Philosophy of Religion
Dr Tom Kerns

Philosophy of Religion




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Research Project Assignment

 

The third week may be a good opportunity for you to look around for a research topic that will be interesting to you. Since there won't be any duplication of research topics, when you find one that you like, you'll want to get dibs on it right away. The way you do that is to a.) send me an email with your proposed topic. Once you get an OK on that, then b.) you send me an email with four things listed on it:

  1. your name
  2. your topic's title
  3. some of the books and other resources you plan to use for your research
  4. the date on which you will post it to the class

From that point on you've got dibs on that topic.

I'll then ask you to post a version of that same note to the classroom also, so everyone can see what everyone else is planning to do their research on. People may be interested in each other's topics, and may even be able to help point each other to resources that they happen across in their own research.

So here's the process:

Hunt and discover a topic, thinker, or religion that sounds like it could be interesting to you, research that topic, thinker, or religion, then post a short written report to the whole class (in the class forum) on what you have learned about that topic. The report can be as short as you like, even one page if you can cover your material in that short space, but the maximum length you can have for the presentation is approximately five pages (i.e., approximately 1500 words).

Here are some possible topic areas:

You may choose to research

  1. a spiritual tradition or sect/denomination of a tradition (Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, etc)
  2. a particular thinker, ancient or modern, male or female, eastern, western, northern or southern
  3. a classic text and commentaries that have been done about it.
  4. a comparison of two classic texts, or two philosophical viewpoints, or two schools of thought, etc

The requirement is that your project be in some way related to Philosophy of Religion. That's a very broad range of stuff, so the main way for you to tell whether the topic you're thinking about is related to Philosophy or not is to just ask me.

This project is not just to do a book report; it is expected that you will use at least three or four sources in your research.

You may wish to work together with another person or two, perhaps creating a kind of online "panel," or perhaps each of you presenting different viewpoints on the same general theme, or whatever. Working with another person or two can be fun and fruitful.

How to get ideas for your project

You might get ideas about various topics by going to the Philosophy or Religion section of a bookstore or library and just browsing through the books there, or by paging through some Philosophy or Religion textbooks, or by browsing around some of the websites I've linked to various parts of the class website (there's some great stuff out there). Doing these things may reveal something that sparks an interest in you.

Let yourself get creative here, and find something that sounds like it might actually capture your interest. Your idea needs to be OK'd by me prior to your starting on it, though, so propose the idea to me early so I can say yea or nay. You need to get it OK'd by me (via private email) before the end of week four (or earlier), and then it needs to be posted to the online classroom before the end of week eight. I've indicated this on the assignments homepage on our website, but you may want to underline those dates and circle them in red to remind yourself.

You'll definitely want to get these assignments completed on time -- both getting it OKed and posting the completed project paper -- because there are onerous consequences if any part of this assignment is completed after the deadlines. Click here to see more important project details and information about those odious consequences.

Project self-evaluation

Then after your research project has been presented to the class, you will then need to write a self-evaluation of your project. See the web page on reserach project self-evaluations that has the guidelines for how to do that and when to post it.

Click here for more details about the project, and for information about the odious consequences of missing the deadlines.

I hope your research becomes an interesting and learningful (?) project for you.

 


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