Document Type

Syllabus

Publication Date

Fall 2023

Course Description

The course acknowledges that the ongoing relevance and power of religion is related to its entanglement with every facet of human development and experience. Its primary question and angle of exploration is the relation between religion, as a process of world-making and leadership. Through examination of everyday practices, commitments, contemporary crises, and case studies from various religious traditions, and iconic figures, the course investigates and analyses individual and collective agency in trying to build new worlds across time. While the main goal is to explore and raise awareness concerning the intersections between religion and various expressions of leadership, it seeks to go beyond mere analysis. It also explores forms of imagined leadership and communities that are likely to emerge in a world in which humans are filled with phenomenal powers. Considering the above, the following learning goals, outcomes and performance indicators are relevant to the course and its exploration of the relation to the intersection between religion and leadership:

Student Outcomes

With respect to Learning Goal 1: Religious Literacy I. To develop a solid foundation of credible knowledge about diverse religions, the concept of leadership, and the intersection between religion and leadership. II. To understand how religious traditions have shaped—and are shaped in turn by—historical- cultural contexts. III. To recognize the global diversity of religious traditions and the diversity within each tradition. IV. To acknowledge the importance of religion in the human search for meaning, purpose, and the capacity of this meaning to shape individuals, communities, societies, and nations. V. To gain an appreciation of the relationship between religion, the human imagination, leadership, and the imagined community or utopia. With respect to Learning Goal 2: Global/Intercultural Competence I. Cultivation of a greater global and cultural awareness of self and other by engaging with peoples and cultures from around the globe with specific relation to the origins, development, dissemination, and globalization of various religious traditions. • Students will be able to identify definitions of religion, their limitations, and relation to leadership. • Students will be able to describe characteristic patterns/dimensions shared by religious traditions, and their significance for leadership. • Students will be able to identify and explore the theoretical foundations of the connections between religion and leadership. • Students will be able to identify geo-cultural regions, their respective majority religious traditions, and their correlation with leadership. • Students will be able to evaluate the importance of “pluralism” and “tolerance” when assessing global religions and diversity within religious traditions. • Students will be able to identify the patterns of leadership integral to a variety of religious traditions. • Students will be able to identify the intersections of human creative expression/religious discourse and rhetoric. • Students will be able to identify the relationship between religion, rhetoric, and leadership. • Students will be able to recognize the significance of language, communication, and religion in the construction of national and other forms of leadership. • Students will be able to demonstrate a capacity to work open-mindedly with students from all backgrounds, cultures, and religions. • Students will be empowered to become open to the other. • Students will be empowered to see religion as the process of being open to the world, and to develop their capacity to embrace it. II. To develop robust and responsible ways to think comparatively about religious similarities and differences. III. Gain familiarity with non-western religious traditions and cultures through a comparative approach and deepening knowledge of non-western religions and socio-historical contexts. IV. Strengthen empathetic (non-judgmental, open and curious) engagement with the diversity of religious worldviews and the cultures from which they emerge. With respect to Learning Goal 3: Reading, Speaking, and Writing I. To read, understand, and critically analyze religious texts- (oral, written, biographical--and artifacts from a number of different genres, registers, regions, epochs, languages, and cultural traditions with respect to various religious traditions. II. To distinguish confessional or prescriptive statements about religion from descriptive and/or analytical statements. • Students will be able to write essays and theses using cross-culturally framed and informed research questions. • Students will be able to develop their capacity for self-knowledge. • Student will be able to develop their capacity for empathy and compassion. • Students will be able to define what religion is and its functions in relationship to leadership. • Students will be able to appreciate the role that understanding religion has played in the development of specific leaders throughout time. • Students will be able to identify how the diversity of religious worldviews represents racial, national, socioeconomic, sociocultural, and other kinds of differences. • Students will be able to develop a deeper understanding of the Humanities in the human enterprise. • Students will be able to appreciate the need to make and maintain the world as human. • Students will be able to engage in analytical discussion about religious texts, traditions, or artifacts. • Students will explore the genesis of those texts, traditions, and artifacts in relation to temporal and historical challenges. • Students will be able to distinguish between (confessional or prescriptive or truth-claiming) statements made (from) within religious texts, traditions, artifacts and scholarly, comparative religious studies statements made (from) outside of religious tradition. • Students will be able to appreciate the ideological dimension of various religious traditions, and the relation between ideology and leadership. III. Write clearly and cogently about religion as a mode of cultural production. IV. Formulate questions and making effective arguments--orally and in writing--, conducting research, evaluating research resources, and organizing projects. • Students will be able to perform a written analysis of how cultural (and social, political, and economic) factors are represented in religious texts, traditions, artifacts. • Students will be able to extrapolate and analyze the intersection between religion and leadership in texts, traditions, and artifacts. • Students will develop their skill in identifying what is at stake in those texts, traditions, and artifacts. • Students will be able to develop an original thesis statement about a religious figure, text, tradition, or artifact and its teleology. • Students will be able to acquire strategies for convincing readers and an audience of the value of an argument about a religious text, tradition, or artifact, and their relationship to the rhetoric of leadership. • Students will be able to conduct research about religious texts, traditions, or artifacts that is oriented toward excavating the leadership dimension. V. Model academically informed civil discourse in the discussion of sensitive and controversial topics with specific reference to leadership. • Students will gain experience in group work and collective discussion (by listening/responding to and empathizing) with others around religious texts, traditions, and artifacts that focus on leadership. • Student will develop appreciation of the relationship between hermeneutics and the art of leadership. • Students will develop their capacity to identity their capacity for various forms of leadership.

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