Week

Topic

Content and Reading Assignment

Teaching Activities and Homework

1

Introduction 2/21

Syllabus Evaluation Criteria Class Regulations

Introduction of syllabus and regulations

Students choose the 6 (six) weeks in which they want to submit their individual essays.

No Homework

2

228 Holiday

2/28

No class

No Homework

3

What is religion? What is politics? Defining religion in the modern world 3/7

Required Readings

Fox, Jonathan. An introduction to religion and politics: theory and practice. New York: Routledge, 2013. Ch.1

Jeffrey Haynes, ed. Routledge handbook of religion and politics,

• Lecture


• Essay (only for those who chose to submit it)


• Presentation of the readings (only for one or two students who chose to do it)


• Other activities: games,

New York: Routledge, 2008, Chapter 1

Additional

Grzymala-Busse, Anna. "Why comparative politics should take religion (more) seriously." Annual Review of Political Science 15 (2012): 421-442

simulation, debates.

4

Religion & Secularism 3/14

Required Readings

Moro, Renato. "Religion and politics in the time of secularisation: The sacralisation of politics and politicisation of religion." Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 6.1 (2005): 71-

86

Bruce, Steve. "Secularisation and politics." Routledge handbook of religion and politics. Routledge, 2008. 157-170.

Additional

Talal Asad, “Thinking about

Religious Belief and Politics,” in Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies, ed. Robert Orsi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 36-57

• Lecture


• Essay (only for those who chose to submit it)


• Presentation of the readings (only for one or two students who chose to do it)


• Other activities: games, simulation, debates.

5

Multiple Secularisms 3/21

Required Readings

Asad, Talal, “Trying to understand French secularism.” In: de Vries H, Sullivan LE (eds) Political Theologies. New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2006,

pp. 494–526

Keyman, E. Fuat. "Modernity, secularism and Islam: The case of Turkey." Theory, culture & society

24.2 (2007): 215-234

Additional

Bhargava, Rajeev, and T. N. Srinivasan. "The distinctiveness of Indian secularism." The future of secularism (2007)

• Lecture


• Essay (only for those who chose to submit it)


• Presentation of the readings (only for one or two students who chose to do it)


• Other activities: games, simulation, debates.

6

Religion and Democracy 3/28

Required Readings

Stepan, Alfred. "Religion, democracy, and the" twin tolerations"." Journal of Democracy 11 (2000): 37-57

• Lecture


• Essay (only for those who chose to submit it)


• Presentation of the readings (only for one or

two students who chose to

Habermas, Jürgen. “Religion in the Public Sphere.” European Journal of Philosophy 14 (1) 2006: 1-25.

Additional

Habermas, Jürgen. “Notes on Post- Secular Society.” New Perspectives Quarterly 25 (4) 2008: 17-29.

do it)

• Other activities: games, simulation, debates.

7

Holiday

Children’s Day, Qingming Festival

4/4

NO CLASS

• NO CLASS

8

Civil religion: “non-religious”- ness and the myth of tolerance

4/11

Required Readings

Bellah, Robert, “Civil Religion in America.” Daedalus 96, 1, 1967: 1-

21.

McCargo, Duncan. "The Politics of Buddhist identity in Thailand's deep south: The Demise of civil religion?." Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 40.1 (2009): 11-32

Additional

Yamashita, Yoko. "Islam and Muslims in “non-religious” Japan: caught in between prejudice against Islam and performative tolerance." International Journal of Asian Studies 19.1 (2022): 81-97.

• Lecture


• Essay (only for those who chose to submit it)


• Presentation of the readings (only for one or two students who chose to do it)


• Other activities: games, simulation, debates.

9

Religious Nationalism and Fundamentalism 4/18

Required Readings

Juergensmeyer, Mark. (2010) "The global rise of religious nationalism." Australian Journal of International Affairs 64.3: 262-273.

Grzymala-Busse, Anna. (2019). “Religious nationalism and religious influence.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics

Juergensmeyer, Mark. "Why religious nationalists are not fundamentalists." (1993): 85-92.

Additional

Brubaker, Rogers. (2012). Religion and nationalism: Four approaches.

Nations and nationalism, 18,1, 2-20.

• Lecture


• Essay (only for those who chose to submit it)


• Presentation of the readings (only for one or two students who chose to do it)


• Other activities: games, simulation, debates.

10

Religion and violence

4/25

Required Readings

Gorski, Philip S., and Gülay Türkmen-Dervişoğlu. "Religion, nationalism, and violence: An integrated approach." Annual Review of Sociology 39 (2013): 193-

• Lecture


• Essay (only for those who chose to submit it)


• Presentation of the readings (only for one or two students who chose to

do it)

210.

Brubaker, Rogers. (2015), "Religious dimensions of political conflict and violence." Sociological Theory 33.1: 1-19.

Additional

Cavanaugh, William T. "The invention of fanaticism." Modern Theology 27.2 (2011): 226-237.

• Other activities: games, simulation, debates

11

Islamism and Political Islam 5/2

Required Readings

Mohammed Ayoob, “Defining Concepts, Demolishing Myths,” in The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World (University of Michigan Press, 2008), pp. 1-22.

Peter Mandaville, “Islam in the System: The Evolution of Islamism as Political Strategy,” in Islam and Politics (OUP, 2014), 121-141.

Additional

Bobby S. Sayyid, A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism (Zed Books, 2003), pp. 31-51.

• Lecture


• Essay (only for those who chose to submit it)


• Presentation of the readings (only for one or two students who chose to do it)

Other activities: games, simulation, debates

12

Islamophobia and nationalism in Myanmar and Thailand

5/9

Required Readings

Kyaw, Nyi Nyi. "The role of myth in anti-muslim buddhist nationalism in Myanmar." Buddhist-Muslim Relations in a Theravada World.

Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore, 2020. 197-226.

Tonsakulrungruang, Khemthong. "The Revival of Buddhist Nationalism in Thailand and Its Adverse Impact on Religious Freedom." Asian Journal of Law and Society 8.1 (2021): 72-87.

Additional

Chowdhury, Arnab Roy (2020) “An ‘un-imagined community’: the entangled genealogy of an exclusivist nationalism in Myanmar and the Rohingya refugee crisis”, Social Identities 26:5, 590-607

• Lecture


• Essay (only for those who chose to submit it)


• Presentation of the readings (only for one or two students who chose to do it)


• Other activities: games, simulation, debates

13

FILM WEEK 5/16

We will be watching The Venerable W (2017). Director: Barbet Schroeder.

Schroeder focuses on the life of

Watch Film Discussion

Ashin Wirathu, an influential monk who propagated hatred against Islam in Myanmar. This film is Schroeder’s last film in his “Trilogy of Evil” consisting of General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait (1974) and Terror’s Advocate (2007).

14

Islam, Modernism and Politics in Iran and Turkey

5/23

Required Readings

Peter Mandaville, “Turkey: Religion, Secular Nationalist Ideology, and the Rise of “Muslim Democracy”,” in Islam and Politics (OUP, 2014), pp. 162-174

Marashi, Afshin. "Paradigms of Iranian Nationalism: History, Theory, and Historiography." Rethinking Iranian nationalism and modernity. University of Texas Press, 2021. 3-24.

Additional

Skocpol, Theda. "Rentier state and Shi'a Islam in the Iranian revolution." Theory and society 11.3 (1982): 265-283.

İbrahim Kalın, “The AK Party in Turkey,” in The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics, ed. John Esposito & Emad El-Din Shahin

(Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 423-439.

• Lecture


• Essay (only for those who chose to submit it)


• Presentation of the readings (only for one or two students who chose to do it)


• Other activities: games, simulation, debates

15

Holiday Dragon Boat Festival

5/30

No Class

No Homework

16

Religious militant nationalism in India and Israel 6/6

Required Readings

Van der Veer, P. (2021). “Minority Rights and Hindu Nationalism in India.” Asian Journal of Law and Society, 8(1), 44-55

Yadgar, Yaacov, and Noam Hadad. "A post-secular interpretation of religious nationalism: the case of Religious-Zionism." Journal of Political Ideologies 28.2 (2023):

238-255.

Additional

Chacko, Priya. (2019). “Marketizing Hindutva: The state, society, and markets in Hindu nationalism.”

Modern Asian Studies, 53(2), 377-

• Lecture


• Essay (only for those who chose to submit it)


• Presentation of the readings (only for one or two students who chose to do it)


• Other activities: games, simulation, debates