Sovereignty and Secularization (RS 3CC3)
Fall 2011

TEXT PREPARATION 4

Assignment due in class on November 16* from some students

*Since part of the value of the text summary assignment is that it will prepare you to be an active participant in class, it may only be submitted in class on the day it is due.  If you have to miss that day's class, please contact the instructor to make alternate arrangements.

Please read:
  • Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, "Civil and Religious Law in England: A Religious Perspective" (Lecture before the Royal Courts of Justice, February 7, 2008) [print out personal copy from the web and number the paragraphs on your printout]
  • Janice Gross Stein, "Religion, Culture, and Rights: A Conversation about Women" (2008)
  • Anna C. Korteweg, "The Sharia Debate in Ontario" in ISIM Review* 18 (Autumn 2006), pp. 50-51
  • Anver M. Emon, "Islamic Law and the Canadian Mosaic: Politics, Jurisprudence, and Multicultural Accommodation" (2008) (feel free to skim pp. 405-410)
  • Natasha Bakht, "Were Muslim Barbarians Really Knocking On the Gates of Ontario? The Religious Arbitration Controversy - Another Perspective" (2005)
and address two out of the three following questions in 2-3 well-written paragraphs each (with your assignment spanning approximately 3 pages), with detailed reference to the texts. Since this is your first reading of these texts, and since we have not yet discussed them in class, you are not being asked to supply definitive answers but preliminary, thoughtful responses based on attentive reading. Your answers may also include 1-2 important questions raised by your reading for further discussion.  

1. What does Rowan Williams mean by "plural jurisdiction," and how does he view this concept as key to developing a renewed understanding of the relationship between civil and religious law?

2. According to Janice Gross Stein, why or how are women's rights especially affected in decisions about the rights that are due to religious groups?  (Feel free to also comment on the bearing of Bakht's article on this question.)

3. What does Anver Emon see as the potential for "accommodation of Islamic law within national rule of law frameworks," and how does his view relate to the positions argued for by Rowan Williams?  (You might also comment on how the positions of Emon and/or Williams are rooted in their characterizations of what shariah/Islamic law is.)

As in your Text Summaries, please follow the guidelines in: Gordon Harvey, Writing with Sources, pp. 1-3, 6, 10-19, 22-23, 50-51 [purchase book / selection in Coursepack 1 / book on reserve]

For parenthetical references to Williams, please use "Williams, para." plus the paragraph number.  For parenthetical references to the other texts, please use author name + page number.


**Please print your assignment double-spaced and with one-inch margins, using a 10-12-point font.  Please number and staple the pages you hand in. 

Please keep a copy of your summary to refer to in our class discussions.

 

posted November 11, 2011