This was a fun class, for two reasons. Professor Juergensmeyer is a charming speaker, full of anecdotes and knows the art of provoking his guests without insulting them. The other reason was the weekly visit we did to various places of worship. I saw Vedanta, Sikh, Korean Methodist, Jewish, Japanese Buddhist, Scientology, American Muslim and Sikh temples. There was not much theory in the class besides the three points I mentioned about the book we read for the class. Grading was painless, based on a multiple choice midterm and final and a paper I wrote (on the Hungarian, Reform Jewish community.) But the class was originally developed with Professor Hecht. This quarter it was taught by Juergensmeyer alone and it showed. There were actual factual mistakes he said about various religions. For somebody who took this course as an intro to religion it could have been and probably was misleading. I would assume that with Professor Hecht present these would be less numerous. Also the prof’s attitude towards women was not the best. There is nothing to complain of in terms of differential treatment, except that it was very obvious that he prefers to talk to male students. There were a few women and fat jokes too. Nevertheless I enjoyed the course and the visits.Books read for course:
- Mark Juergensmeyer: Global Religions: An Introduction