CODE | 65356 |
---|---|
ACADEMIC YEAR | 2020/2021 |
CREDITS | 6 credits during the 2nd year of 9023 ANCIENT STUDIES: ARCHAEOLOGY, PHILOLOGY AND LITERATURES, HISTORY (LM-15) GENOVA |
SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINARY SECTOR | M-STO/06 |
LANGUAGE | Italian |
TEACHING LOCATION | GENOVA (ANCIENT STUDIES: ARCHAEOLOGY, PHILOLOGY AND LITERATURES, HISTORY) |
SEMESTER | 1° Semester |
TEACHING MATERIALS | AULAWEB |
This course provides students with an overview on pivotal features of ancient religions from a diachronic and synchronic point of view. The focus will be twofold: on the appearance of ancient religion as a science in the European academic debate, and on the specific study of religious aspects in the Greek and Roman historical context. The lectures will be organised according to different themes: sources, theories, crucial relation between the sacred and the exercise of power. Particular attention will be devoted to the institutional and religious forms of ancient oath.
Being able to interpret religious phenomena of Ancient Age by analyzing specific issues on a
theological, ritual, mythic and cultural level, according to modern hermeneutics
The course is intended:
On successful completion of this course a student should:
• Have an overview of the historical, philosophical, and academic debate which led to the study of religion as an autonomous subject.
• Be familiar with the key interpretative frameworks for the study of ancient religions.
• Understand the patterns, the rituals and the identifying features of ancient Greek and Roman religions.
• Use a specific language.
• be able to compare patterns and understand the historical, political, and cultural meaning of the single religious events under analysis.
• Have a detailed historical knowledge of the institution of the oath in the Greek and Roman world, read as a speech act, a juridical form, a religious custom, and a political guarantee.
A particularly good knowledge of Greek and Roman history, literature and language is required, as well as an acquired mastery of reading, understanding, and translating Greek and Latin different samples of documents.
The course is taught through daily seminars of two hours (40 hours in the first semester). During lectures, ancient and modern texts will be fully presented and discussed by the teacher. Seminars may have weekly essential readings, which students will be expected to have done, following guidance, in order to be able fully to follow and to contribute actively to discussions.
First general part:
Monographic part:
- Ph. BORGEAUD, F. PRESCENDI, Religioni antiche: un'introduzione comparata, edizione italiana a cura di D. Bonanno e Gabriella Pironti, Carocci, Roma 2011.
-M. BETTINI, Dei e uomini nella città. Antropologia, religione e cultura nella Roma antica, Carocci, Roma 2015.
- A. SOMMERSTEIN, J. FLETCHER, Horkos. The Oath in Greek Society, Bristol-Phoenix 2007, pp. 1-90.
G. AGAMBEN, il sacramento del linguaggio. Archeologia del giuramento, Laterza, Bari-Roma 2008.
-P. SCHIRRIPA, Il tempio, il rituale, il giuramento. Spazi del sacro in Tucidide, Carocci, Roma 2015.
- Notes and assigned individual or groups readings.
Non-attendings students will read also:
- P. Schirripa, Religione e società nella Grecia antica, Carocci, Roma, 2010.
PAOLA SCHIRRIPA (President)
FRANCESCA GAZZANO
The course is taught through daily seminars of two hours (40 hours in the first semester). During lectures, ancient and modern texts will be fully presented and discussed by the teacher. Seminars may have weekly essential readings, which students will be expected to have done, following guidance, in order to be able fully to follow and to contribute actively to discussions.
The exam consists of an oral test on the contents of the general and of the monographic course. Students will also be asked to read and translate one or more passages from the texts in the programme or even to analyse an unknown passage (taken indifferently from first or second bibliography), previously presented and contextualised from the examiner: the extra-text could be proposed to assess students’ autonomous reading and critical skills.
The exam is meant to assess student’s full knowledge of the contents of the course, as well as his/her interpretative and comparative skills in reading ancient religious events and in understanding their social and historical value.
Marks will be attributes as follows:
Attendance is strongly recommended.