2024/2025![Learning Objectives](/f/src/global/i/edu/objectives.svg)
![Expected Learning Outcomes](/f/src/global/i/edu/results.svg)
![Course Contents](/f/src/global/i/edu/sections.svg)
![Assessment Elements](/f/src/global/i/edu/controls.svg)
![Bibliography](/f/src/global/i/edu/library.svg)
Christian Culture(s) of the Middle East
Type:
Optional course (university)
Delivered by:
School of Asian Studies
When:
3, 4 module
Open to:
everyone
Instructors:
Anna Alexeyevna Rogozhina
Language:
English
ECTS credits:
3
Contact hours:
52
Course Syllabus
Abstract
This course is aimed at providing students with a wide-range critical knowledge of the formation and development of early Christianity and its doctrine in general and various regional Christian cultures in particular. It focuses on the history and the rich heritage of Eastern Christianity, both literary and material (images, architecture, religious practices). We will also look at how this heritage has been shared and preserved in the past, and how it is transformed and transposed in the present. The course will offer a scholarly and accessible introduction to the variety of topics comprising the research field of Eastern Christian Studies. It will also teach students the analytical and critical skills necessary to engage with academic subjects at university level and to learn to think independently, to reflect on relevant issues of method, to develop the ability to identify, understand and apply key concepts and principles in the texts studied during the course. By the end of the course students will have a good awareness of the nature and scope of Eastern Christian studies, be able to independently assess and evaluate ideas and theories, understand and use appropriate methodology, critically read and analyze relevant texts, communicate their own views and ideas clearly and logically.
Learning Objectives
- To provide students with a comprehensive knowledge of the main stages of the spread of Christianity in the Middle East and Central Asia and its influence on the social, cultural and political development of the Middle East.
- To inform students on the origins and patterns in the development of specific Christian cultures in the Middle East and Central Asia and the main factors determining this development.
- To acquaint students with the main personalities and sources associated with the religious and cultural life of the Christian communities of the East in the period of Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Early Modern period.
- To develop enhanced understanding of how primary evidence is employed in philological, textual, historical and literary analysis and argument through work with relevant primary and secondary literature, and to demonstrate the role of interdisciplinary research (in the fields of philology, philosophy, archeology, art history) in the study of late antique and medieval culture.
Expected Learning Outcomes
- Defines the key events and tendencies in the history of the Middle Eastern Christian communities in the 20th and 21st centuries.
- Demonstrates knowledge of the key features and authors of the formative period of early Christianity
- Demonstrates knowledge of the main groups of Christian apocrypha and their characteristic features.
- Demostrates knowledge of the key features and personalities in the history of Arabic Christian communities.
- Demostrates knowledge of the key features and personalities in the history of Egyptian Christianity.
- Names and explains the main characteristics of gnostic systems, defines differences between various gnostic groups.
- Names the main tendencies and developments in the field of Syriac studies.
- Identifies the main figures and events in the history of the Christian Caucasian states.
Course Contents
- Spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire and beyond.
- Christianity in Egypt.
- Christianity in Egypt.
- Gnosticism. Hermetic corpus. Magic and Christianity. Manichaeism.
- Syriac (Aramaic) Christianity.
- Christianity in the Caucasus.
- Arab Christians.
- The fate of Christians in the Middle East
Assessment Elements
- Seminar activity
- EssayEssays submitted after the established deadline are not graded.
- Exam
Bibliography
Recommended Core Bibliography
- Between Empires : Arabs, Romans, and Sasanians in the Late Antiquity, Fisher, G., 2011
- Buzi, P. (2017). Remains of Gnomic Anthologies and Pagan Wisdom Literature in the Coptic Tradition. Mohr Siebeck.
- Buzi, P. (2018). Egypt, crossroad of translations and literary interweavings (3rd-6th centuries). A reconsideration of earlier Coptic literature. Italy, Europe: Edizioni Università di Trieste. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.B1E8F4CC
- Christianity in the land of the pharaohs : the Coptic Orthodox Church, Kamil, J., 2012
- Genocide in the Ottoman Empire : Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, 1913-1923, , 2017
- Hovannisian, R. G. (2008). The Armenian Genocide : Cultural and Ethical Legacies. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=395706
- Liliya R. Frangulyan. (2018). Elements of (Auto) Biography in the Context of Coptic Hagiography, 7 th –8 th Centuries. Studia Litterarum, (4), 40. https://doi.org/10.22455/2500-4247-2018-3-4-40-57
- Millar, F. (1987). Empire, community and culture in the Roman Near East : Greeks, Syrians, Jews and Arabs. Journal of Jewish Studies, 38(2), 143–164. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsram&AN=edsram.000008116
- Paganism and Christianity in Egypt, Scott-Moncrieff, P. D., 2013
- Petikean, A. A. (1963). The golden age in the fifth century. An introduction to Armenian literature in perspective.
- Quispel, G. (1992). Hermes Trismegistus and the origins of Gnosticism (Vol. 46). Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsram&AN=edsram.000361045
- Seta Dadoyan. (2021). The Fatimid Armenians : Cultural and Political Interaction in the Near East. Brill.
- Suny, R. G. (2015). ’They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else’ : A History of the Armenian Genocide. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=944463
- The body and society : men, women and sexual renunciation in early Christianity, Brown, P., 2008
- Vacca, A. (2017). Non-Muslim Provinces Under Early Islam : Islamic Rule and Iranian Legitimacy in Armenia and Caucasian Albania. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1613535
- Манихейство : по ранним источникам, Смагина, Е. Б., 2011
- Моисеева, С. (2011). Первые Памятники Арабо-Христианской Житийной Литературы И Их Связь С Византийской Агиографической Традицией. Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского Гуманитарного Университета. Серия 3: Филология, 26.
Recommended Additional Bibliography
- Andrew Gregory, & Christopher Tuckett. (2005). Trajectories Through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers. OUP Oxford.
- Early Christianity in Asia Minor and Cyprus : from the margins to the mainstream, , 2019
- The cult of the saints : its rise and function in Latin christianity, Brown, P., 1982