The link for the FINAL (woo hoo!) class notes document is available here.

Week FIFTEEN Class Notes: DUE by MIDNIGHT on MONDAY, DECEMBER 4!

Roger Sansi-Roca, “The Hidden Life of Stones”

This week you should post a discussion question that connects Sansi-Roca’s chapter on Candomblé objects to one of our previous class readings. Your question should be one that leads to further discussion, rather than a fact-based or a question that has a single answer. Ideally, your question will help us to better refine or produce further understandings of our class concepts (African diaspora, syncretism/hybridity, altars). Alternately, you can pose a question about the chapter that connects to how we study religion as an outsider, especially to our discussions of how Afro-Atlantic religious objects are displayed in the western art museum.

POST YOUR RESPONSES IN THE CLASS NOTES DOCUMENT! Be sure to include your name with your post so that you can receive credit for completing it.

Here is the link for this week’s class notes document:

Class Notes, Week 10

Pérez, Elizabeth. 2011. Cooking for the gods: Sensuous ethnography, sensory knowledge, and the kitchen in Lucumí tradition, Religion, 41:4, 665-683.

NOTE: This week you should write a short response (300-500 words) to the assigned article using the questions below:

• First, write a short summary (1-2 sentences) of what TO YOU is the main point of the article.
• Second, identify an idea, argument, passage, claim, example, etc. in the chapter that you find intriguing, confusing, or worth discussing in class. Explain what more you want to know, what you agree or disagree with, what you are confused by, and/or what you found especially enlightening. Alternately, you could choose a quote that connects to the Brown reading about Santeria aesthetics from last week. In either case, be sure to explain clearly what it is that made you select your quote and why it is relevant to our class.

POST YOUR RESPONSES IN THE CLASS NOTES DOCUMENT! Be sure to include your name with your post so that you can receive credit for completing it.

Week Eight Class Notes: DUE by MIDNIGHT on MONDAY, OCTOBER 16!

NOTE: This week you should write a short response (300-500 words) to the assigned article using the questions below:

If you were to meet Elizabeth McAlister, the author of this week’s reading, what would you say to her about her chapter “A Sorcerer’s Bottle”?

• First, write a short summary (1-2 sentences) of what TO YOU is the main point of the chapter.
• Second, identify an idea, argument, passage, claim, example, etc. in the chapter that you find intriguing, confusing, or worth talking about with McAlister. Explain what more you want to know, what you agree or disagree with, what you are confused by, and/or what you found especially enlightening. Another approach to take here would be to make a connection between McAlister’s chapter and one of our previous readings on religion in Haiti (McCarthy-Brown, Thompson, Costentino), using that connection to ask McAlister to expand on her discussion.
• Third, add an additional question for McAlister, one that connects your discussion of her chapter to one of our class concepts (diaspora, syncretism/hybridity, altars).

You can access the Class Notes for week 8 by following the link below:

Week 8, Class Notes

This week we will take a different approach to the class notes. Instead of posting KEY WORDS, QUOTES, and DISCUSSION QUESTIONS, you should instead identify a short passage from the readings that discusses a specific example or idea related to Vodou objects, and then write a paragraph in which you connect your chosen passage to one of our class concepts: DIASPORA, SYNCRETISM, or ALTARS.

To determine which concept you will write about, you should first remember which item you posted last week, and then use the following to determine your assigned concept:

• If you posted a KEY WORD last week, then this week you should write about DIASPORA
• If you posted a QUOTE last week, then this week you should write about SYNCRETISM
• If you posted a QUESTION last week, then this week you should write about ALTARS

The link to the class notes document for this week is here:

Class Notes, Week 7

Here is the link to the class notes document for this week:

Class Notes, Week Six

You can access the link for the class notes document below:

Class Notes Week Five

Link for the Week Four Class Notes document:

Week 4 Class Notes

Link for the Week Three Class Notes document. Be sure to follow all instructions in the document to complete this week’s notes:

Week Three Class Notes

Link for the Week 2 Class Notes Document:

Week 2 Class Notes