On Teaching Religion: Essays by Jonathan Z. Smith

175 Pages·2013·1.24 MB·English

by  Christopher I. Lehrich (editor)

On Teaching Religion
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ON TEACHING
RELIGION
z

Essays by
JONATHAN Z. SMITH
Edited by
CHRISTOPHER I. LEHRICH
1
3

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith, Jonathan Z.
On teaching religion : essays by Jonathan Z. Smith / edited by
Christopher I. Lehrich.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-19-994429-3
1. Religion—Study and teaching. I. Lehrich, Christopher I. II. Title.
BL41.S645 2013
200.71—dc23
2012029885

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Contents
A Prefatory Note vii
Introduction: Approaching the College Classroom 1
PART I: Religion in the Academy
1 The Introductory Course: Less Is Better 11
2 Basic Problems in the Study of Religion 20
3 Scriptures and Histories 28
4 Here and Now: Prospects for Graduate Education 37
5 Connections 49
6 Religious Studies: Whither (Wither) and Why? 64
7 A re Theological and Religious Studies Compatible? 73
8 “Religion” and “Religious Studies”: No Diff erence at All 77
PART II: The Academic Profession
9 Re-Forming the Undergraduate Curriculum:
A Retrospective 93
10 Why the College Major? Questioning the Great, Unexplained
Aspect of Undergraduate Education 111
vi contents
11 Puzzlement 119
12 Towards Imagining New Frontiers 136
13 To Double Business Bound 142
Editorial Remarks: Christopher I. Lehrich 155
Index 159
A Prefatory Note
in his preface to a volume of selected essays, Hugh Kenner gives voice
to both the dilemma that bedevils such an undertaking and its partial
amelioration: “The essays in this book were without exception commis-
sioned at various times. . . . But though I have not . . . altogether chosen my
topics, I have chosen what to reprint here.” 1 The same applies to the vol-
ume at hand.
While I have spoken and written about education since I was a student
in high school, most of the essays here collected were commissioned, in
the main initially as oral presentations, out of a quite particular conjunc-
tion of roles which served to draw attention to the continued musings
of a college teacher: the nine years devoted to college administration
at the University of Chicago (1973–1982), and my membership on two
commissions formed by the Association of American Colleges and
Universities that issued two infl uential national reports on liberal edu-
cation: I ntegrity in the College Curriculum: A Report by the Commission on
the Baccalaureate Degree (1985) and T he Challenge of Connecting Learning:
A Project on Liberal Learning and the Arts and Sciences Major (1990). These
eff orts, along with more regional and local activities, led to a series of
invitations to speak on questions of education and curriculum at some
one hundred fi fty colleges, universities, professional associations, and
regional and national conferences, largely during the years 1973–1990.
For some of these, my assignment was quite strictly fashioned, and I
would be briefed by the relevant dean or the president of the host institu-
tion on the specifi c, local issues that prompted the invitation. For others,
while the general topic was fi xed, I was left quite free to develop it in my
own fashion. Only a small subset of these seemed of general enough
interest to warrant publication at the time.2 Even fewer seem to me now
to merit republication.
viii a prefatory note
In this collection, I have not attempted to update the bibliographical
references, to supply more current examples, or to eliminate some repeti-
tions across the various essays. In Kenner’s words, “I have chosen what to
reprint here,” the chief criteria being that each essay seemed still relevant
to the contemporary educational scene, that each essay expressed a core of
curricular and pedagogical practices that I still subscribe to.
I am grateful for the initiative and the labors of Christopher I. Lehrich
which made this publication possible.
Jonathan Z. Smith
June 2012
Notes
1. Hugh Kenner, G nomon: Essays on Contemporary Literature (New York: McDowell,
Obolensky, 1958), 5.
2. For a complete list of previous publications, see the appendix to J. Z. Smith,
Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2004), 391–401, cf. ibid., 44 n. 41 for a short-title list of those articles in
the appendix focused on education.
On Teaching Religion