DI2011 Reading Religion(s): Understanding the Dimensions of Religion and the Religions in the 21st Century

Further information on which modules are specific to your programme.

Module description

The process of secularization has not put an end to public engagement with ultimate questions. Familiarity with religious/ideological convictions, with the inside perspective of religions, is essential for understanding cultural/political constellations worldwide. The module aims at skills in ‘reading religions’: understanding the tradition of a religion, some main concepts, the impact on ethics and politics, the internal structure and how religion shapes the understanding of being human. It looks at fundamentalist phenomena as the downsides of religious illiteracy. It does so from the internal perspective of one’s own religion, and, in analogy, with regard to other traditions to gain orientation in a religiously pluralist world. Familiarity with different dimensions of the internal structure/anatomy of religions (i.e. narratives, rituals, beliefs, organisation, ethics etc.) enables students to identify religious phenomena and their impact on everyday life, people’s ethos and politics.

Intended learning outcomes

• identify religious phenomena and perspectives in contemporary society
• understand religions as complex structures in the dimensions of their beliefs, sacred texts and narratives, philosophies and practises, their institutions and communities, their ethos, and their relation to politics
• differentiate and relate functional, social, philosophical, anthropological and theological approaches to the concept of religion
• present critical approaches to the religions
• describe and criticise fundamentalism with regard to its main characteristics
• assess different approaches to religious pluralism and the concept of religious and interreligious tolerance