preferably before the absence occurs). Having more unexcused absences will hurt your grade. You also should come to sessions ready to participate. The success or failure of this class depends on you taking responsibility for the conversation and you holding your colleagues (instructor included) accountable. We need you. And we need you fully present. Participating means contributing to discussion—not simply by speaking frequently, but also by speaking (and listening) considerately, thoughtfully, even vulnerably (never be averse to expressing frustration or confusion!).
Facilitating Discussion: You will be responsible for facilitating discussion for two sessions. You will begin the session with a brief summary of the readings for the week (three to four minutes should suffice), then proceed to introduce questions that prompt discussion. These questions may ask for clarification of concepts from the readings, challenge the readings’ claims, or open the readings to comparison with readings previously discussed in class. While you need not feel that you must be an “expert” on the readings, you should be familiar enough with the material to be able to discuss intelligently even matters of confusion. Engage the class as a member of the class during the discussion, but be prepared to direct the dialogue should your fellow students run into difficulty. Although there is no writing requirement for this assignment, I recommend that you prepare your summary and questions in some written form.
Paper: You will write one paper for this course, on a topic of your choosing. We will also do preliminary, collaborative work with each other (bibliography, prospectus) to help each other hone our topics. More to follow.
Exams: All three in-class exams will be divided into three parts: identification and explication of (1) terms and (2) quotations—from reading and lectures—and (3) a short essay. The quotations and terms will only cover the weeks prior to the exam in question (i.e., they will not be comprehensive). The essays could be comprehensive, in the sense that you may be asked to discuss themes covered throughout the course. More information regarding the exams will follow as they approach.
Required Texts:
--Milton Sernett, ed. African-American Religious History: A Documentary Witness (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000).
--James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1963. rpt. New York: Vintage, 1992)
COURSE SCHEDULE
Outside of your required texts, all materials are available on the NYU Classes site, under “Resources.” The “+” indicates a downloadable document. The “*” indicates a link.
WEEK ONE
September 7 Introduction
WEEK TWO
September 12 African, American, African-American Religions
--Albert Raboteau, “Death of the Gods,” (1978): 239-284+
September 14 Colonial African American Religion: Christian Encounter
--Francis le Jau, “Slave Conversion on the Carolina Frontier” (early 1700s) in Sernett (25-33)
--Bryan Edwards, “African Religions in Colonial Jamaica” (1794) in Sernett (20-25)
--Annette Laing, “'Heathens and Infidels'?: African Christianization and Anglicanism in the South Carolina Low Country, 1700-1750” (2002): 197-228+
Recommended: David Wills, “The Central Themes of American Religious History: Pluralism, Puritanism, and the Encounter of Black and White” (1997): 8-20+
WEEK THREE
September 19 Revolutionary African American Christianity
--George Liele and Andrew Bryan, “Letters from Pioneer Black Baptists” (late 1700s) in Sernett (44-51)
--Lemuel Haynes, “A Black Puritan’s Farewell” (1818) in Sernett (52-60)
--John Saillant, “Lemuel Haynes and the Revolutionary Origins of Black Theology, 1776-1801” (1992): 79-102+
September 21 African American Christianity in the Early Republic
--Richard Allen, “Life Experience and Gospel Labors” (1833) in Sernett (139-154)
--Christopher Rush, “Rise of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church” (1843) in Sernett (155-163)
--Emma Jones Lapsansky, “‘Since They Got Those Separate Churches’: Afro-Americans and Racism in Jacksonian Philadelphia” (1980): 54-78+
WEEK FOUR
September 26 African American Women in Early Republic Christianity
--Jarena Lee, “A Female Preacher Among the African Methodists” (1836) in Sernett (164-184)
--Carla Peterson, “‘Doers of the Word: Theorizing African-American Women Speakers and Writers in the Antebellum North” (1995): 366-393+
Recommended: Valerie Cooper, “Laying the Foundations for Azusa: Black Women and Public Ministry in the Nineteenth Century” (2011): 65-81+
September 28 Anti-Slavery, Christianity, and Religious Revolution
--Nat Turner/Thomas Gray, “Religion and Slave Insurrection” (1831) in Sernett (89-101)
--Cooper Harriss, “On the Eirobiblical: Critical Mimesis and Ironic Reversal in The Confessions of Nat Turner” (2013): 469-493+
WEEK FIVE
October 3 Anti-Slavery, Christianity, and the Prophetic Mode
--David Walker, “Our Wretchedness in Consequence of the Preachers of Religion” (1829) in Sernett (193-201)
--Frederick Douglass, “Slaveholding Religion and the Christianity of Christ” (1845) in Sernett (102-111)
--David Howard-Pitney, “The Enduring Black Jeremiad: The American Jeremiad and Black Protest Rhetoric, from Frederick Douglass to W.E.B. Du Bois, 1841-1919” (1986): 481-492+
October 5
FIRST EXAM 5
WEEK SIX
October 10 NO CLASS
October 12 Reconstruction and African American Religion
--Ida B. Wells-Barnett, from Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892-1894), esp. “The Offense,” “The New Cry,” “The Malicious and Untruthful White Press” (all other chapters recommended)*
--Henry McNeal Turner, “Emigration to Africa” (1883) in Sernett (289-295)
--African American Catholics, “The First African-American Catholic Congress, 1889” (1889, 1893) in Sernett (296-300)
--Anthony Pinn, “'Double Consciousness' in Nineteenth-Century Black Nationalism: Reflections on the Teachings of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner” (1995): 15-26+
WEEK SEVEN
October 17 African American Religion into the 20th Century: Respectable and Authentic
--W.E.B. DuBois, “Of the Faith of the Fathers” (1900) in Sernett (325-336)
--Nannie Helen Burroughs, “Report of the Work of Baptist Women” (1920) in Sernett (376-402)
--Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, from Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920 (1993), ch. 7 (pp. 185-229)+
BIBLIOGRAPHIES DUE
October 19 “Respectable” or “Authentic?” African Americans and the Origins of Pentecostalism
--William Seymour, selections from A Reader in Pentecostal Theology (2006; ca. 1906) 45-56
--Cecil Robeck, “The Azusa Street Mission and Historic Black Churches: Two Worlds in Conflict in Los Angeles’ African American Community” (2011): 21-39+
--Clarence Hardy III, “Church Mothers and Pentecostals in the Modern Age” (2011): 83-93+
Recommended: Iain MacRobert, “The Black Roots of Pentecostalism” (1992): 616-628+
WEEK EIGHT
October 24 Black Gods, Black Metropolises: The Exiled
--Marcus Garvey, “Garvey Tells His Own Story” (1923, 1925) in Sernett (453-463)
--Randall Burkett, “Religious Ethos of the UNIA” (1978): 550-571+
--Leonard Howell, from The Promised Key (ca. 1935; later commentary by William David Spencer), pp. 362-376, recommended 376-389+
October 26 Black Gods, Black Metropolises: The Divine
--Father Divine, “The Realness of God…” (1936) in Sernett (478-486)
--Leonard Primiano, “‘The Consciousness of God’s Presence Will Keep You Well, Healthy, Happy, and Singing’: The Tradition of Innovation in the Music of Father Divine’s Peace Mission Movement” (2009): 91-115+
PROSPECTUSES DUE
WEEK NINE
October 31 Black Gods, Black Metropolises: The Chosen
--Rabbi Matthew, “Black Judaism in Harlem” (ca. 1940s?) in Sernett (473-477)
--Noble Drew Ali, from The Holy Koran of the Moorish Science Temple of America (“Circle 7 Koran,” ca. 1923), preface, chapters I, II, V, VI, XLV, XLVI, XLVII (pp. 3-7, 11, 56-60; remainder included in file is recommended)
--Edward Curtis, “Debating the Origins of the Moorish Science Temple: Toward a New Cultural History” (2009): 70-90+
Recommended: Nora Rubel, “‘Chased Out of Palestine’: Prophet Cherry’s Church of God and Early Black Judaisms in the United States” (2009): 49-69+
November 2 African American Religion in the Interwar Years: Music
--Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, “Rethinking Vernacular Culture: Black Religion and Race Records in the 1920s and 1930s” (1997): 978-995+
--Jonathan Walton, “The Preachers’ Blues: Religious Race Records and Claims of Authority on Wax” (2010): 205-232+
MUSIC:
--Arizona Dranes, “I Shall Wear a Crown”*
--Sister Rosetta Tharpe, “This Train,” “Up Above My Head”*
WEEK TEN
November 6 African American Religion and the Long Civil Rights Movement
--Howard Thurman, from Jesus and the Disinherited (1949): chs. 1, 3 (11-35, 58-73)+
--Justin West, “Mysticism and Liberation: An Exploration into the Relationship Between Howard Thurman's Spirituality and Black Theology” (2013): 31-57+
Recommended: Sarah Azaransky, “Citizenship in Jesus and the Disinherited: from Black Internationalism to Whiteness on the Contemporary Border” (2013): 281-295 (esp. 296-304)+
November 8 Crossings in the Civil Rights Era: King and the American Dream
--Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” (1963) in Sernett (519-535)
--Vanessa Cook, “Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Long Social Gospel Movement,” (2016): 74-100+ 7
Recommended: Louis Gallien, Jr., “Crossing Over Jordan: Navigating the Music of Heavenly Bliss and Earthly Desires in the Lives and Careers of Three Twentieth-Century African American Holiness-Pentecostal ‘Crossover’ Artists” (2011): 117-138+
MUSIC
--Sam Cooke, “Change is Gonna Come”*
--Dorothy Love Coates and the Gospel Harmonettes, “Get Away Jordan”*
--Odetta, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”*
WEEK ELEVEN
November 13
SECOND EXAM
November 15 Crossings in the Civil Rights Era: Elijah, Malcolm, and the American Nightmare
--Elijah Muhammad, from Message to the Black Man in America (1973), pp. 1-13, 103-122, recommended, pp. 68-85
--Malcolm X, selected speeches and letters (1964-1965), pp. 58-63, 157-177
--Maytha Alhassen, “The ‘Three Circles’ Construction: Reading Black Atlantic Islam through Malcolm X's Words and Friendships” (2015): 1-17
Recommended: Alex Lubin, “Between the Secular and the Sectarian: Malcolm X's Afro-Arab Political Imaginary” (2015): 83-95+
WEEK TWELVE NO CLASS
WEEK THIRTEEN
November 27 The Shaking Dungeon: Baldwin and Prophetic Fire
--James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1963)
November 29 African American Christianity out of the Civil Rights Era
--James Cone, “Black Theology and the Black Church: Where Do We Go From Here?” (1977) in Sernett (567-579)
--Jacquelyn Grant, “Black Theology and the Black Woman” (1993): 831-848+
MUSIC/POETRY
--Aretha Franklin, “You’ve Got a Friend/Precious Lord”*
--Andraé Crouch, “You Don’t Know What You’re Missing,” “I Don’t Know Why”*
--Sly and the Family Stone, “Stand” (live)*
WEEK FOURTEEN
December 5 East and West: African/American Religion
--Jason Bivins, from Spirits Rejoice! Jazz and American Religion (2015) (134-147)+
--Ashon Crawley, “Noise.Church.Flesh.: Or, For Coltrane Church, For Pulse” (2016)*
MUSIC
--John Coltrane, A Love Supreme*
--Last Poets, “White Man’s Got a God Complex”*
December 7 East and West, South and North: African/American Religion
--Allison Sellers, “Yemoja: An Introduction to the Divine Mother and Water Goddess” (2013): 131-149+
--Joseph Murphy, from Santería: African Spirits in America (1993), chs. 10-12 (104-143)+
Recommended: Judith Gleason, “Oya in the Company of Saints” (2000): 265-291+
MUSIC/POETRY
--Jayne Cortez, “I See Chano Pozo,” “If the Drum is a Woman”*
--Miles Davis, from Bitches Brew (“Miles Runs the Voodoo Down,” pts. 1 and 2; all recommended)*
PAPERS DUE
WEEK FIFTEEN
December 12 Ciphers and Sages: African American Religion in the Long Eighties
--Cornel West, from Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity (1982): ch. 4 (95-127) (recommended ch. 5, 131-147)+
--Felicia Miyakawa, from Five Percenter Rap: God’s Hop Music, Message, and Black Muslim Mission (2005) ch. 3 (41-72) (recommended ch. 2, 23-37)+
MUSIC
--Xclan, “Xodus”*
--Poor Righteous Teachers, “Holy Intellect”*
--Brand Nubian, “Wake Up”*
December 13 African American Christianity in the 1990s: Prosperity and Propriety
--Kelly Brown Douglas, “Homophobia and Heterosexism in the Black Church and Community” (1999): 996-1018+
--Cheryl Sanders, “Pentecostal Ethics and the Prosperity Gospel: Is There a Prophet in the House?” (2011): 141-152+
MUSIC/VIDEO
--Juanita Bynum, sermon*
--T.D. Jakes, sermon*
--Norman Hutchins, “God’s Got a Blessing”*
--Kirk Franklin, “Revolution”* 9
December 14 African American Religion into the 21st Century: Codas and Preludes
MUSIC
--Erykah Badu, “On and On” (live version)*
--Lecrae, “All I Need is You”*
--Kanye West, Life of Pablo*
--Lupe Fiasco, “Unforgivable Youth”*
--Poetic Pilgrimage, “Land Far Away”*