RE 480. Senior Seminar
Block 6, 2002–03

Professor David Weddle

 As the culmination of the major, Senior Seminar requires “cross-cultural study of a major religious theme” through reading and discussion of selected texts and the completion of an independent constructive project on an aspect of that theme. The theme for 2003 is sacrifice.

“Any explanation of sacrifice is, in fact, a theory of religion in miniature.” Jonathan Z. Smith, ed., Dictionary of Religion

Why? Because to explain why religious people perform sacrifices is to account for a principal means of connecting human life to sacred reality. Whether offered by an individual seeking forgiveness or by a community securing its integrity, sacrifice “re-binds” broken or threatened relationships: the literal meaning of religare that is the root of the word religion.

Sacrifice is derived from sacrificium, composed of sacer (sacred) and ficare (to make). The mystery or sacrament of sacrifice is that it “makes sacred” both the one who offers and the one who is offered or, in less neutral terms, both the killer and the victim. How that sanctification is achieved, and whether it brings divine salvation or demonic evil, are the questions we face.

Theories abound: sacrifice as gift to the gods in exchange for favors, as evidence of devotion, as a form of imitatio dei that draws the sacrificer into the divine sphere, as expiation for broken taboos, as condition of cosmic maintenance, as means of marking the presence and absence of the sacred, as collective violence sanctioned by myth, as means of confirming patrilineal descent by male blood-letting that supplants female blood-shedding in childbirth. And so on.

We shall read some of these theories and consider the examples drawn from Hindu, Israelite, Greek, African, Hawaiian, Aztec, Christian, and Islamic sources. We will be interested in the relevance of sacrifice for understanding the horrifying upsurge of violence in our own world: the unfeeling and indiscriminate violation of human dignity and destruction of human life that characterized the last century more than any other in history. In our contemporary world sacrifice remains a central religious act—from the drama of the Mass to the slaughter of animals during Hajj to offerings of food and flowers in puja. The language of sacrifice sounds in the praise of martyrs, appeals for donation, calls for justice, and the rhetoric of war.

We will spend the first week and a half of the block in common reading and discussion of four texts. Hubert and Mauss set the terms of scholarly discussion of sacrifice at the end of the nineteenth century. René Girard defends his controversial theory that sacrifice of a “scapegoat” lies at the founding of most cultures. Nancy Jay argues that blood sacrifice is a symbolic means of maintaining patrilineal family order and supplanting maternity with paternity. Margaret Cormack presents essays on self-sacrifice, with examples of martyrdom from Samson to sati. 

The theme of sacrifice appears in the earliest myths of creation: the world of nature and human order is born bathed in blood. In most traditions, the meaning of sacrifice extends from actual offerings of a variety of gifts to the gods—plants, liquids, fire, music, dance, living creatures (animals and humans)— to the symbolic designation of penance, supererogatory virtue, and martyrdom. Yet even as metaphor sacrifice echoes the screams of primordial victims.

The language of sacrifice resonates in many arenas of human conduct: the politics of genocide, the psychology and sociology of subjugating women, the defense of retribution in criminal justice, and the cultural mechanism of identifying scapegoats. In these applications the often veiled relation between sacrifice and violence is unmasked, as well as the complicity of religion in forming that unholy alliance. One critical question for us, in light of Girard’s theory of cultural formation through “sacred violence,” is whether sacrifice retains any moral legitimacy or religious valence in our history. As Gil Bailie asks in Violence Unveiled, is the sacrificial victim—farmakos in Greek—“medicine” or “poison” for human societies?

The final two weeks of the course you will be engaged in a constructive project on the theme of sacrifice in any area your esemplastic imagination may contrive. All that is required is extensive research, sophisticated analysis, and some creative reflection on the specific instance(s) of sacrifice you choose to consider. Most projects will take the form of a 20–25 page paper, with footnotes and bibliography; but there are other possibilities, such as dramatic performance, multi-media presentation, or Web page. As the culmination of your study in the Department of Religion, the seminar project should reflect your best work: thoughtful in method, substantive in content, and impeccable in style. Representative projects from last year’s senior seminar are posted on the departmental Web page for your consultation.

As mature scholars, you will be responsible for managing your own time during the last two weeks, but we will meet together several times to discuss your theses, outlines, resources, and rough drafts. A preliminary project proposal is due at the end of the second week. There is much we have to learn from each other, and participation in the colloquia is required. The rest of the time, I will be meeting with you in individual tutorial sessions to develop your projects. The last two days of the course we will meet for formal presentations of the results of your work.

Selected Bibliography

Awolalu, J. Omosade. Yoruba Beliefs and Sacrificial Rites. London: Longman, 1979.

Bailie, Gil. Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads (1996). New York: Crossroad, 2001.

Burkert, Walter. Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth. Tr. Peter Bing.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

Carrasco, David. City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization. Boston: Beacon Press, 2000.

Combs-Schilling, M. E. Sacred Performances: Islam, Sexuality and Sacrifice. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.

Cormack, Margaret. Sacrificing the Self: Perspectives on Martyrdom and Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Derrida, Jacques. The Gift of Death. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Girard, René. The Scapegoat. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.

__________. Violence and the Sacred. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.

Hamerton-Kelly Robert G., ed. Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard and Jonathan Z.
Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987.

Heesterman, J. C. The Broken World of Sacrifice: An Essay in Ancient Indian Ritual.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Jamison, Stephanie W. Sacrificed Wife/Sacrificer’s Wife: Women, Ritual, and Hospitality
in Ancient India. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Jay, Nancy. Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity. 
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Levenson, Jon. The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice
in Judaism and Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Schwartz, Regina M. The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.

Shulman, David Dean. Tamil Temple Myths: Sacrifice and Divine Marriage in the South Indian Saiva Tradition.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980.

Valeri, Valerio. Kingship and Sacrifice: Ritual and Society in Ancient Hawaii. Tr. Paula Wissing.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Williams, James G. The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred: Liberation from the Myth of Sanctioned Violence.
Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995.

Hitting the Books at Baca

On a Morning Hike