The course's objective is twofold.
Understanding-rather judging-a protean relationship among actors, institutions, processes and ideas:
Breaking away from the assumption that there is a single pattern of collaboration between religion and populism, the course invites students to denaturalize the concepts of religion and populism. It does so by disaggregating the concepts of religion and populism into more workable categories, such as populist leaders, movements, voters, speech on the one hand, and religious institutions, leaders, traditions, rituals, symbols on the other.
The course adopts a transnational lens to offer students comparative understanding of the arrangements between populism and religion, through looking at a variety of empirical cases from North America, Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, South Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa.
Multiple methods and conceptual clarity
The course seeks to give students tools for a better understanding of social science debates and concepts with which populism is often associated. The goal will not be to impose a fixed typology of definitions, but to give students tools to appreciate the complexities and nuances of how such labels are used and the socio-political arrangements they seek to describe. In addition to social science methods, the course is committed to engaging with primary sources such as excerpts from the political manifestos, religious scriptures, and literary pieces that are used by religio-populist leaders and movements.
Nadia MARZOUKI,Ariane BADET
Cours magistral seul
English
-Students should read the material assigned for each class (one essay around 20 pages)
-Background research and project design for the final evaluation is to be started early on, in conversation with Pr. Nadia Marzouki and her Teaching Assistant.
This is an in-depth course. Students should be familiar with basic aspects of social scientific approaches to religion and politics, i.e. have an appreciation of how to problematize religion as social phenomena and context-based practices rather than a set of fixed norms and rules.
Presence is mandatory
This is a no screen course: You should not have computers, cell phones, or any other electronic devices out in class. Please respect everyone's ability to focus during class by muting your devices. The slides of each class will be available on Moodle after class.
Spring 2024-2025
1) Midterm: on-site written exam at Sciences Po (4h): analysis of documents (speech of a political leader or religious leaders, series of images, short document…); or answer to a series of questions related to the material discussed in class. The mid-term exam will take place on one of the following dates in March 2025. Please block all those dates until the final exam date is scheduled. March 8, March 15, March 22, March 29.
2) Final evaluation: individual investigation or interview with a political actor, legal expert, activist, member of a populist party or religious leader. A 7 to 10 pages (max) written analysis and synthesis report (50%) is expected by May, 13, 2025. Detailed guidelines about how to prepare these projects will be delivered in class, and students will be accompanied by Professor Marzouki and her Teaching Assistant throughout the semester to prepare their project.
The course is lecture based, with a dedicated time for discussion, and, for some sessions, with the intervention of guests who will engage with students on a specific aspect of the class discussion.
Omer Atalia and Joshua Lupo, Religion, Populism and Modernity. Confronting White Christian Nationalism and Racism, University of Notre Dame Press, 2023. Chapter 4.
Resources (will be supplemented after each class): Marzouki Nadia, McDonnell Duncan and Olivier Roy, Saving the People, How populists hijack Religion, Oxford University Press, 2017. Introduction.