Teaching Understanding Religion (2021) Beyond Interreligious Studies

How does a syllabus change when your target audience are not religion specialists (religious studies, theology, etc.)? The proposal is to outline the way that the author uses their textbook "Understanding Religion: Theories and Methods for Studying Religious Diverse Societies" (California UP 2021) in teaching a graduate course to primarily international relations, political science strategic studies, and social science students. Some background on how the book came to be, and why an interreligious studies approach is directly relevant beyond the study of religion will also be addressed. In particular, questions of transferable skills, making theory relevant, and showing how there are real world applicable learning skills in studying religion are part of the syllabus, while keeping it focused on academic skills and scholarship. By showing how "religion" is a political category, its relevance to understand society, human interaction, and how people position themselves in groups become clearer. It will be argued that these same skills and knowledge are also key in the religion classroom, whether that be interreligious/ interfaith studies, religious studies, theological studies, Islamic studies, etc. It is mainly about how an author designs and uses their book and how it sits in the field.