Special Topics in the Study of Religion: Inventing 'Indians' and 'Religion'

This course explores how European thought since 1492 began to construe, theorize, and theologize about who and what were the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, namely as "Indians." In turn, this course also explores how the encounter with Indigenous peoples of the Americas precipitated modern, comparative, and critical understandings of "religion." Finally, this course examines how the study of key concepts deemed to be definitive of Indigenous religions (e.g., animism, totemism, shamanism, etc.) has played a unique role in modern theories of religion.