Download Units Running in Teaching Block 1

2014/15
Units Running in the Department of Religion and Theology
for Year 3 Students
The descriptions below are intended to act as a brief and user-friendly guide to the
units we are offering in 2014/15. Please note that we do not guarantee that all the listed
units will run. A unit may be withdrawn, for instance, if there is insufficient demand for it. If
you have any queries regarding the information below, we would strongly recommend that
you seek advice from your Personal Tutor
Units Running in Teaching Block 1
THRS30068 Jesus in the Age of Colonialism
Unit Director: Dr John Lyons
TB1
Before and during the expansion of the colonial enterprise in Africa known as the scramble
for Africa, Christian missionaries played a significant role in the cultural exchanges that took
place between Europeans and their colonial subjects. This unit will focus on the role that
scriptures, narratives, histories, and practices took in the ongoing development of
Christianity in West Africa, taking the German scholar and physician, Albert Schweitzer, as
its exemplary subject. His attitudes to the historical Jesus, the mysticism of Paul, and his
description of Christian ethics as a commitment to reverence for lifeare examined in the
twin-contexts of his move from turn of the century Europe to the Africa of 1915 onwards.
Examination of the legacy of such missionary work in a postcolonial world completes the
unit.
THRS30019 Theravada Buddhist Practice in Asia
Unit Director: Dr Rita Langer
TB1
This unit aims to provide students with an overview of the history and development
Theravåda Buddhism in practice in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia as well as
in depth knowledge of several important topics. The unit focuses on a number of significant
topics: the practice of monasticism, lay practice, the relationship between the monk and the
laity, the position of women and Buddhist nuns, forest monks, magic and protection,
protestant Buddhism, and Buddhism and conflict in Sri Lanka. These themes will be
investigated by utilizing various kinds of sources primary textual sources, epigraphical
sources in translation, the writings of historians and social anthropologists in order to
illustrate a more general issue in the contemporary study of religion, namely the study of
texts and doctrine versus the study of people and practice.
Aims:
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to develop an overall sense of the actuality of Theravda Buddhism in Asia;
to gain an in-depth knowledge of certain significant topics in the history of the
practice of Theravda Buddhism in Asia;
to encourage reflection on the nature of the relationship between religion's theory
and practice;
to develop skills in the researching, reading and presentation of complex material.
THRS30050 Atheism
Unit Director: Dr David Leech
TB1
Today atheism is a major option for interpreting the world. This unit explores key issues in
philosophy of religion through the lens of the development of modern unbelief. It pays
attention to the emergence of modern atheism as a rejection of forms of early modern
philosophical theology, and examines contemporary religious claims that atheism merely
rejects an idolatrous concept of God and therefore fails to undermine the justification of
religious beliefs. It also examines contemporary atheist arguments proposed by atheist
philosophers of religion, as well as some arguments of popular atheism (e.g., New Atheism).
Topics addressed will include the relationship between morality and atheism, whether
modern science supports atheism, atheism and meaning, atheism and the problem of evil,
and atheist claims about the incoherence of God-talk.
Units Running in Teaching Block 2
THRS30075 Mahayana Buddhist Literature
Unit Director: Dr Eric Greene
TB2
… This unit will examine so-called Mahayana or “great vehicle” Buddhism through the medium of
some of its most significant literary outputs. Rather than directly discussing Mahayana Buddhist
doctrines as abstract ideas or ideals, we will explore Mahayana scriptures as literary objects and
attempt to uncover how the Mahayana vision of the Buddhism, the cosmos, and the path to
liberation was presented to its followers in the dramatic literature of its scriptures. We will pay
especially close attention to the way that Mahayana scriptures use extended narratives, plot twists,
humour, and other literary devices to convey their teachings and entice their readers. We will also
consider the question of how the novel literary forms of Mahayana scriptures – and indeed writing
itself – may have contributed to the spread of Mahayana Buddhism in India and the rest of Asia.
THRS30078 The True, The Good and the Beautiful
Unit Director: Dr David Leech
TB2
In this unit students are introduced to Neoplatonism, a major philosophical influence on the
Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions. The unit will focus on the historical development of the
tradition, drawing on Jewish, Christian, and Islamic texts and finishing with some contemporary
defences. Focuses will include: love; the reality of the Good; religious experience; and the
articulation of God’s nature as absolutely simple (‘the One’). Through a study of Neoplatonic motifs
in a range of figures across the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions, students will develop an
appreciation of the pervasiveness of this philosophical tradition in the Abrahamic faiths and its
continued vitality in the contemporary intellectual context.
Aims:
To introduce students to a number of key issues in classical and contemporary metaphysics/ethics
through the lens of a major philosophical tradition.
To provide an overview of a major philosophical tradition which has deeply shaped the philosophical
theologies of the Abrahamic faiths.
To develop critical interaction with primary and secondary materials.
To develop written presentation skills through the course assessment.
THRS30077 Sex, Marriage and Deviance
Unit Director: Dr Jon Balserak
TB2
This unit explores aspects of Western understandings of human relationships: marriage,
family, sex, divorce, celibacy, and social notions of ‘deviance’ and the ramifications of all of
these ideas. It examines sex as conceived of by the church, the law, and civil society in
Medieval and Early Modern Europe. In considering views and practices which deviated from
what was deemed appropriate, this unit will explore issues related to cross-dressing,
gender, homosexuality and the like, and will examine how such conduct was dealt with by
both church and state.
Aims:
(1)To provide a detailed introduction the sexual lives of Early Modern Europeans.
(2)To develop an in-depth understanding of the religious, cultural and institutional contexts
informing this
(3)To develop the skills necessary for identifying and evaluating pertinent evidence/data in
order to illustrate/demonstrate a cogent arguments
(4)To develop written presentation skills through the course assessment.