History of R S 373 (44320)

Semester: Fall 2013 Instructor: Brent Landau Time: MWF 11:00-12:00 Location: CLA 0.124

Description: This course will explore the evolution of the modern Christmas holiday, beginning with the birth stories of in the New Testament and concluding with the supposed “War on Christmas” that some recent commentators believe has sought to remove the Christian religious roots of the holiday. Topics to be addressed include: non-Christian antecedents to and influences on Christmas; canonical and apocryphal stories about Jesus’ birth and childhood; the designation of Christmas on Dec. 25th in the fourth century; the raucous and subversive character of early-modern Christmas celebrations and their suppression by the Puritans; the fixing of the current American version of Christmas in the nineteenth and twentieth century; the contemporary debate over the constitutionality of religious Christmas displays in public places.

Instructor Information: Email address: [email protected] Office location: Burdine Hall 522 Cell Phone: 617.596.8522 (you may call/text me if the matter is urgent; otherwise, email is the best way to contact me) Office Hours: I will be available immediately after class ends to talk and answer any questions on a first-come, first-serve basis. My regular office hours will be Wednesday afternoons from 1:00-3:00. I am also willing to arrange for other times to meet if you are unable to attend regular office hours.

Important Policies and Procedures Information:

Notice Regarding Academic Dishonesty:

• University of Texas Honor Code: The core values of The University of Texas at Austin are learning, discovery, freedom, leadership, individual opportunity, and responsibility. Each member of the university is expected to uphold these values through integrity, honesty, trust, fairness, and respect toward peers and community.

• Plagiarism is unacceptable; it will have significant repercussions for your grade in my class, and I will report instances of plagiarism to the Office of the Dean of Students. If you are at all uncertain about what constitutes plagiarism, please consult: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/services/instruction/learningmodules/plagiarism.

Use of E-Mail for Official Correspondence to Students:

• E-mail is recognized as an official mode of university correspondence; therefore, you are responsible for reading your e-mail for university and course-related information and announcements. You are responsible to keep the university informed about changes to your e-mail address. You should check your e-mail regularly and frequently—I recommend daily, but at minimum every other day—to stay current with university-related communications, some of which may be time- critical. You can find UT Austin’s policies and instructions for updating your e- mail address at http://utmail.utexas.edu/

Documented Disability Statement:

• Any student with a documented disability who requires academic accommodations should contact Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) at (512) 471-6259 (voice) or 1-866-329-3986 (video phone) or reference SSD’s website for more disability-related information: http://www.utexas.edu/diversity/ddce/ssd/for_cstudents.php. Faculty are not required to provide accommodations without an official accommodation letter from SSD. The SSD keeps any and all student information confidential.

Resources for Learning & Life at UT Austin:

• The University of Texas has numerous resources for students to provide assistance and support for your learning.

o Sanger Learning and Career Center: http://lifelearning.utexas.edu/

o Undergraduate Writing Center: http://uwc.utexas.edu/

o Counseling & Mental Health Center: http://cmhc.utexas.edu/

o Career Exploration Center: http://www.utexas.edu/student/careercenter/

o Student Emergency Services: http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/emergency/ Religious Holy Days:

• By UT Austin policy, you must notify me of your pending absence at least fourteen days prior to the date of observance of a religious holy day. If you must miss a class, an examination, a work assignment, or a project in order to observe a religious holy day, I will give you an opportunity to complete the missed work within a reasonable time after the absence.

2 Behavior Concerns Advice Line (BCAL):

• If you are worried about someone who is acting differently, you may use the Behavior Concerns Advice Line to discuss by phone your concerns about another individual’s behavior. This service is provided through a partnership among the Office of the Dean of Students, the Counseling and Mental Health Center (CMHC), the Employee Assistance Program (EAP), and The University of Texas Police Department (UTPD). Call 512-232-5050 or visit http://www.utexas.edu/safety/bcal.

Learning Management System:

• As you may know, UT is phasing out Blackboard and adopting a new LMS called Canvas, which is hoped to be more intuitive and user-friendly than Blackboard. I am using Canvas as the LMS for this course. As soon as the Canvas page for this course has been published, you will receive a notification inviting you to join. For more information about Canvas, including tutorials for students, please visit http://canvas.utexas.edu.

Required Textbooks (abbreviations in parentheses):*

• Bruce David Forbes, Christmas: A Candid History. University of California Press, 2007. (Forbes) • Geza Vermes, The Nativity: History and Legend. Doubleday, 2006. (Vermes) • Joseph F. Kelly, The Origins of Christmas. Liturgical Press, 2004. (Kelly) • Brent Landau, Revelation of the Magi: The Lost Tale of the Wise Men’s Journey to . HarperCollins, 2010. (Landau)† • Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas. Vintage, 1997. (Nissenbaum) • *Karal Ann Marling, Merry Christmas! Celebrating America’s Greatest Holiday. Harvard University Press, 2009. (Marling) • Scott Lowe, ed. Christmas – Philosophy for Everyone: Better Than a Lump of Coal. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. (Lowe) • A significant number of assigned readings will be available on Canvas in PDF format.

Course Requirements:

• Consistent attendance and careful reading of all assigned texts.

* Books with an asterisk (*) before them are (theoretically) available in electronic form through the UT libraries; they can be found by searching catalog.lib.utexas.edu. UT’s contracts with electronic publishers are currently in flux, however, so some books may only be available in limited format or for a limited number of simultaneous users. Books are also being placed on two-hour reserve at PCL. † Since I feel slightly uncomfortable making you buy my book (though, to be honest, it’s really good), you also have the option of reading the translation in PDF format on Canvas.

3 • Constructive participation in classroom discussions. • Completion of two take-home exams. Exam 1 will be distributed in class on Monday, September 30 and due to Canvas by Monday, October 7 at 11:59PM. Exam 2 will be distributed in class on Monday, October 28 and due to Canvas by Monday, November 4 at 11:59PM. These exams will include material from lectures, discussions, and assigned readings. • A final project that will be presented to the class at the end of the semester. Although a traditional research paper is an option, the diverse range of media discussed in the course (written texts, motion pictures, music, visual art, material culture, etc.) makes more imaginative approaches very welcome. More specific information about the requirements of the project will follow in the next several weeks.

Grade Breakdown:

• Class Participation and Attendance: 20%‡ • Take-Home Exam 1: 20% • Take-Home Exam 2: 25% • Final Project: 35% Schedule of Meetings:

Wednesday, August 28: Introduction, Syllabus Overview

Part One: The Beginnings of Christmas

Friday, August 30: How important was the birth of Jesus for the first Christians? Readings: Kelly 81-89, 113-129

Monday, September 2: LABOR DAY

Wednesday, September 4: Comparing the Infancy Narratives of Matthew and Luke Readings: Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 (excerpts from the Jewish Annotated New Testament study Bible on Canvas)

Friday, September 6: Problems of historicity in the Infancy Narratives Readings: Vermes 1-17, 76-88

Monday, September 9: The ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts of the Infancy Narratives Readings: Vermes 18-51

Wednesday, September 11: The Virgin Birth Readings: Vermes 52-75; Lowe 24-35; Brown, “The Virginal Conception of Jesus” (on Canvas)

‡ Included in the participation/attendance grade may be several pop quizzes, but these will only be given if I suspect that a significant number of students are not doing the assigned reading.

4 Friday, September 13: The Readings: Vermes 89-118

Monday, September 16: The (very naughty) child prodigy Readings: Luke 2:41-52; Infancy Gospel of Thomas (on Canvas)

Wednesday, September 18: Defending Mary Readings: Kelly 89-93; Origen, Against Celsus (excerpts on Canvas); Protevangelium of James (on Canvas)

Friday, September 20: Making sense of the Magi Readings: Kelly 93-107; Landau (or translation of the Revelation of the Magi from my dissertation, available on Canvas)

Monday, September 23: How to calculate Jesus’ birthday Readings: Kelly 55-80

Wednesday, September 25: Saturnalia, , and Other Pre-Christian Winter Festivals Readings: Forbes 3-13; Lowe 36-46

Friday, September 27: CONFERENCE, NO CLASS

Monday, September 30: Why do we celebrate Christmas on 25th (and not on January 6th)? Readings: Forbes 17-41

Part 2: Creating Christmas As We (that is, Americans) Know It

Wednesday, October 2: Outlawing Christmas in Puritan New England Readings: Nissenbaum 3-48

Friday, October 4: Rethinking “The Night Before Christmas” Readings: Nissenbaum 49-89

Monday, October 7: The Evolution of Readings: Readings: Lowe 114-124; Forbes 69-96; Marling 197-242

Wednesday, October 9: The beginnings of a domestic(ated) Christmas Readings: Nissenbaum 90-131

Friday, October 11: Why do people buy Christmas presents? Readings: Forbes 111-128; Nissenbaum 132-175

Monday, October 14: And why do they wrap them? Readings: Marling 1-42

Wednesday, October 16: Christmas Trees Readings: Marling 160-196

5 Friday, October 18: Christmas Cards Readings: Marling 284-320

Monday, October 21: Readings: Forbes 128-133; Heller, “Christmas Carols: Why Do We Keep Singing Them?” (http://tinyurl.com/HellerChristmasCarols)

Wednesday, October 23: Christmas as a celebration of consumerism (Guest Presenter: Dr. Penne Restad) Readings: Belk, “A Child’s Christmas in America: Santa Claus as Deity, Consumption as Religion” (on Canvas); Restad, “A Frame of Mind: Christmas in the Twentieth Century” (on Canvas); Forbes 139-150

Friday, October 25: Christmas movies and television specials (with particular attention to ) Readings: Lowe 80-90; Marling 321-358

Monday, October 28: The legacy of Charles Dickens’s A Readings: Nissenbaum 219-257; Marling 121-159

Wednesday, October 30: Taking a break: What about ? Readings: Rogers, Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, 11-21, 78-102 (on Canvas)

Unit 3: “Professor Landau, you're the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem.”

Friday, November 1: , Black Peter, and other Christmas monsters Readings: Hofstede, “Persona Non Grata: The Case of ” (on Canvas); Smith, “ the Belly-Slitter and her kin: A view of some traditional threatening figures, threats and punishments” (on Canvas)

Monday, November 4: The ethics of teaching children to believe in Santa Claus Readings: Lowe 93-103, 139-160

Wednesday, November 6: Did Christmas “invent” Hanukkah? Readings: Forbes 150-153; Joselit, “‘Merry Chanuka’: The Changing Holiday Practices of American Jews, 1880-1950” (on Canvas)

Friday, November 8: Kwanzaa: an alternative to Christmas for African Americans Readings: Mayes, Kwanzaa: Black Power and the Making of the African-American Holiday Tradition (excerpts on Canvas)

Monday, November 11: Is this a joke? Festivus as an Anti-Christmas Readings: Lowe 208-218; O’Keefe, The Real Festivus: The True Story Behind America’s Favorite Made-Up Holiday (excerpts on Canvas)

6 Wednesday, November 13: Other people’s , part I: Germany (Guest Presenter: Dr. Oliver Freiberger) Readings: Marling 243-283

Friday, November 15: Other people’s Christmases, part II: Africa (Guest Presenter: Dr. Tshepo Masango Chéry)

Monday, November 18: Who started the “War on Christmas”? Readings: Gibson, The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday is Worse Than You Thought (excerpts on Canvas); Rycenga, “Religious Controversies over Christmas” (on Canvas)

Wednesday, November 20: The constitutionality of Christmas Readings: Gunn, “Religious Symbols and Religious Expression in the Public Square” (on Canvas)

Friday, November 22: The war comes to our own backyard: The Texas “Merry Christmas” Bill Readings: www.merrychristmasbill.com

Monday, November 25: Independent work on final projects

Wednesday, November 27: Independent work on final projects

Friday, November 29: THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY, NO CLASS

Monday, December 2: Presentation of final projects

Wednesday, December 4: Presentation of final projects

Friday, December 6: Presentation of final projects

Saturday, December 14, 2:00-5:00PM: Presentation of final projects

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