Time

Concepts and sensibilities surrounding time and temporality are major aspects of people’s sense of reality and “how the world works.” Questions that we will explore in this course include such as the following: How are concepts and senses of time shaped in different contexts? How do they change? What role do ritual practices as well as distinctions such as between sacred and profane times play in shaping senses of time? In what ways are times and temporalities experienceable and in what ways do they elude perception? How are concepts of time and space connected? How is time political and how do its political valences become tangible or remain elusive? In our inquiries we will pay attention to where practices and concepts that seem obviously associated with religion make their appearance and what assumptions make that classification seem obvious. We will also examine how conceptual tools of religious studies might aid us in understanding how conceptions and sensibilities regarding time and temporality emerge, are transmitted, and transformed in and through communities of practice.

While this seminar is open to interested students from all disciplines, our work in this course specifically falls into the “zone of inquiry” of “time and history” of the Religion Department’s graduate programs. “Zones of inquiry” seek to introduce students to a particular cluster of key concepts and various theoretical elaborations of those concepts, in order to aid students in honing their ability to reflect critically on and develop further the central concepts that they derive from and bring to the specific traditions and phenomena that they study in their own research. A main goal of this course will therefore be to deepen our conceptual and analytical acumen and expand our theoretical resources at the intersection of religious studies and theories of time and temporality.