What are the key beliefs of the new “religion” of individualism?

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Christianity in America’s Me Generation

What are the key beliefs of the new “religion” of individualism?

How does this article increase your understanding of religious worldviews and their impact upon the marketplace in society today?

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Throughout your studies in World Religions, you have been introduced to a variety of religious worldviews that are impacting a society and the marketplace in a variety of ways that can be both positive and negative for a community. The task for your Week #5 Project is to write a Current Affairs Worldview Essay that demonstrates the contemporary application as to how and in what way a particular religion is impacting a society’s economy and marketplace today. You will want to research articles that clearly reference specific financial data as to profits and loss that are being generated for a particular locale as the result and impact of a particular religion that we have or will study only in this class.

An example of a possible title for such an article might be this: (Israeli Drought Increasing Costs for Wine in Passover Celebrations”). Here, the specific locale is Israel – the religion impacted is Jewish – the issue is the rising costs of wine for celebrating the Passover. Your article should highlight clear financial data as opposed to generalizations. (Ex: in the above article it points out that costs have increased 20% over last year) . Note that this is not a research essay where you seek out a variety of resources to highlight your topic. Here, you are to focus on just one (1) single article and offer your review of it in terms of a summary or the content and your personal application of it for your study of world religions. (See the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Book Review Handout for detailed information and examples.) There should only be one (1) resource listed in your Works Cited page.

Your essay should include the following and must not exceed a time frame of 5 years:

Seek out and read a Current Affairs article of interest that details a contemporary religious worldview from among those we will study in this class and the impact it is having on a particular marketplace and economy in society today.
These types of articles can be found in a variety of resources including the Online Library, our Course Guide, journals, newspapers, magazines, documentaries, news and world financial reports, websites, and through online searches.
Pick just one (1) article and write a 2-3 page review and analysis of just that one article. Your review should be in the form of a literary review or a movie review encouraging your audience to either read or ignore it.
Provide all of the required bibliographical material and citations for locating the resource including title, date of publication, publisher, website, and all retrieval information.
Summarize the main content of the article and how it is related to the course and the religious worldview that it expresses.
Provide details as to why you selected the article and what you found of interest as to why you did nor did not like the article.
Identify what new insights you discovered about this topic.
What was the author seeking to accomplish through this article?
How does this article increase your understanding of religious worldviews and their impact upon the marketplace in society today?
Be sure to use good writing and mechanical techniques and include the use of MLA in-text citations and a Works Cited page to identify your resource and avoid plagiarism.

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Use this film, article, and book:

Bailey, “Gender/Racial Realness”

Bronski, Pellegrini, and Amico, “You Can Tell Just By Looking”

What is “realness,” and why is it important in the ballroom? What does it take “to be real?” Please include at least one direct quotation from Bailey’s article and at least one reference to Paris is Burning.

Choose one myth from You Can Tell Just By Looking and explain the reasoning of the authors in both explaining and dismantling of the myth. What is the myth, and what does it do? In other words, what function does it serve, given the explanations of what myths do, taken from the introduction?

Next, how do the authors dismantle the myth? What evidence do they use to do so? Why is it important to the authors that the myth be dismantled? Do you agree or disagree with their argument against the myth?

What are some of the particular issues facing queer and transgender people of color in the criminal “justice” system?

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Use these readings and films:
Kandaswamy, “State Austerity and the Racial Politics of Same Sex Marriage”

UNJUST: HOW THE BROKEN CRIMINAL JUSTICE
SYSTEM FAILS LGBT PEOPLE OF COLOR

Morgan Bassichis et. al., “Building an Abolitionist Trans and Queer Movement with Everything We’ve Got”

Drawing on either the reading and the film assigned for this week, what are some of the things the politics of marriage (same sex and heterosexual) are about, other than homosexuality? What arguments do you find most persuasive, for *and* against same sex marriage?

What are some of the particular issues facing queer and transgender people of color in the criminal “justice” system? Name at least two of these issues and explain how people’s lives are affected. Next, name one solution offered by our authors that you find interesting or promising.

Outline the historical development of the social and legal status of abortion in the United States

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Outline the historical development of the social and legal status of abortion in the United States

Write a book report on the book – Being a chaplain

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Being a chaplain – Miranda Threfall-Holmes and Mark Newitt, 2011, London, Society for promoting christian knowledge, 2011.

Write a book report on the book – Being a chaplain

Give a brief introduction into the life of Steve Sondermen as a modern day Theologian

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The paper should give a brief introduction into the life of Steve Sondermen as a modern day Theologian, but primarily focus on his work with men in ministry; how he was able to equip men to better understand and serve God and others.

How does a detail or trope in the texts produce a desire or affect?

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Final paper 7 pages. Please choose one of the options below:

1. compare one of the writings from our final unit: the Argonauts by Maggie Nelson, Dawn by Octavia Butler, or The Passion According to G.H by Clarice Lispector to one text from the previous three. How does the modern author implicitly or explicitly draws upon a reading before? How do they differ? Why might those differences be important?

2. Or take one of the final three texts and either discuss it the way you would in the “Artwork and the impossibility of speaking” assignment or the close reading papper.

other assignments we had in the past that we can choose to write in the style of:

1) Artwork on the impossibility of speaking (due Oct 4)

Find a piece of art: a song, a film, a novel, a painting, etc. that discusses (or performs) the impossibility of describing something. The object can be “God,” however you understand God, but need not be. What is the significance of the film’s “set and setting”? What makes the mystical moments impossible to describe? If it’s beyond words, then how is it experienced? And why write about it if the artists know that the words will fail? The paper should be informed by the theoretical material we’ve discussed in unit one. Three pages.

2)Close reading exercise (due Nov. 1)

These exegetical papers are a chance for you to perform a carful, interpretive reading on one of the primary texts from unit 2: Plato, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Gregory of Nyssa, Eunomius, Evagrius, Ephrem, Dionysius.

It is not a summary or a place to cram in everything you have learned from the class. Rather it is a chance to show how a text functions. Papers might ask: How does a detail or trope in the texts produce a desire or affect? How does a specific moment in the text help us understand a broader theme? How does a negation or unlearning happen in that moment? Why is it important that it happens the way it does? Three pages.

3)Comparison paper Due Nov 29

Each week in Unit 3, we pair a medieval Christian text with a roughly contemporary Muslim or Jewish text. Compare two of the texts from the unit. They can be the pairing offered in the syllabus (e.g., Bonaventure and Al-Ghazali), but need not be. If you’d like to compare one of the medieval texts to one of the Greek philosophical or early Christian texts (e.g., Plotinus and the Zohar), that’s also fine. By comparing the texts be sure that you make an interpretive argument; that is, it is not enough to simply place the two texts side by side; your job is to make them speak to teach other. What do we learn about one specific passage in one specific text by comparing it to another specific passage in another specific text? Three pages.