NEW COURSE AND UPCOMING SYMPOSIUM EXPLORE THE MATERIAL ASPECTS OF FAITH

Ken Koltun-Fromm

Faith, says Associate Professor of Religion Ken Koltun-Fromm, is more than simply a system of beliefs. “It’s not just an inner experience,” he explains. “You miss the whole richness of faith if you don’t see its material expression.”

Koltun-Fromm’s class, Material Religion in America, new this year to the curriculum, reveals the ways Americans express their religious identities through material objects, rituals, dress, and performances. The course culminates May 3-4 with a symposium on material religion, sponsored by the John B. Hurford '60 Humanities Center.

A few years ago, Koltun-Fromm was inspired by a Humanities Center seminar about “Culture, Value, Cultural Values,” led by Associate Professor of English Gustavus Stadler. “I was thinking of ways to bridge the gap between cultural studies and the philosophical thought that’s important in my own work,” he says. He considered the many Americans who indicate their religious beliefs through the material they consume and buy, as well as through ritual practices. Last year, Koltun-Fromm received a Course Enhancement Grant from the Humanities Center and collaborated with religion major Sarah Banks '05 to develop the class.

Material Religion in America is examined through four rubrics: sports, music, the body, and the home. The class has explored the role Christian evangelicals play in contemporary athletics; Muhammad Ali’s position as both athlete and ambassador for Islam in America; blackface performers, particularly Jewish entertainers such as Al Jolson; Native American and Gospel music; the clothing of Amish and Mennonite sects, and the notion that in some faiths, clothes impose discipline on the body; and home décor such as paintings, shrines, and Bibles that represent the homeowners’ faith and beliefs. In addition to reading required texts, students have viewed such films as When We Were Kings, The Jazz Singer, Powwow, and Salesmen, the story of four traveling Bible vendors in the 1960s as seen by documentarian Albert Maysles, who came to campus courtesy of the Humanities Center.

A large portion of students’ grades hinges on their innovative final projects. Topics run the gamut from the use of religious objects in marketing to the activities of Haverford’s religious organizations to the architecture of churches and cathedrals. Alex Kaplan ’09 is preparing a short film about two Jewish musicians: Matisyahu, a reggae singer, and Joshua Nelson, an African American who sings Jewish gospel music. “They both bring elements of Jewish thought to what has become mainstream music,” says Kaplan.

The class will present its projects on May 3, the first day of the Humanities Center symposium “Material Religion.” Speaking on the second day will be three Haverford professors—Darin Hayton and Alexander Kitroeff from history and John Lardas from religion—and three outside scholars: Colleen McDannell of the University of Utah, Stephen Marini of Wellesley College, and Tim Chandler of Kent State University. All three have authored texts used in Koltun-Fromm’s course, and McDannell is curator of the upcoming Humanities Center exhibit “Picturing Faith: Religious America in Government Photography, 1935-1943” (April 20-May 15), a collection of Depression-era pictures showing the place of religion in 1930s American society.

“This course wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the Humanities Center,” says Koltun-Fromm.

In addition to his Course Enhancement Grant from the Humanities Center, the professor also received a Teaching with Technology grant from the Computing Center that has allowed him to post a class blog, create multimedia presentations, and allocate funds for his students to enhance their final projects with downloaded music, images, and video clips.

In the end, Koltun-Fromm hopes that his students will have altered their perspectives on the relationship between the spiritual and material. “They can think more broadly, more deeply about religious practice and expression,” he says.

“I had always taken the idea for granted that the spiritual realm functions outside of the material realm,” says Carri DeVito, a sophomore at Bryn Mawr who, for her final project, is offering a presentation on the sacred tools of Wicca. “This course has taught me how materials function to strengthen the faith of a believer—it has helped me to blur the boundaries between the sacred and the mundane.”

— Brenna McBride