Topics in the Anthropology of Consciousness. Syllabus.

Topics in the Anthropology of Consciousness

 

My vision for this class is that it would provide students with an academic view of consciousness along with an experiential understanding.  My desire is that students will be challenged by the professor and by other students during class discussions and experiential experiments.  I hope that the classroom will be a safe place for people to begin to explore the foundations of the things they have been taught their entire lives and that students would be able to come to a fuller understanding of their faith after this class–beginning to explore the errors in the mind-body dichotomy.  I also hope that this class would be a place where the Holy Spirit will get a hold of the hearts and minds of students in ways that they have never seen manifest before.  

 

Learning Goals:

1. Gain a broad understanding of the study of the anthropology of consciousness from the view of multiple disciplines.  

2. Have an opportunity to explore areas of personal interest through class discussions and free readings.  

3. Present an abstract that could be submitted to the SAC for presentation at the meetings.  

4. Creatively explore the work of the Holy Spirit in student’s personal lives through experiential learning and reflection.  

 

Class Make-up:  

 

On-going journal/reflection assignment:

These assignments are purposed to produce in the student an awareness of the ongoing connection between their spiritual lives and other seemingly non-spiritual aspects of their lives.            

Each student must keep a journal throughout the semester that records their experience as they apply to the course content.  This is also a place where students can write down thoughts about the content and reflect on their own opinions.  A final equivalent of 20 entries must be written by the end of the semester (10 by week 10). 

            Each student must have at least three entries regarding each of the following:

1.     A dream they had or heard someone else describe. 

2.     Reflection on a Christian worship ritual (one familiar and one new).

3.     Praying for or receiving prayer from one other individual. 

 

Readings/Think-Pieces/Class-wide discussions:

            Students will read prior to class and produce a think piece to guide discussion in class. 

 

Concentration discussion/experiment Cohort Groups:

            These groups will be formed based on interests of students and will allow students to have further stimulating discussions surrounding class readings and specific areas of consciousness studies in which they are interested.  Groups should have 3 or 4 students each.  Each group will need to meet outside of class for one hour per week.  During the week when the specific topic the group is focusing on is presented, they will be required to assign readings and lead the in-class discussion and/or experiential exercises. 

 

 

Week One:

1. Lecture one: Anthropology of Consciousness and Experiential Learning

a.     Lecture covers an archaeology of consciousness (An example presented in Mishlove’s book Roots of Consciousness, ch. 1).   

b.     Reading: Supernatural as Natural (By Winkelman and Baker) Chapter 1 & 2

c.     Also: Lynne Hume “An Anatomy of Reality” Chapter 8 of Portals. 

2.     Crash course in Field Note Writing

(Texts to put on reserve:

Emerson, Robert, Rachel Fretz, Linda Shaw (1995).  Writing Ethnographic Field Notes.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

Goodall, H.L. Jr. (2000).  Writing the New Ethnography.  Lanham, Maryland: Alta Mira Press.)

 

Week Two: Altered States of Consciousness. 

1.     Arnold M. Ludwig “Altered States of Consciousness” In Charles Tart (1990).  Altered States of Consciousness. 

2.     Lynne Hume. “Entrances and Exists” ch. 1 in Portals. 

3.     TPs due on Winkelman & Baker Ch.1 & 2.  Include in discussion. 

 

Week Three: Biocultural Exploration and Neurophenomenology

1.     Supernatural as Natural (Winkelman & Baker) Chapter 3: Consciousness and Spiritual Experiences. 

2.     Schroll, Mark.  Toward a Physical Theory of the Source of Religion.  From the Journal for the Anthropology of Consciousness. 

3.     Newberg, Andrew.  “Brain Machinery: The Science of Perception” and “Mysticism: The Biology of Transcendence.”  In Why God Won’t Go Away (2001). 

 

Week Four: Embodied Experience and Consciousness

1.     Lynne Hume.  “Dance and Movement”  ch. 4 in Portals.  

2.     Csordas, Thomas (1990). “Embodiment as Paradigm for Anthropology” in Ethos.  Or “Somatic Modes of Attention” (1993). In Cultural Anthropology. 

3.     Johnson, Don (2000).  “Body Practices and Consciousness: A Neglected Link.”  In Anthropology of Consciousness. 

 

Week Five: Religion and Consciousness

 

1.     Supernatural as Natrual (Winkelman & Baker) Chapters 7-9. 

2.     Capra, Fritof (1975).  The Tao of Physics  Section One “The Way of Physics.” 

 

Week Six: Transpersonal Psychologies and Collective Unconscious

1.     Randrup, Axel (2002).  “Collective Conscious Experience Across Time.”  From Anthropology of Consiousness 13 (1):  27-41. 

2.     Tart, Charles (1969).  Chapter 3, “The Physical Universe, The Spiritual Universe, and the Paranormal.”  From Transpersonal Psychologies.  

 

Week Seven: Pain and Evil

1.     Supernatural as Natural (Winkelman & Baker) Chapter 10: Supernatural Evil. 

2.     Emad, Mitra (2003).  “Dreaming the Dark Side of the Body: Pain as Transformation in Three Ethnographic Cases”  in Athropology of Consciousness 14(2). 

3.     Alsup, Royal & Stanley Krippner (1996).  The Mythology of Evil Among North American Indian Yuroks and Its Implications for Western Spirituality.  From Anthropology of Consciousness 7(3). 

 

Week Eight: Charismatic Christian Worship Ritual Experience

 

1.     Review Lynne Hume’s Discussion of Pentecostals

2.     Luhrman, Tanya. (2004). “Metakinesis: How God Becomes Intimate in Contemporary U.S. Christianity”.  From American Anthropologist 106(3).

3.     Csordas, Thomas (1997).  “Prophecy and the Performance of Metaphor”  in American Anthropologist.  99(2). 

 

 

The next 4-5 weeks will be more concentrated on specific topics.  Each group will assign two readings from their topic the week ahead and will post the PDF on a discussion board so that other students in the class can access them.  The group will be responsible for 1 hour of class, addressing necessary foundational topics in a lecture-style presentation, leading a class-wide discussion of the readings, and perhaps leading an experiential activity.  The purpose of this assignment is to assess what has been discussed and learned during the cohort group meetings.  It is also purposed to allow students to gain an overview of specific topics within the consciousness field while still being able to dig deeply into the one that they are interested. 

 

The remaining weeks (depending on how many groups there are) will be used to discuss papers/abstracts and possibly used for library time, etc.