Religions of St. Louis: Communities of Faith and Practical Action Across the Region

The St. Louis region is home to a diverse array of global religious communities. This course directly introduces students to some of that diversity by revolving around fieldtrips to living institutions and meetings with religious leaders across traditions. In any given semester, our visits may include organizations that identify as Catholic, Pentecostal, evangelical, Jewish (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist), Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Vedantist, Scientological, progressive Baptist, or secular humanist, among others. We will also visit the International Institute of St. Louis and study the politics of immigration and refugee resettlement that have helped shape the city and its religious as well as political multiplicity. Through our visits and conversation, the variety within each religious community will also become apparent, as we encounter adherents across the political spectrum, embodying different ethnicities, and committed to different degrees of "orthodoxy" or traditional belief and practice. Students should emerge from the course with a fresh sense of the cultural and religious vitality of the St. Louis metropolitan area, illustrative of the United States as a whole. *All required site visits will take place during the regular class time.
Course Attributes: EN H; BU Eth; AS HUM; AS LCD; FA HUM; AR HUM

Religions of St. Louis: Communities of Faith and Practical Action Across the Region

AMERICAN CULTURE STUDIES 203A

Section 01