Faith and Fortune: Capitalism and Religion [Durham, NC]
**This course is in-person only. There is no virtual component. Participants must be age 21+
Full Tuition: $340 — Sliding-scale tuition options are available in the drop-down enrollment menu for you to self-select. To pay in installments, choose to pay with PayPal at check out.
Instructor: Charles Rousseau | 5-weeks | Tuesdays | September 9-October 7 | 7:00-9:00 PM ET | 719 N Mangum St, Durham, NC
We live in a strange time of faith: trust in traditional religions is waning, but the hunger for transcendence and liberation persists. Many now identify as “spiritual but not religious,” searching for something beyond the rigid gods of the past. Yet we remain bound to one god in particular: the god of capitalism, whose values shape our desire and imagination as powerfully as any religion.
In this five-week course, we’ll trace the uneasy intimacy between faith and fortune: how religion operates within capitalism — in prosperity gospels, divine debts, and moralized markets — and how capitalism itself has come to resemble a religion. We’ll study the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, examining how their sacred texts and ethical visions have challenged and accommodated economic power throughout history. We’ll also encounter popular and theoretical critiques of capitalism as a spiritual and cultural force, drawing on thinkers and artists who illuminate the ways capital shapes us.
Through short readings and media from a wide range of thinkers, we’ll examine prosperity theology, the aesthetics of wealth, prophetic critiques of injustice, and the ways capitalism asks us to worship. Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of why so often we worship what does not serve us – and what it might mean to imagine a faith that does.
Readings and viewings may range from biblical prophets to the Qur’an, Max Weber, Walter Benjamin, Frantz Fanon, Abraham Joshua Heschel, James Baldwin, Kate Bowler, Willie Jennings, Marilynne Robinson, Saba Mahmood, Slavoj Žižek, bell hooks, and Joy Harjo.
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This class will take place in person at Night School Bar in Durham. Night School requires that students refrain from attending in-person classes when sick. For more on our class policies, see our FAQ. Instructors will also follow this policy. If your instructor is sick, class may be moved to online for a session or rescheduled to the week following the final scheduled session at the instructor’s discretion.
Sliding Scale: Night School Bar pays instructors and staff a living wage. We ask that people who make above the living wage threshold for their area strongly consider choosing the full-tuition or mid-level tuition tier in order to support our own living wage program. For Durham, NC, where we are located, the living wage threshold is $49,000 for an individual. All scholarship needs are self-assessed, and we will never request or require proof of need.
Scholarships: We are currently able to offer three full scholarships per class. Our full scholarship tier is a nonrefundable offering, limited to one per student per month. Because our scholarship funding is limited, selecting multiple full scholarships in a single month will result in disenrollment from all classes. If the scholarship tier you need is sold out please email us directly, and we will add you to a waitlist and notify you if additional scholarships become available. Please see our FAQ for more information, including installment plans and refund policy.
**This course is in-person only. There is no virtual component. Participants must be age 21+
Full Tuition: $340 — Sliding-scale tuition options are available in the drop-down enrollment menu for you to self-select. To pay in installments, choose to pay with PayPal at check out.
Instructor: Charles Rousseau | 5-weeks | Tuesdays | September 9-October 7 | 7:00-9:00 PM ET | 719 N Mangum St, Durham, NC
We live in a strange time of faith: trust in traditional religions is waning, but the hunger for transcendence and liberation persists. Many now identify as “spiritual but not religious,” searching for something beyond the rigid gods of the past. Yet we remain bound to one god in particular: the god of capitalism, whose values shape our desire and imagination as powerfully as any religion.
In this five-week course, we’ll trace the uneasy intimacy between faith and fortune: how religion operates within capitalism — in prosperity gospels, divine debts, and moralized markets — and how capitalism itself has come to resemble a religion. We’ll study the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, examining how their sacred texts and ethical visions have challenged and accommodated economic power throughout history. We’ll also encounter popular and theoretical critiques of capitalism as a spiritual and cultural force, drawing on thinkers and artists who illuminate the ways capital shapes us.
Through short readings and media from a wide range of thinkers, we’ll examine prosperity theology, the aesthetics of wealth, prophetic critiques of injustice, and the ways capitalism asks us to worship. Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of why so often we worship what does not serve us – and what it might mean to imagine a faith that does.
Readings and viewings may range from biblical prophets to the Qur’an, Max Weber, Walter Benjamin, Frantz Fanon, Abraham Joshua Heschel, James Baldwin, Kate Bowler, Willie Jennings, Marilynne Robinson, Saba Mahmood, Slavoj Žižek, bell hooks, and Joy Harjo.
—
This class will take place in person at Night School Bar in Durham. Night School requires that students refrain from attending in-person classes when sick. For more on our class policies, see our FAQ. Instructors will also follow this policy. If your instructor is sick, class may be moved to online for a session or rescheduled to the week following the final scheduled session at the instructor’s discretion.
Sliding Scale: Night School Bar pays instructors and staff a living wage. We ask that people who make above the living wage threshold for their area strongly consider choosing the full-tuition or mid-level tuition tier in order to support our own living wage program. For Durham, NC, where we are located, the living wage threshold is $49,000 for an individual. All scholarship needs are self-assessed, and we will never request or require proof of need.
Scholarships: We are currently able to offer three full scholarships per class. Our full scholarship tier is a nonrefundable offering, limited to one per student per month. Because our scholarship funding is limited, selecting multiple full scholarships in a single month will result in disenrollment from all classes. If the scholarship tier you need is sold out please email us directly, and we will add you to a waitlist and notify you if additional scholarships become available. Please see our FAQ for more information, including installment plans and refund policy.
**This course is in-person only. There is no virtual component. Participants must be age 21+
Full Tuition: $340 — Sliding-scale tuition options are available in the drop-down enrollment menu for you to self-select. To pay in installments, choose to pay with PayPal at check out.
Instructor: Charles Rousseau | 5-weeks | Tuesdays | September 9-October 7 | 7:00-9:00 PM ET | 719 N Mangum St, Durham, NC
We live in a strange time of faith: trust in traditional religions is waning, but the hunger for transcendence and liberation persists. Many now identify as “spiritual but not religious,” searching for something beyond the rigid gods of the past. Yet we remain bound to one god in particular: the god of capitalism, whose values shape our desire and imagination as powerfully as any religion.
In this five-week course, we’ll trace the uneasy intimacy between faith and fortune: how religion operates within capitalism — in prosperity gospels, divine debts, and moralized markets — and how capitalism itself has come to resemble a religion. We’ll study the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, examining how their sacred texts and ethical visions have challenged and accommodated economic power throughout history. We’ll also encounter popular and theoretical critiques of capitalism as a spiritual and cultural force, drawing on thinkers and artists who illuminate the ways capital shapes us.
Through short readings and media from a wide range of thinkers, we’ll examine prosperity theology, the aesthetics of wealth, prophetic critiques of injustice, and the ways capitalism asks us to worship. Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of why so often we worship what does not serve us – and what it might mean to imagine a faith that does.
Readings and viewings may range from biblical prophets to the Qur’an, Max Weber, Walter Benjamin, Frantz Fanon, Abraham Joshua Heschel, James Baldwin, Kate Bowler, Willie Jennings, Marilynne Robinson, Saba Mahmood, Slavoj Žižek, bell hooks, and Joy Harjo.
—
This class will take place in person at Night School Bar in Durham. Night School requires that students refrain from attending in-person classes when sick. For more on our class policies, see our FAQ. Instructors will also follow this policy. If your instructor is sick, class may be moved to online for a session or rescheduled to the week following the final scheduled session at the instructor’s discretion.
Sliding Scale: Night School Bar pays instructors and staff a living wage. We ask that people who make above the living wage threshold for their area strongly consider choosing the full-tuition or mid-level tuition tier in order to support our own living wage program. For Durham, NC, where we are located, the living wage threshold is $49,000 for an individual. All scholarship needs are self-assessed, and we will never request or require proof of need.
Scholarships: We are currently able to offer three full scholarships per class. Our full scholarship tier is a nonrefundable offering, limited to one per student per month. Because our scholarship funding is limited, selecting multiple full scholarships in a single month will result in disenrollment from all classes. If the scholarship tier you need is sold out please email us directly, and we will add you to a waitlist and notify you if additional scholarships become available. Please see our FAQ for more information, including installment plans and refund policy.