Cults and New Religious Movements

Catalog description

This course is an analysis of cults and new religious movements as a category. How and why are people persuaded or coerced to join? What rights and freedom do such "cults" and their members have? Moreover, how do such groups earn the name "Cult"? What can be said about their charismatic leaders and the ways that they construct their identities? In this class, students will learn about cults in America, Asia, and South America, with the goal of understanding their appeal, development, and influence. The class will focus on intellectual cultures outside the United States. It will address in a substantive way ethnic, gender, sexual, philosophical, religious, or other cultural practices outside the United States, to provide students with new perspectives on their own cultural assumptions, traditions, and experiences. It will also address and examine the complexities of socially/humanly constructed categories. Counts as a Communication Intensive course. Counts as a Understanding Global Perspectives course.