Skip to Main Content Header and Footer Templates

A Guide to Religious Studies

Required Texts

If you prefer not to buy the required texts for this class, there are free ways to access them. If WUSTL Libraries do not have an available copy, you may be able to borrow one through MOBIUS. If MOBIUS does not have an available copy, you may be able to borrow one through WorldCat. The following are links to the required texts in Washington University, MOBIUS, and WorldCat catalogs:

Kelley, Dennis F. Tradition, Performance, and Religion in Native America: Ancestral Ways, Modern Selves (New York, NY : Routledge, 2014) - WUSTL (eBook) * MOBIUS * WorldCat  (provide OCLC# 862589770 to speed up the process)

Risling Baldy, Cutcha. We Are Dancing for You: Native Feminisms and the Revitalization of Women's Coming-of-Age Ceremonies (Seattle : University of Washington Press, 2018) - WUSTL * MOBIUS * WorldCat (provide OCLC# 1011157633 to speed up the process)
 

 

Reference Works for Background Reading

Native Americans

Johnson, Michael, 1937 April 22-. Encyclopedia of Native Tribes of North America, 3rd ed. (Buffalo, NY: Firefly Books, 2007)

 

Native American Religion

Crawford O'Brien, Suzanne J. and Kelley, Dennis F. American Indian Religious Traditions: An Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2005)

 

The U.S. Supreme Court

The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions, 2nd ed. (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009)
The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, 2nd ed. (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005)

 

Native Americans and the law

Sokolow, Gary A. Native Americans and the Law: A Dictionary (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000)
Encyclopedia of American Indian civil rights (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997)
 
Native American Social Life and Custom
Leahy, Todd and Wilson, Raymond. Historical Dictionary of Native American Movements (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008) print or eBook 
Hightower-Langston, Donna, 1953-. The Native American World (Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley, 2003)
 

Religion and U.S. Law

Merriman, Scott A., 1968-. Religion and the Law in America: An Encyclopedia of Personal Belief and Public Policy (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2007)
Encyclopedia of the First Amendment (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2009)

 

Supreme Court Records & Briefs

For your midterm assignment, you will be divided into two groups. Each group will be assigned a legal case that you will study and then present an imaginary appeal of the case to the Supreme Court. WashU Libraries has access to two databases which might assist you in preparation for this assignment:

Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978 
This database is the world's most comprehensive online collection of records and briefs brought before the Supreme Court. It facilitates access to transcripts, applications for review, motions, petitions, supplements, and other official papers for approximately 150,000 Supreme Court cases, the majority consisting of those for which the Court did not give a full opinion. The inclusion of lawyers' briefs will help you build your case, as they often incorporate considerable historical, economic, and sociological data. In addition to full text, keyword searching, the collection can be searched by case name, variant case name, document type, document file date, Supreme Court term year, docket number, alternate docket number, U.S. Reports citation, Supreme Court Reporter citation, Lawyer's Edition citation, and opinion date.

Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis academic)
In addition to news, legal, and business sources, Nexis Uni also includes extensive legal sources for U.S. Supreme Court decisions since 1790.

Books re: Native American religion & the U.S. Supreme Court - A Selection

The following bibliography of WU Library holdings related to Native American religious rights and the U.S. Supreme Court should not be considered as exhaustive:
 
Long, Carolyn Nestor. Religious Freedom and Indian Rights: The Case of Oregon v. Smith (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000). 
 
"American Indians and the Constitution," Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, Volume 1 (New York : Macmillan Reference USA, 2000).  
 
Chapter 5, "Native American Religion, Christian Missionaries, and Government Schools, 1819-1978," Fraser, James W., 1944-. Between Church and State: Religion and public education in a multicultural America, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016).  
 
 
Chapter 6, "Peyote: God versus Caesar, Revisited," Bezanson, R. P. (2006). How Free Can Religion Be? (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2006).
 
Vanessa Gunther, Chapter 42, "Native American Religion and the First Amendment" and Chapter 43, "Native American religious freedom," Law in the Western United States (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000). 
 
"Native American Cases" in Chapter 4, "The Uncertain Status of Religious Freedom: 1963-1990," Flowers, Ronald B. (Ronald Bruce), 1935-. That Godless Court?: Supreme Court decisions on church-state relationships (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994). 
 
Chapter 3, "Supreme Court Decisions Affecting Native Americans" and Chapter 8, "Religion," Hirschfelder, Arlene B. The Native American Almanac: A portrait of Native America today (New York: Prentice Hall General Reference, 1993). 
 

Useful Subject Headings

Given the interdisciplinary nature of this course, the research materials you might need for this course could be on any number of floors in Olin Library. Native American history will principally be in the Es, which covers the History of the Americas, on the 3rd floor.  More specifically, E75-99 deals with Indians of North America, and E focuses on tribes and cultures (a summary of the regions, time periods, and subheadings covered within the Es is available on first four pages of this document).  Keep in mind, however, that the LCCN Classes E & F cover U.S. history, but you might find relevant material categorized under political science (J), social science (H), law (K), or religion (B). Further, books on these subject areas might not only be in Olin Library, but in the Social Work, Business, or Law School libraries as well.  So, browsing the stacks is a resource-gathering strategy, but it is unlikely to be the most efficient one.

A keyword search ("Word(s)") in the WashU Libraries' catalog is similar to a Google search in that the words you enter could be anywhere in the item record. If you do not know the Library of Congress Subject Heading (LCSH) for the topic you are researching, then a keyword search is a good way to start. However, if you want to find EVERYTHING the library owns on a subject, you will want to discover the proper subject headings and peruse the available titles therein. When you see a title and say to yourself: "Hey, that sounds exactly like what I'm looking for!," click on that item record, then click on it's LCSH for all titles in the library under that subject heading.   

The following is a partial list of relevant subject headings [this list will be expanded upon as the semester progresses]:

Indians of North America -- Civil rights
Indians of North America -- Government relations
Indians of North America -- History
Indians of North America -- Legal status, laws, etc.
Indians of North America -- Politics and government
Indians of North America -- Religion.
Indians of North America -- Research
Indians of North America -- Social life and customs
Indians of North America -- Study and teaching.
Indians, Treatment of -- United States
Freedom of religion -- United States
Peyotism 
Ghost Dance