Master 2024/2025

Аnthropology of Religion

Type: Compulsory course (Culture Studies)

Area of studies: Cultural Studies

Delivered by: Department of History

Where: Faculty of Humanities

When: 1 year, 1 module

Mode of studies: offline

Open to: students of all HSE University campuses

Master’s programme: Culture Studies

Language: English

ECTS credits: 3

Contact hours: 30

Course Syllabus

Abstract

Questions of religion have been central to anthropology from its beginnings and remain so today when religion (re)emerges as a global force. While early scholarship perceived religious phenomena through the skeptical lens of secular science, recent critiques have brought up anthropology’s own orthodoxies and the need for theoretical and methodological renewal. Every new paradigm took up the challenge to explain religion and its pervasiveness in human culture and society. The anthropology of religion emerged out of such creative tensions as a vibrant field of theoretical inquiry and impressive scholarship. The course is structured around major themes that have shaped the study of religion, exploring topics such as discipline, agency, gender, mediation, the secular and secularism, religious worlds, and the ethnography of religion, aiming for a deep and critical understanding of religion in various cultures and societies.