God of Many Faces:

Comparative Perspectives on Immigration and Religion

SOC 340 REL 390
Spring 2013
M W 10:00 10:50 AM
McCosh 46
Instructor
Patricia Fernndez-Kelly
Department of Sociology and Office of Population Research
255 Wallace Hall
Office Hours by appointment
mpfk@princeton.edu
Kendall Park
Department of Sociology
107 Wallace Hall
Office Hours by appointment
kendalp@princeton.edu
Course Description
No matter how often its demise is forecast, religion refuses to disappear. Despite advances in
technology and post-modern narratives that cast it as part of a more credulous, primitive past,
religion continues to grip the mind and actions of most people throughout the world. The United
States is exceptional among advanced industrial countries for its high levels of religiosity. JudeoChristian traditions are part of our religious landscape. Muslims represent the fastest growing
religious community in American prisons. Jehovahs Witnesses are rapidly multiplying in innercity neighborhoods. In South Florida, Santera is expanding as quickly as Voodoo is growing in
some parts of New York.
When they cross borderswhether domestic or internationalmigrants are forced to rethink who
they are and how they are perceived in areas of destination. It is as protagonists of struggles
prefigured in religious writings that immigrants can impose a higher meaning on victimization,
belittlement, and economic strife.
How does migration transform religious beliefs and practices? How does religion affect the
outcomes of migration? These are the questions anchoring this course.
We begin with a discussion of sociological concepts. We then explore the African Diaspora giving
attention to spirituality from slavery to the Great Black Migration and the Civil Rights
Movement. Subsequently, we study religion as a form of immigrant resistance to assimilation
and social erasure. We discuss grassroots organizations that promote immigrant rights. Finally,
we reflect on the global dimensions of religion and migration.

Community Based Learning Initiative

The Robeson House Committee, a not-for-profit organization, is spearheading the creation of a
community center honoring the memory of Paul Robeson in the very house where he was born in
Princeton, within walking distance of our campus. Robeson was an extraordinary artist and
precursor of the Civil Rights Movement, whose father, the Reverend William Drew Robeson was
an emancipated slave and Presbyterian minister. He served as pastor of the Witherspoon Street
Presbyterian Church for twenty two years. The Robeson House Committee is currently expanding
its efforts to disseminate educational information about the life and times of Paul Robeson and
Witherspoon Church, both of whose historical legacy is of great value.
On a voluntary and first-come-first-serve basis, you are invited to join forces with the Robeson
House Committee in a CBLI project whose objective will be to create a video and associated,
printed materials advancing its educational and humanitarian goals. This project will entail
research about Princeton, Paul Robeson, and Witherspoon Church based on archival materials,
interviews, and participant observation. Those who take part in this endeavor will receive partial
academic credit.

Requirements
1. Attendance to lectures and precepts is mandatory. (33%)
2. Midterm take home examination consisting of three questions, each one of which
will be answered in four to five typed double-spaced pages for a total of eight to ten
pages. (34%)
3. Final take home examinations (as midterm). (33%)
Syllabus
1. What is religion?
Emile Durkheim (1912) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (Selections).
New York: The Free Press (1995). Pages 37-63; 121-149. [2/5, 10]
Medea (1969) Film by Pier Paolo Pasolini. [2/10]
Available for rent from Instant Video at Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Medea-Maria
Callas/dp/B005MTHRAA/ref=sr_1_7?
s=movies tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1390931789&sr=1-7&keywords=pasolini

2. American Paradox: Secularism vs. Religiosity.

Gordon, Milton M. (1961) Assimilation in America: Theory and Reality,

Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,Boston, Mass.
Vol. 90, no. 2(Spring): 263-285. [2/12]
Herberg Will (1955/1983) ProtestantCatholicJew: An Essay in
American Religious Sociology: 1-45 [2/17]
3. Religion, Compliance, and Resistance.
Alejandro Portes (2006) Religion: The Enduring Presence. Immigrant America:
A Portrait (with Ruben Rumbaut): 299-342 [2/19, 24]
Samuel Huntington (1993) The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign Affairs
(Summer) [Feb 26]
Tahir Abbas After 9/11: British South Asian Muslims, Islamophobia,
Multiculturalism, and the State. [3/3]
4. Religion and the African-American experience.
James H. Cone (2011) The Cross and the Lynching Tree. Chapter 1: Nobody
Knows de Trouble I See. [3/5]
Milton C. Sernett (1997) Bound for the Promised Land: African-American
Religion and the Great Migration: 87-153. [3/10]
James W. Vander Zanden (1963) The Non-Violent Resistance Movement Against
Segregation The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 68, No. 5. (March): 544550. [3/12]
This Far by Faith (Film) [3/24]
5. Immigrants, religion, and the market.
Mark Chaves (2011) American Religion: Contemporary Trends. Chapter 2:
Diversity and Chapter 3: Belief. [3/26]
Robert Wuthnow (1990) The Restructuring of American Religion. Princeton:
Princeton University Press: 3-13; 71-99; 133-214. [3/31]
Fernndez-Kelly, Patricia (2014) Lydia, Faith and Circumstance in West
Baltimore. In The Heros Fight: African Americans in the Shadow of the State.
[4/2]

Fernndez-Kelly, Patricia (2006) The Moral Universe of Fabian Garamon:

Spirituality and the Divided Self among Second Generation Migrants in the
United States. Paper presented at the New Directions Conference. Princeton
University. [4/7]
6. Grassroots organizations and political mobilization among immigrants from
Asia and Latin America.
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo (2004) Theres a Spirit that Transcends the Border:
Faith, Ritual, and Postnational Protest at the U.S. Mexico Border. Sociological
Perspectives, Volume 47, Number 2: 133-159. [4/9]
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo (2008) God's Heart Has No Borders: How Religious
Activists Are Working for Immigrant Rights. Berkeley: University of California
Press: 1-26; 27-52; 133-150. [4/9]
Peggy Levitt (2007) God Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the
Changing American Religious Landscape: [4/14]
Seth Kaper-Dale (2013) A Voice for Justice: Sermons that Prepared a
Congregation to Respond to God in the Decade after 9/11 [4/16] (Available for
purchase from Amazon.com
7. Islam in Europe: the politics of immigration and religion.
Gilles Kepel (1997) Islamic Groups in Europe: Between Community Affirmation
and Social Crisis. (In Islam in Europe: The Politics of Religion and Community,
edited by Steven Vertovec and Ceri Peach) [4/21]
Edward W. Said (2001) The Clash of Ignorance. The Nation (October 22)
[4/21]
Gabriel Marranci (2004) Multiculturalism, Islam and the Clash of Civilisations
Theory: Rethinking Islamophobia. [4/23]
Richard Alba (2005) Bright vs Blurred Boundaries: Second Generation
Assimilation and Exclusion in France, Germany, and the United States. Ethnic
and Racial Studies 28, 1: 20-49. [4/23]
Cache (2005)Film by Michael Haneke [4/28]
Available for purchase from Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Cache-Hidden-DanielAuteuil/dp/B007R5JCNM/ref=sr_1_1_vod_0_lgo?s=moviestv&ie=UTF8&qid=1390947019&sr=1-1&keywords=cache

8. Reinventing Tradition.
Prema Kurien (1998) Becoming American by Becoming Hindu: Indian
Americans Take Their Place at the Multicultural Table. [4/30]
Robert F. Spencer (1948) Social Structure of a Contemporary JapaneseAmerican Buddhist Church Social Forces, Vol. 26, No. 3. (March): 281-287.
[4/30]
Elizabeth McAlister (1998) The Madonna of 115th Street Revisited: Vodou and
HaitianCatholicismintheAgeofTransnationalism[5/5]
Patricia Fernndez-Kelly (2014) Hialeah Dreams: Santera Religion and the Cuban
Success Story. [5/5]