Spring 2009: Religion and Empire
Writing in Religion
The Problem of Audience
Because the academic study of religion, like religion itself, is perversely polymorphous, no one set of canonical guidelines for writers in the discipline will meet the needs of every member of the department. By your junior year you are painfully aware that the interests and expectations of your audiences — your professors and members of conferences — differ greatly from one another.
For this reason one of the most useful first steps you can take is the careful identification of the discourse in which you hope to participate. To put it plainly, we write to say something to somebody. As you begin to put forth an answer to the question that drives your research, whatever it might be, consider your ideal audience. What academic conversation are you trying to join? What are the particular capacities and interests of your audience?
With your audience, their interests, and capacities firmly in mind consider the question of genre. What sorts of expectations does your audience have of written work? One way to get at audience expectations is to consider the formal characteristics of the journal articles on your topic of interest. Take careful note of their structure. Generalizing from your observations, create a provisional template for papers in your area of interest.
This is only half of the battle. It is unlikely that your junior seminar paper will be read by the academic editors and authors of the journals you have employed in your research. It is certain that your paper will be read by the other members of the seminar. You face the dual task of meeting the expectations of academic specialists in your field and those of the students of religion who make up the conference.
Peer Review and Revision
The only way to accomplish this is to read and critique one another's work. This can happen formally in the context of a prearranged study group or informally at your favorite watering hole, but it must happen. Do not submit a seminar paper that only you have read.
Plagiarism
There is a danger in all of this talking to others about your work. Your work must remain your own. Ideas that did not originate with you must be properly attributed in a footnote to your paper. This includes ideas that come up in conversation with other members of the seminar. Plagiarism is serious business for members of the American Academy of Religion. You can find their statement on plagiarism as well as other materials relating to the ethical standards of the discipline here.
Accuracy
Avoiding plagiarism is usually easy if one takes careful notes sufficient for citation in a formal academic paper. For your paper to be taken seriously as a contribution to the conversation it must also accurately reflect the ideas of those you cite. A pet peeve of at least one member of the faculty will serve to illustrate. A theorist of religion, somebody like Bell, or Geertz, or even Freud, is cited in a term paper for the purpose of definition. The writer of the term paper almost invariably neglects to note how deeply qualified and nuanced definitional statements are in the works of many such theorists. Taking a definition or well-turned phrase without due attention to its meaning in context is lazy, sloppy, or dishonest.
Match Game
Writers in religion, some of them professional academics, often play what one member of the department characterizes as a kind of match game. The writer takes an idea from a theorist and a religious phenomenon from a text or observation and matches them up more or less mechanically. No critical refinement of the theory is offered; no genuine understanding of the phenomenon is demonstrated. This is to be avoided at all costs. Your work should demonstrate your understanding of the phenomenon as well as your critical engagement of those theorists that you find to be useful to your understanding.
The Junior Seminar Paper Requirements
Although participants in the seminar have considerable freedom when it comes to form and style, the following are requirements for writers in this course.
The paper is to be about 20 pages, double-spaced, 12-point font. Margins shall be no more than one inch. All papers must follow the documentation conventions codified in the Chicago Manual of Style 15th edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003). A copy is available for your use in the Classics/Religion Lounge. Please note: endnotes and parenthetical citations are not permitted in this course. Footnotes must appear at the bottom of the appropriate page.
Papers that involve field research must follow the department's ethical guidelines.