RELI 141: African-American Religions

Course Home Page	Blackboard	Instructor's E-mail
Course Overview	Required Textbook	Online Readings
Course Requirements	Honor Code	Course Mechanics
Course Schedule

Course Overview

Welcome to RELI 141, African-American Religions!

This is an introductory course, which explores African-American religious traditions, beliefs, experiences, and practices. Our approach will be mostly historical and thematic, spanning the period from the colonial era to the present. Some of our key themes will include: historical and communal memory, religion and identity, freedom in religious ideology and practice, gender, and global dimensions of African-American religions. We will read academic works as well as primary sources. Our main goal will be to learn how experiences shaped religion and how religion informed lives of individuals and communities.

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Required Textbook

You will need to purchase two textbooks for this course.

Raboteau, Canaan Land: A Religious History of African Americans (2001), ISBN: 978-0195145854

Gomez, Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South, 1998. (An electronic version of this book is available through UNC libraries. However, only one person at a time can view the book. Therefore, I strongly recommend that you purchase your own copy).

The textbooks are available from Friday Center Books & Gifts, located in the Friday Center. You can purchase the books in person, order them online, or print out the book order form and fax or mail it in with your payment.

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Online Readings

All other required readings will be available free online. Your reading assignment will appear on each lesson page. The online readings include:

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, pages 1-94

Carol George, “Widening the Circle: The Black Church and the Abolitionist Crusade, 1830-1860,” in Timothy E. Fulop and Albert J. Raboteau (eds.). African-American Religion: Interpretive Essays in History and Culture. New York: Routledge, 1997 (E-reserve)

The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen, pages 1-2

The Confessions of Nat Turner, pages 7-20

Timothy E. Fulop, “’The Future Golden Day of the Race’: Millennialism and Black Americans in the Nadir, 1877-1901,” pages 227-257 in Timothy E. Fulop and Albert J. Raboteau (eds.). African-American Religion: Interpretive Essays in History and Culture. New York: Routledge, 1997 (E-reserve)

Bishop Henry Turner, “The American Negro and the Fatherland,” pages 195-198 in Africa and the American Negro: Addresses and Proceedings of the Congress on Africa

Letters from migrants, 1917 "Sir I Will Thank You with All My Heart": Seven Letters from the Great Migration

Randall K. Burkett, “The Baptist Church in Years of Crisis: J.C. Austin and Pilgrim Baptist Church, 1926-1950,” in Timothy E. Fulop and Albert J. Raboteau (eds.). African-American Religion: Interpretive Essays in History and Culture. New York: Routledge, 1997 (E-reserve)

Wallace Best, “The Frenzy, the Preacher, and the Music” and “A Woman's Work, an Urban World,” in Wallace D. Best, Passionately Human, No Less Divine: Religion and Culture in Black Chicago, 1915-1952. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005 (E-reserves)

Susan Nance, “Mystery of the Moorish Science Temple: Southern Blacks and American Alternative Spirituality in 1920s Chicago,” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation (2002) 2:124 (E-reserve)

Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

Malcolm X, “The Ballot or the Bullet”

National Conference of Black Churchmen: “Black Power” Statement, July 31, 1966, and “Black Theology” Statement, June 13, 1969, in Milton C. Sernett, ed., African-American Religious History: A Documentary Witness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999 (E-reserve)

Charles Marsh, "’I'm on My Way, Praise God’: Mrs. Hamer's Fight for Freedom,” in Charles Marsh. God's Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997 (E-reserve)

Edward E. Curtis IV, “African-American Islamization Reconsidered: Black History Narratives and Muslim Identity,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 73, 2005 (E-reserve)

Carolyn Moxley Rouse, “Gender Negotiations and Qur’anic Exegesis: One Community’s Reading of Islam and Women,” in Carolyn Moxley Rouse, Engaged Surrender: African American Women and Islam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004 (E-reserve)

If you have trouble accessing any of the online readings, contact the instructional designer. If you have trouble accessing an e-reserve, contact UNC Libraries (see Library Services and Resources in the Course Mechanics section of this page).

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Course Requirements

Assignments	% of Course Grade
Discussion Forum Participation	30% (reflections 20%; general discussion 10%)
Midterm Essay	35%
Final Essay	35%

Reading
There will be a fair amount of reading involved in this course. We will average about 70-80 pages of academic and primary sources per week. We will also use the Internet for additional materials, such as visiting relevant Web sites and listening to music and speeches.

Midterm and Final Papers
You will have to submit two papers during the semester. Each paper should be at least five pages in length, but no longer than eight pages. These papers are important. Each will constitute 35 percent of your final grade.

I will post the question for the essays in Blackboard several weeks before it is due (see posting dates and due dates in the course schedule).

The questions will be fairly broad. You will have plenty of flexibility in choosing your specific subject and line of inquiry. I am posting the questions early to give you an opportunity to discuss your ideas for the papers ahead of time. Once the questions have been posted, feel free to contact me with your ideas. First, contact me with your general idea. Then, at least one or two weeks before the paper is due, you can also e-mail me a draft of the thesis paragraph for your essay. By “thesis” I mean a short statement that includes a) your research question, b) how you plan to answer it, and c) how you plan to document it based on the assigned readings.

Grading standards for the essays will be:
A = Excellent; good description, good analysis, and showa original interpretation
B = Good; good description, or good analysis
C = Adequate in the sense of doing minimal compliance with the assignment
D = Poor; did not complete the assignment adequately but shows some effort
F = Failing; did not complete the assignment

Weekly Reflections and Discussion Forum
You will need to participate in the class discussion forum each week. In an online course, the discussion forum functions in the same way that classroom discussions do in a face-to-face setting. These are your opportunities to engage with other students and the instructor. This is your chance to share and test your ideas.

Your participation in the discussion forum is mandatory. And, it should consist of three components:

your reflections on the assigned material
one question about the readings
your short answers to fellow classmates and respectful comments on their ideas.

Your weekly reflections should address one of the discussion questions I will post at the end of each lesson. These assignments are designed to help you analyze the material and generate class discussion.

The reflections should be at least 300 words in length, but don’t make them too long either—at most around 600 words!

Each reflection should end with a question that relates to the assigned text. Your question may or may not relate to the subject of your reflection. It is just an opportunity for you to talk with other students, as well as your instructor, about something that stirred your interest. It is very important that you keep up this routine of asking questions. We will use them to jumpstart our discussions.

In most cases, you will be expected to complete the readings and post your reflections by Wednesday. By Thursday, you will have to read other students’ reflections, find a question that they ask that intrigues you most, and answer it in the discussion forum. If someone answers your question, try to respond to that answer. If nobody answers your question, try to engage in a discussion that addresses another student’s inquiry. You must participate in the weekly discussion forum by 11:30 pm Sunday each week.

Your reflections will be graded as either acceptable (check) or unacceptable (minus). All you have to do to receive a check is to briefly but substantively answer one of the discussion questions. This means that you will have to do the following:

Formulate your answer.
Provide brief reference to something in the texts that supports your answer.
Make sure that your reflection is at least 300 words in length.
Make sure to submit your reflection on time.

The grading scale for the reflections is:
A = 9 acceptable entries
B = 8 acceptable entries
C = 7 acceptable entries
D = 6 acceptable entries
F = 5 or fewer acceptable entries

As you can see, since this course consists of eleven weeks and I require only nine acceptable entries for an A, you can skip two reflections. But use this privilege wisely. And make sure to still participate in the other components of discussion activities.

Once you post your reflections on the discussion forum, I will e-mail you back a copy that will contain my comments and a grade of acceptable or unacceptable within a few days. But make sure to keep all your graded reflections after I e-mail them to you. On the last day of class (see the course schedule), you will have to submit a portfolio of all of your reflections (cut and past them all into the same Word document).

Note that your reflections by themselves will amount to 20 percent of the overall grade. Your participation in the general discussion (answers and comments) will count 10 percent.

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Honor Code

All work in our course falls under UNC's Honor Code. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden. Please read the items below and make sure you understand how to avoid plagiarism.

Plagiarism, UNC-Chapel Hill Writing Center
Plagiarism and Citing Sources, UNC Health Sciences Library

If you have any questions about whether your usage of sources is acceptable, please contact me.

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Course Mechanics

Blackboard

Some of your class components (discussion forums, class e-mail, announcements, essay prompts, gradebook) are accessed through a site called Blackboard, and you will need to log in to Blackboard using a unique identifier known as your UNC Onyen (Only Name You'll Ever Need) and Onyen password.

You will find a link to the Blackboard site in the gray navigation bar at the top of every page in this course. Click on that link, and then use your Onyen to log in to Blackboard. Click on the “RELI 141” link, and you will see navigation buttons on the left side of the screen labeled Announcements, Discussion Forum, and so on.

If you experience problems accessing Blackboard, this is what you should do:

If you do not already have a UNC Onyen, go to the Onyen Web site and follow the instructions for creating an Onyen.
If you have an Onyen but have forgotten it (or the password), go to the Onyen Web site.
If you have your Onyen but can’t log in to Blackboard, contact Janice Durham at the Friday Center.
If you can log in to Blackboard but can’t find this course listed, contact Janice Durham at the Friday Center.
If you can’t locate a forum in Blackboard, contact the instructional designer at the Friday Center.

If you have technical problems while using Blackboard, contact Blackboard Help (use the Help button in Blackboard, or call 919-962-HELP). The response team is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week by phone, e-mail, online request form, or live chat. See help.unc.edu.

Using E-mail

All communication from me and Friday Center staff will go to your UNC Onyen e-mail address (the one that appears when you post to the discussion forum). Off-campus users can access their UNC e-mail using UNC Webmail. You can have your e-mail forwarded to a different e-mail address by clicking “Forward e-mail” at the Onyen Web site.

We strongly recommend that you use your UNC e-mail account for all e-mails regarding your course. Hotmail users should be aware that Hotmail will block messages sent from within Blackboard because Blackboard uses “blind carbon copy” to protect privacy. If you forward your mail to a commercial e-mail service provider (yahoo.com or msn.com, for example), messages from me, Friday Center staff, or other students may be delayed because these service providers sometimes place temporary blocks on messages originating from universities. If you are using webmail, the e-mail links in this course may not work for you.

Library Services and Resources (including E-reserves)

Students enrolled in Carolina Courses Online have access to the UNC Library System. Visit Distance Education Library Services to access a wide array of online services and resources including e-reserves, online databases, online journals, online books, and live help with research and library access.

Most online resources require you to log in with your Onyen and password. If you have any trouble finding the resource that you need or logging in to a resource, you can contact the library through the contact information at Distance Education Library Services. You can chat live about your problem or send an e-mail to request assistance.

Course Schedule

The course follows the UNC-Chapel Hill academic calendar. All times listed refer to Eastern Time. If you are in a different time zone, plan accordingly. Click on the link for each lesson to view my notes, the reading assignments, and the discussion assignments.

Week 1	Africans in the Americas: Religions and Identities, Part 1
Week 2	Africans in the Americas: Religions and Identities, Part 2 Your midterm essay prompt will be available in Blackboard.
Week 3	Religion in Pre-Civil War Era, Part 1: Visible and “Invisible”
Week 4	Religion in Pre-Civil War Era, Part 2: Visible and “Invisible”
Week 5	Religion in Post-Civil War Era: Emancipation, Reconstruction, and Transnational Movement
Midterm Essay	E-mail your Midterm Essay to me by the due date.
Week 6	Great Migration, Part 1: Overview
Week 7	Great Migration, Part 2: Urban Religious Culture Your final essay prompt will be available in Blackboard.
Week 8	Civil Rights Era
Week 9	“A Woman’s Work”
Week 10	Global Dimensions—Islam
Week 11	Conclusion: Continuity Within Change—Contemporary Issues and Historical African-American Religious Approaches
Reflections Portfolio	E-mail your Reflections Portfolio to me by the due date.
Final Essay	E-mail your Final Essay to me by the due date.
Course Evaluation	Complete the Course Evaluation. Please take a moment to share your comments with us. The Friday Center staff and I want to know if this course met your needs and expectations.

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RELI 141: African-American Religions

Course Overview

Required Textbook

Online Readings

Course Requirements

Honor Code

Course Mechanics

Blackboard

Using E-mail

Library Services and Resources (including E-reserves)

Other Questions

Course Schedule

Week 1