Query X-Posted from AmStudy from Bradford Verter bjverter@phoenix.Princeton.edu 2 June 1997
I'm teaching a course in the fall on American Religious History, which is, I'm afraid, supposed to cover everything from the discovery to the millennium. I'm assigning only primary texts, but I'm having trouble coming up with a book that will open up discussions of spiritual and social radicalism in the 1960s and 1970s. I'd especially like something that mentions, but does not focus on sex role issues to set the stage for the following week, which looks at gender roles in evangelicalism and new religious movements of the 1980s and 1990s.
I'm already planning to assign two short pieces to set up some poles: Alan Watts' "Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen" and King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail." And I'm planning to show HAIR as the optional film-of-the-week.
Here's what I've considered so far: Pynchon, _Crying Of Lot 49_ (too dense); Mehta _Karma Cola, Tom Wolfe (too cutting); Kerouac, _Dharma Bums_, Ram Dass _Be Here Now_, Castaneda _Conversations_, etc (not enough of social dimension---i.e. no coverage of civil rights, women's lib, etc.); Malcolm X _Autobiography_(redundant: we're reading Baldwin on Elijah Muhammad the week before); Deloria _God is Red_(redundant: we're reading similar material a couple of weeks later); Ginsberg _Kaddish_ and additional selections (maybe...). I'd very much appreciate any other suggestions you might have. Many thanks.
Responses from H-women:
Crow Dog, Mary _Lakota Woman_ and 2nd book _Ohitinka Woman_ pub. under name of Mary Brave Bird.
Day, Dorothy _The Long Loneliness_
Merton, Thomas
Moraga, Cherrie and Gloria Anzaldua, Eds. _This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color_(1983, 2nd ed. Women of Color Press, Latham, NY; 1981 1st ed., Massachusetts: Persephone Press)
Rubin, Jerry _Do It_
Other suggestions:
From Marilyn Dell Brady jayhawk@infi.net 09 June 1997
Last summer I was part of a very exciting NEH Institute on "Religion and
Diversity in American Society", directed by Emma Lapsansky at Haverford
College. She has posted on the web an amazing collection of bibliographies
and other materials from that seminar. We looked at the social history of
american religion and often dealt with issues of spirituality and
radicalism. The URL is
http://www.haverford.edu/library/sc/webejl/religdiversum.html
If you are interested in discussing particular readings feel free to contact me directly. I have been fantasizing a course like you are considering ever since I attended the Institute.
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