My Problem With My Methods Course

I think I've pinpointed the reason why I am disappointed with my 'methods in the study of religion' course.

I was expecting a course that was going to cover various approaches to interpreting religious literature. I wanted a course to cover all the various criticisms I'd heard of: historical criticism, literary criticism, narrative criticism, source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, reader response criticism, etc... Basically, I expected a course on exegesis and hermeneutics. These were the types of courses I had seen as part of the curriculum of both graduate biblical studies programs, as well as all the undergraduate biblical studies programs in the UK, which, by the way, I spent many a day drooling over.

However, what I got was a course on how to interpret religion on the macro scale. We are talking about how various theorists have studied the phenomenon of religion. Figures such as Eliade, Marx, Durkheim, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Otto; approaches such as colonial, postcolonial, and feminist. As you can see, this is very different from what I expected, and wanted.

Although, yes, I am interested in the stuff we talk about--how do we interpret religion? how do we interpret the 'poetics'? the 'politics'?--it really isn't super interesting to me. I want a course to guide me through the various approaches to interpretation of religious documents and literature.

I guess I won't be getting that at UBC. Oh well.

Kev