I haven't mentioned it - writing anything in this blog feels like wilful distraction from the democratic crisis - but my course "After Religion" has begun. (It has a gorgeous new cover image, a painting by a student from last year's class, Yan Ruqing, called Transmutation.) Indeed, we had the second session today.
It's my sixth time teaching this class since 2021. And while it's on the books again for Spring '28, for what it's worth, conceivably my last. Where do I land on its questions?
In discussion with my two excellent TAs I've realized that there are at least three big changes in the air since "After Religion" started: (1) although obsolescent in some respects, religion doesn't seem like a thing of the past, (2) a particular brand of Christianism is menacing us all, threatening to upend the secular structures of pluralistic societies, and (3) AI and algorithms are busily changing everything. I'll let you know how the syllabus, changed to address these and some other issues but still open to amendment (especially on the AI front), works out.
We have 35 students, mostly from the school of design. And when asked to mark their interest in the class in our first google.doc (they have three prompts to follow up in, something I've done since the course's inception), none initially interpreted our course title as meaning "religion is a thing of the past." I mean, who could think that? And yet as recently as 2021, that was New School common sense. For now, enjoy with me the wisdom students already bring to class. Here is a cross-section of what they wrote in that google.doc the first class.
