I like all of Professor Johnston's courses. Having read the Textbooks that go with this course, I enjoyed it, and also have enjoyed more the "other books of interest" suggested. I used to send for the course guide that the Modern Scholar series makes available, but was thrilled to discover that I can download them. This makes it possible, when I borrow a course from the library, (because, after all, how often are you going to want to listen to the same course?) to look up the suggested reading before it arrives, and read them along with the audio lectures, rather than a week or two later when the library gets them in. I especially liked her perspectives on cultural differences and religion. She also didn't start from the usual premise that since magic is impossible, any effects from it must be placebo or imagined. (She didn't endorse it either, but at least she was fair.) ( )

This book turned out to be a very basic anthropological study of religion. A few ideas were very interesting to me. Johnston tells a creation story from a tribe in Papua New Guinea which states that the world was at first populated by nothing but people, there were no other features. After a while the people were cold and hungry so one man stood up and assigned some of the people to be mountains, some grass, some trees, some fish, etc. When the world was full of all other needed things the people who were left became the ancestors of modern people. I can't imagine a creation story that starts rather than ends with people.

The other part I liked best was her discussion of the formation of new religions. Johnston says that new religions are formed when there is political oppression and a new movement arises to modify the current religion to fit new circumstances. She says the new movements are generally started by one person with some simple rules. The first one she mentions was the Ghost Dance religion which was a response to white oppression of the Indians. The one I thought of, having been a Mormon myself, was Joseph Smith's creation of that religion, but she doesn't mention that. What she does surprisingly come up with is that the Jews were enslaved by the Egyptians so Moses founded a new Judaism, with the ten commandments, when he lead people out of their circumstances. Then she said when the Romans began to oppress the Jews Jesus founded his new religion in response. Again, I'd never thought in such ways.

Being an anthropologist she's very objective, sometimes I thought overly so. In describing female genital mutilation as a kind of women's coming of age ritual she says it can be uncomfortable. Perhaps not quite a strong enough word. She did, however, help me somewhat overcome my phobia of veiling describing it along the same terms as a way for women to assert their femininity. She shows how modern, even feminist, women might embrace the wearing of the veil. Objectivity can be useful if not taken too far. The same, I think, could be said of many religious rituals. ( )