Experiment 8: Religion and Images
Learning Objectives
- Student located a credible institution based on the SIFT process.
- Student summarized the types of primary sources available at the institution that relate to Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.
- Student evaluated the historical significance of the objects in the collection as it relates to Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.
- Student evaluated the usefulness of the institution for an scholarly book on the history of religion.
A caution on studying religion as a historian
As we work with the history of religion, please consider these prefatory remarks:
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People who practice a religion are interested with the message of a religion. Historians are not interested in the message so much as how the message was organized into institutions. Thus, I’m having you read more passages about the development of Christianity as an organized religion than about the message of its originator.
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For historians (and this class) there are no timeless elements of religion. We always want to know what religion meant to people based on the cultural issues of their day.
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We’re focusing on Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam because these three religions are (arguably) the most important in understanding religion in the period 1400-1900. Hinduism has many practitioners, but it never moves out of India. Similarly, minor religions such as Shintoism or Judaism are important to the history of religion, but not as world-changing intellectual movements.
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As we compare the imagery of religions in our discussions the next two weeks, please continue to use the supportive, constructive, and respectful tone that has worked so well on our discussion boards. How a class talks about religion, I’ve found, demonstrates how much trust exists among the students.
Assignment
When we use images, we want to apply the same criteria we do to texts. We apply the same W questions: who created it, what is it (or what is it depicting), where was it produced, why was it produced, and — most importantly — what is the historical significance of the image. Or, briefly, who – what – where – when – why – how and historical significance.
We are going to be using religion as our theme this week. Religions offer rich symbolism, yet also claims to timeless values through that symbolism. Historians don’t find anything timeless, so religion is both a wonderful and challenging subject.
For this discussion, you need to find a credible cultural institution (museum, college collection, government collection- not a religious institution) that contains an image collection (more than 10 images) related to all three of our world religions in our period 1400-1914 (Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam).
Next, summarize the types of images on the site (paintings, sculpture, mixed media, others) in a couple of sentences. Consider the "W" questions (who, what, where, when, why, and how." when summarizing the types of images. This is a summary, not a repetition of metadata, so you need to clump your categories of the objects. For example: most of the paintings in this collection are from 17th Persia and use oil on canvas."
Finally, evaluate the usefulness of the institution for an scholarly book on the history of religion. Could your collection be the base for an entire book, or is it only good for a small chapter or part of a chapter? What details does your institutions cover (descriptions, colors) and what does your institutions leave out? How might a scholar use this collection to study the history of religion in our period (1400-1900 CE)?
For a review of how to evaluate credibility, review your SIFT materials in weeks 1-3. You can also see: "Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers"(https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/chapter/four-strategies/)
Your paragraph should be 250-350 words. Post your completed paragraph in the Experiment 8 discussion board.
Grading Criteria
- Student located a credible institutions (PISA test).
- Student summarized the types of primary sources available at the institution that relate to Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.
- Student evaluated the historical significance of the objects in the collection as it relates to Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.
- Student evaluated the usefulness of the institution for an scholarly book on the history of religion.
- Paragraph(s) were 250-350 words and written in standard English.
