RELGST 1417 - PHILOSOPHY OF RACE AND RELIGION

Minimum Credits: 3
Maximum Credits: 3
The history of European religious thought (particularly Christianity) and the development of the idea of race are interwoven. While many devoutly religious people throughout history have, no doubt, been part of movements to oppose the horrific acts that occurred under colonization, end slavery, oppose Nazi anti-Semitism, or promote Civil Rights, for example, the very concept of separate races and the promotion of the ideal of white supremacy were in many ways innovations of European Christian theology. Indeed, religious arguments for white supremacy undergird many of the justifications for colonization and genocide, for slavery, and for Jim Crow laws and apartheid. As a result, despite important developments toward equality, racism remains ubiquitous and part of the underlying logic of the religious, political, and cultural milieu of American society, even if its effects often remain unnamed or are less explicit. This course is a philosophical exploration of the intersections of race, racism, and religious thought. It begins with an analysis of the philosophical and religious positions that solidified and promoted the idea of race, traces the entanglement of Western philosophy and Christian theology with racist political ideologies, and presents critical responses to race from African-American philosophers and liberation theologies. It ends by evaluating the continued effects of racism in American culture and religious thought and considers how we might both understand and respond to the epistemological, phenomenological, and existential effects of white supremacy in Western thought.
Academic Career: Undergraduate
Course Component: Lecture
Grade Component: LG/SNC Elective Basis
Course Attributes: DSAS Phil. Think or Ethics General Ed. Requirement, SCI Polymathic Contexts: Ethical/Policy GE. Req.

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