History of Religions

(6 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Universita di Bologna - Bologna, Italy: This course is designed as an introduction to the academic study of religion. It is not intended to produce future specialists, nor necessarily aimed at fostering a primary or predominant intellectual interest in religion itself. Rather, its primary goal is to sharpen the analytical and critical skills of individuals who, regardless of their future roles and functions in society, will inevitable encounter the existence of religious facts and phenomena. While providing students with essential bibliographical tools and the historical coordinates necessary for a long-term understanding of the discipline's development and its main theoretical and methodological debates, the course prioritizes a problem-based and thematic approach. Its aim is to formulate questions and explore issues such as: What is religion? How do religions function? What distinguishes the academic study of religion from other disciplines that address religious phenomena? What are the fundamental operations and categories without which the scientific study of religion would not have been (or could not be) conceived? And how do these categories differ from similarly named or synonymous concepts used outside the academic context?