The UMKC Center for Religious Studies
Ph.D.
Comprehensive Examination Reading Lists
(Revised December 2002)
Examination
1: Methodological Approaches to the Study of Religion
Examination 2: Comparative Studies of Religions of the World
Examination 3: Special Area
General Description
Students with Religious Studies as their Coordinating Discipline will write three exams according to the outline above. Reading lists for Examinations 1 and 2 will consist of 25 titles each, some of which are standard texts which every student reads, the remainder selected by individual students in consultation with the Religious Studies core faculty. The reading list for Examination 3 (Special Area) will consist of 25 titles, and be selected by the student in consultation with his or her dissertation committee members.
Students with Religious Studies as their Co-Discipline will write Examinations 1 and 2, and should consider using the 10 additional titles contained in Examination 2 to bring their own area of interest/expertise into an interdisciplinary context and a comparative perspective.
For both Coordinating and Co-Discipline students, the following guidelines apply: (a) no book may appear more than once in the examination lists; (b) students should avoid choosing more than one book by the same author; and (c) since the purpose of the examinations is to demonstrate mastery of a significant body of methodological, theoretical, and substantive material, anthologies or edited collections, general surveys, or popular introductions are to be avoided, unless it can be demonstrated that their inclusion contributes in some major way to the content of the list. Three basic texts which students should be familiar with as background are: Mircea Eliade, The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion; E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Theories of Primitive Religion; and Eric J. Sharpe, Comparative Religion: A History.
For further information, students are encouraged to contact either Prof. Gary L. Ebersole or Prof. Douglas E. Cowan.
Examination 1: Methodological Approaches to the Study of Religion
This examination covers representative works which have been and continue to be of theoretical and/or methodological significance in the academic study of religion.
| Berger, Peter L. | The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. |
| Bourdieu, Pierre. | Outline of a Theory of Practice. |
| Durkheim, Emile. | The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. |
| Eliade, Mircea. | Patterns in Comparative Religion. |
| Eliade,
Mircea, and Joseph M. Kitigawa, eds. |
The History of Religions: Essays in Methodology. |
| Foucault, Michel. | The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. |
| Freud, Sigmund. | Totem
and Taboo; The Future of an Illusion; Civilization and Its Discontents. |
| Geertz, Clifford. | The Interpretation of Cultures. |
| James, William. | The Varieties of Religious Experience. |
| Lévi-Strauss, Claude. | Tristes
Tropiques and |
| McCutcheon, Russell T. | Critics not Caretakers: Redescribing the Public Study of Religion. |
| Otto, Rudolf. | The Idea of the Holy. |
| Sahlins, Marshall. | Islands of History. |
| Schleiermacher, Friedrich. | On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers. |
| Smith, Jonathan Z. | Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. |
Plus 10 works selected by the student in consultation with the Religious Studies core faculty.
Examination 2: Comparative Studies of Religions of the World
This examination
covers works dealing with diverse religious traditions, as well as further methodological
and theoretical issues as they apply to the comparative study of religion.
| Armstrong, Robert Plant. | The Powers of Presence: Consciousness, Myth, and Affecting Presence. |
| Asad, Talal. | Genealogies of Religion:Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. |
| Doniger, Wendy. | The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth. |
| Eliade, Mircea. | Yoga: Immortality and Freedom. |
| Fabian, Johannes. | Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. |
| Graham, William. | Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in History of Religion. |
| Lincoln, Bruce. | Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship. |
| Lutz, Catherine. | Unnatural Emotions: Everyday Sentiments on a Micronesian Atoll and Their Challenge to Western Theory. |
| Obeyesekere, Gananath. | Medusa's Hair: An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience. |
| Riesbrodt, Martin. | Pious Passion: The Emergence of Modern Fundamentalism in the United States and Iran. |
| Shweder, Richard. | Thinking through Cultures: Expeditions in Cultural Psychology. |
| Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. | The Meaning and End of Religion. |
| Sullivan, Lawrence. | Icanchu's Drum: An Orientation to Meaning in South American Religion. |
| Wach, Joachim. | The Comparative Study of Religion. |
| Weber, Max. | The Sociology of Religion |
Plus 10 works selected by the student in consultation with the Religious Studies core faculty.
Examination 3: Special Topic Area
This examination covers the special topic area in which the student claims expertise. This may be organized according to the history, beliefs, and social structures of a particular religious tradition (e.g., Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Taoism), or according to the religions found in a particular geographic area (e.g., the religions of China, of Micronesia, of North America), or according to a topoical area recognized in the field (e.g., Women and Religion, African American Religion; New Religious Movements). This examination is comprehensive in historical and geographical scope, and will cover the various dimensions of the religious tradition(s) chosen—the social, mythical, ritual, performative, and psychological.
Prof.
Gary L. Ebersole
Prof. Douglas E. Cowan