UCL - Symbolic Systems and Religion : Genesis and Structure

[SOC2055]

[30h]

This course is taught in the 2d semester.

Teacher(s):

Language: French

Level: Second

Aims
Main themes
Content and teaching methods
Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Aims

Develop a capacity to explore, criticize and reshape conceptualization and problematization proposals for the analysis of symbolic systems and religious phenomena, in order to question them properly, in the contemporary context.

Main themes

The participants will both practically and intellectually :
- conduct an in-depth analysis of a limited number of classic authors selected for the specific illustration they provide for the conceptualisation construction and problematization of sense giving phenomena, including so-called "reli-gious" phenomena, as elements emerging from psychic dimensions and from social dimensions ;
- locate those contributions in the frame and in the general history of the sociological approaches of " sense ", " relig-ion " and " religious " phenomena ;
- identify difficulties, pitfalls and analytic alternatives in the contemporary context
- reveal reshaping or transposition tracks likely to support and/or renew the conceptual and problematic universe in re-gards to the forms and current evolutions of the phenomena concerned.

Content and teaching methods

The participants will re-examine the proposals of classic authors (Freud, Durkheim, Weber...) tending to charac-terize the social symbolic systems as a way of articulating the affective dimension and social legitimacy. These proposals will be located on the background of other problematization moments in the field, be they historical (Marx, Reich...) or contemporary (Berger, Luckmann, Bourdieu, Hervieu, Maffesoli...). The participants will personally explore those authors through readings. By locating the analysis of the " religious " dimension in this frame, they will evaluate the relative fertility of available conceptualizations and problematizations and draw development possibilities likely to sustain concrete analysis and research, aimed at understanding and explain-ing the phenomena as they emerge in the contemporary context. A particular attention will be paid to conceptu-alization and theorization elements contributing to create a link between the evolution of social symbolic, religious systems and social contexts, leading to a range of approaches combining the fields of the psychic and the social.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

On the basis of selected readings, participants will be invited to demonstrate critical reading and conceptual reshaping skills.

(a) basic authors' texts; (b) personal selection of complementary readings