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ANTH2357: Ritual, Religion and Belief

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Type Open
Level 2
Credits 10
Availability Available in 2024/2025
Module Cap None.
Location Durham
Department Anthropology

Prerequisites

  • People and Cultures (ANTH1061) OR Being Human (ANTH1111)

Corequisites

  • None.

Excluded Combinations of Modules

  • None.

Aims

  • Provide a cross-cultural overview of the theoretical and ethnographic importance of the anthropological studies of religion
  • Cover key theories of religion in social anthropology, supported by ethnographic case studies
  • Consider the form that religious practices take in a variety of different societies and communities and their relationship with political, economic and cultural life
  • Provide an in-depth and broad knowledge of religion and its importance to human sociality
  • Examine critically the relationship between the practice of different religions and forms of religiosity for social organisation, identities, and culture
  • Provide an awareness of how a theoretical and ethnographic awareness of these topics might help understand critical events and controversies in the contemporary world.

Content

  • Overview of key issues in the anthropology of religion followed by coverage of the following major themes: ritual and belief, shamanism and cosmology, religion and race; secularism; ethnographies of world religions.

Learning Outcomes

Subject-specific Knowledge:

  • Understand the place religion in human societies, and the various ways it has been theorised by anthropologists
  • Be able to demonstrate familiarity with a range of representative ethnographic cases (present and past, Western and non-Western).

Subject-specific Skills:

  • Have an understanding of the basic conceptual vocabularies of religion.
  • Be able to analyse the symbolic foundations of religious practices.

Key Skills:

  • Library research
  • Debating skills
  • Note taking
  • Essay writing
  • Critical reading and analysis.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

  • Lectures and seminars introduce students to the material and enable discussion of it, informed by wider reading.
  • Lectures may include pre-recorded videos, live presentations, and/or interactive components as appropriate to the material covered from week to week
  • Seminars allow students to explore and discuss material from the lectures and readings in depth with their tutors and peers
  • Formative assessment is by one 500 word written assignment
  • Summative assessment is by a 2000 word written assignment

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

ActivityNumberFrequencyDurationTotalMonitored
Lectures10Weekly1 hour10 
Seminars3Fornightly intervals1 hour3Yes
Preparation and Reading87 
Total100 

Summative Assessment

Component: CourseworkComponent Weighting: 100%
ElementLength / DurationElement WeightingResit Opportunity
Written assignment2000 words100yes

Formative Assessment

500-word written assignment

More information

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