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Change to readings on March 1 indicated
below.
Readings
underlined in blue
can be accessed directly from this website. To access readings
underlined in red, you need to be logged in
to your Sakai account (if you are not already logged in, you will be prompted to
do so once you click on the link).
You should bring all readings to class to
facilitate discussion.
Jan 25: What
is theory? When is early Christianity?
Readings:
Jonathan Culler, Literary Theory, chs. 1, 3, 4, 7, 8 and Appendix; *Introduction to Dale Martin and
Patricia Cox Miller, The Cultural Turn in Late Ancient Studies (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2005), 1-21
Background topics: Theory; Early
Christianity (Professor Jacobs)
Feb 1:
Sociology I: Weber and charisma
Readings:
The Didache; *Selections from Max Weber, Sociology of Religion
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1991 [1922]);
*Selections from Gerd Theissen, The Sociology of Early Palestinian
Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1978); *John G. Gager, "Shall We Marry Our Enemies? Sociology and the New Testament," Interpretation 37 (1982): 256-65
Background topics: Max
Weber; Sociology (general); Routinization of Charisma
Feb 8: NO
CLASS (Professor out of town)
Feb 15:
Sociology II:
L'affaire Rodney Stark
Readings:
Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1996), preface, chs. 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10
Responses in
Journal
of Early Christian Studies, 6.2 (1998):
Todd E. Klutz, "The Rhetoric of Science in The Rise of Christianity: A Response to Rodney Stark's Sociological Account of Christianization," pp. 162-84
Keith Hopkins, "Christian Number and its Implications," pp. 185-226
Rodney Stark, "E Contrario," pp. 259-67 (Stark refers to the essay by Elizabeth Castelli, which you are not required to read but may consult here)
Background topics:
Rodney Stark; Rational Choice Theory
Feb 22:
Marxism: From class to "status"
Readings:
Revelation to John;
F. Engels, "On the History of Early Christianity";
Stark, Rise of Christianity, ch. 2; *Selection from Wayne Meeks, The First Urban
Christians (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983); *Richard Rohrbaugh, "Methodological
Considerations in the Debate Over the Social Class Status of Early Christians,"
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 52 (1984): 519-46
Background topics:
Marxism (general); Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; Ideology
Mar 1: Mary
Douglas, Bodies, and Societies
Readings:
Selection from John Cassian; Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger
(London: Routledge, 2002 [1966]), introduction, chs. 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10; *David Brakke, "The Problematization of Nocturnal Emissions
in Early Christian Syria, Egypt, and Gaul," Journal of Early Christian
Studies 3 (1995): 419-60; Michael Penn, "Ritual Kissing, Heresy, and the
Emergence of Early Christian Orthodoxy," Journal of Ecclesiastical History
54 (2003): 625-40
Background topics:
Mary Douglas; Anthropology (cultural); Structuralism
Mar 8: Freud,
Anxiety, and Antiquity
Readings:
Selection from Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents;
E.R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1965)
Background topics:
Freudian psyche; Psychohistory; E. R. Dodds
March 15-19: Spring Break
Mar 22: Next
Top Model: Social Science and Social History
Readings:
*Bruce J. Malina, "Early Christian Groups: Using Small Group Formation Theory to
Explain Christian Organizations," in Modelling Early Christianity,
ed. Philip Esler (London: Routledge, 1995), 96-113;
*Elizabeth Clark, "Elite Networks and Heresy Accusations: Toward a Social
Description of the Origenist Controversy," Semeia 56 (1991): 79-117; *David
Horrell, "Social Sciences Studying Formative Christian Phenomena: A Creative
Movement," in Handbook of Early Christianity: Social Science Approaches,
ed. Anthony Blasi (Oxford: AltaMira, 2002), 3-28
Midterm
Essay Due: No presentations
Mar 29:
Feminism I: From Second Wave to the Linguistic Turn
Readings:
*The Acts of Thecla; Stark, Rise of Christianity, ch. 5;*Selections from Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her (New York: Crossroads, 2000 [1983]); *Selection from Virginia Burrus, Chastity as
Autonomy (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1987); *Elizabeth Clark, "The Lady Vanishes: Dilemmas of a Feminist
Historian After the Linguistic Turn," Church History 67 (1998): 1-31; *Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak, "More on Power/Knowledge," from(London: Routledge,
1994), 141-74
Background topics:
Second-Wave Feminism; Feminist Theology; Gender Studies
Apr 5:
Foucault and Friends
Readings:
*Selection from Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure, tr. Robert Hurley (New York: Viking, 1985); *Selection from Michael Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 3: The Care of the Self, tr. Robert Hurley (New York: Viking, 1986); *Daniel Boyarin and Elizabeth Castelli,
"Introduction: Foucault's The History of Sexuality: The Fourth Volume,
or, A Field Left Fallow for Others to Till," in Journal of the History of
Sexuality 10 (2001): 357-74; *Averil Cameron, "Redrawing the Map: Early Christian Territory
After Foucault," Journal of Roman Studies 76
(1986): 266-71; *Elizabeth A. Clark, "Foucault, the Fathers, and Sex,"
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 56 (1988): 619-41
Background topics:
Michel Foucault; Post-structuralism; Discourse analysis
Apr 12:
Feminism II: Third Wave
Readings:
Epitaph of Paula; *Life of Pelagia; *Luce Irigaray, "The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine,"
from The Irigaray Reader, ed. M. Whitford (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991),
118-32; Virginia Burrus, Sex Lives of Saints (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania, 2004),
introduction and chs. 2, 4, and postscript
Background topics: Luce
Irigaray; Helene Cixous; Third-Wave Feminism; Psychoanalytic Theory (Lacan);
Psychoanalytic Theory (Kristeva)
Apr 19:
Postcolonial Studies
Readings:
Piacenza Pilgrim; *Andrew Jacobs, "The Lion and the Lamb: Reconsidering 'Jewish-Christian
Relations' in Antiquity," in
The Ways that Never Parted, ed. A.Y. Reed and A.H. Becker (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2007), 95-118; *Selection from Jeremy Schott,
Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2008); Virginia
Burrus, Sex Lives, ch. 3
Background topics: Postcolonial
theory/criticism; Edward Said; Gayatri Spivak; Homi K. Bhabha
Apr 26: Queer
Theory
Readings:
*Selection from Stephen Moore, God's Beauty Parlor (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2002); Virginia Burrus,
Sex Lives, ch. 1
Background topics:
Queer theory
May 3:
Presentations and Conclusions
Readings: Class will
precirculate portions of papers for discussion
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