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For “Week 2 (May 16): Religion and Popular Culture – Fundamentals”, please respond to one of the following prompts:
Option 1: Why do you think both textbooks (Klassen and Clark & Clanton) specifically utilize a cultural studies approach to this area of study? Do you think this school of thought is effective for the kinds of questions and issues raised by the authors? Why or why not? Please respond in 250-500 words.
Option 2: In Chapter 12, “Religion”, in Key Words in Religion, Media, and Culture, Sarah M. Pike offers a counter-narrative to stereotypes of new religious movements popularly labelled “cults”. Why does the author make this distinction in a way that problematizes the use of the term “cult” (which is often referred to as a “four-letter word” in the study of religion, similar to vulgar curse words like “f*ck” and “sh*t”)? Do “cult-like” expressions of belief differ substantively from other forms of religiosity? Why or why not? Please respond in 250-500 words.
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Enter your response here to fulfill the assignment requirement, and consider posting elements of your response on the course discussion board for this week, isolating your most salient points, presenting claims or quotations from assigned readings for peer engagement, and/or raising critical or clarifying questions for deliberation among your peers in the course. While verbatim materials carried over from weekly assigned responses to the discussion board may earn minimal (but not wholly insignificant) points toward your participation mark, the more engagement and intellectual exploration you generate (in class and on the discussion board), the higher your discussion board participation mark will be. To be clear, you should not simply copy/paste your assignment response to the discussion board and expect to get full participation marks. Rather, weekly written responses should be presented in a way that offers starting points for nuanced discussion among members of the classroom community, and this is key to securing strong marks for participation, alongside in-class contributions.
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