religious studies

The tutorials will be dedicated to the reading of primary and secondary sources relevant to the subject treated at the corresponding lecture. Primary sources will be read in English translation. When reading secondary literature, it will be expected that students realise the points of view, the inner convictions, the biases and the stakes involved. At every tutorial one or two students will present relevant articles and chapters and the whole group will discuss them.

It is one of the ironies of the modern age that the advent of modernity reinforced the status and the authority of the Book in scripturalist religions, and facilitated the rigours of its literal reading, a reading generally and almost automatically – but not knowledgeably – ascribed to Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. This course introduces students to the great transformations that overcame notions of the book in general, and of Scripture in particular, brought about by the advent and spread of the print medium, by Humanism, the Reformation and the scientific revolution.