REL 151 Religions of Africa
Beyoncé’s Album Lemonade (2016), Black Panther (2018) and TV Series American Gods (2017) and even Disney’s Princess and the Frog (2009) tapped into a wealth of religious images, stories and historical traditions of African people making them more visible in the global popular imagination. What is African Religion? What are its nuances, unique features and characteristics? What makes a religion “African”? This course is a survey introduction to the religious experience, spirituality, and expressions of the African peoples in Africa and the African Diaspora. Using diverse methodological and theoretical approaches, the course will explore various understandings and practices that provide a deep appreciation of the sacred nature and meaning of African existence through myth, rituals, arts, performances, and symbols worldwide and highlighting the sodality of African religious expression. Together, we will examine topical issues including African religions in Western and African scholarship, conceptual differences, epistemological debates, divination, gender, prophecy and “magic” and more, and interrogate the interfaces, exchanges and tensions that exist between African religion, African diaspora religion, global Christianity, and in African and African American Islam.