"What Is Religion? Adventures in Religious Studies, Hong Kong Edition," is a spinoff of a class I teach at Stanford, "Is Stanford a Religion?" That class examines the characteristics of religion - myth, ritual, symbol, salvation - through the lens of Stanford and the Silicon Valley, looking at how and why students and tech workers engage in rituals and myths that could be classified as "religious." The Hong Kong edition of the class will take advantage of local surroundings to ask similar questions, but the location will also allow us to expand beyond the college environment to understand the broader implications of defining "religion." The class will begin with a unit that considers both substantive (what religion is) and functionalist (what religion does) understandings of "religion." We will discuss classic theories of religion, from Karl Marx to Sigmund Freud to Clifford Geertz, in order to understand how theorists have conceived of the category and what it does. This opening unit will also examine the basic building blocks of religion, such as myth and ritual, to assess how and why people tell religious stories and behave religiously. The second unit of the class will expand to consider how the category of "religion" has operated historically, as western travelers, scholars, and colonizers selectively applied and withheld the category from the different cultures they encountered. In this unit we will look at how Buddhism and Confucianism came to be classified as "world religions," while "folk" religions were not granted that status. The final unit of the class will expand the category of religion to that which is usually considered "secular." We will consider college (comparing Stanford and CUHK), technology/work, and Disney as religion, and contemplate what kinds of myths and rituals bring meaning to peoples' lives today.
4 units · Letter (ABCD/NP)
"What Is Religion? Adventures in Religious Studies, Hong Kong Edition," is a spinoff of a class I teach at Stanford, "Is Stanford a Religion?" That class examines the characteristics of religion - myth, ritual, symbol, salvation - through the lens of Stanford and the Silicon Valley, looking at how and why students and tech workers engage in rituals and myths that could be classified as "religious." The Hong Kong edition of the class will take advantage of local surroundings to ask similar questions, but the location will also allow us to expand beyond the college environment to understand the broader implications of defining "religion." The class will begin with a unit that considers both substantive (what religion is) and functionalist (what religion does) understandings of "religion." We will discuss classic theories of religion, from Karl Marx to Sigmund Freud to Clifford Geertz, in order to understand how theorists have conceived of the category and what it does. This opening unit will also examine the basic building blocks of religion, such as myth and ritual, to assess how and why people tell religious stories and behave religiously. The second unit of the class will expand to consider how the category of "religion" has operated historically, as western travelers, scholars, and colonizers selectively applied and withheld the category from the different cultures they encountered. In this unit we will look at how Buddhism and Confucianism came to be classified as "world religions," while "folk" religions were not granted that status. The final unit of the class will expand the category of religion to that which is usually considered "secular." We will consider college (comparing Stanford and CUHK), technology/work, and Disney as religion, and contemplate what kinds of myths and rituals bring meaning to peoples' lives today.
Offered in Autumn 2025 at Stanford University.