REL 456 Life and Death in Varanasi
Students travel to India to directly observe five major Indian religions as they take place on the ground. We will travel to Delhi, and on to Amritsar to visit the Golden Temple, the center of Sikhism, as well as the Indo-Pakistan border. Then, for two weeks we will observe Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and Jains in some of their most ordinary and most important religious places. In particular, we hope to observe the Dalai Lama at a mass public teaching; to see funerals and cremations on the banks of the Ganges; to visit the birthplace of the previous Champion of the Jains; and, to see how Muslims maintain an identity that is at once Indian and Other. Throughout, the course emphasizes a comparison between Western text-centric visions of Eastern religions, as well as developing skills in 'reading' places, persons, and practices.