Culture and Civilisation of Byzantium and the Christian East II [ LGLOR2521 ]

It is advisable that the student has followed the course LGLOR1522.

In-depth study of the Christian communities in the Byzantine, Caucasian and Oriental world.

Alternately with LGLOR2522, this course deals with the following themes, on the base of textual sources and scientific studies:

1. Themes specific to one epoch or to a given region;
2. The development or the disappearance of a cultural phenomenon, in relevance to historical or religious circumstances;
3. The relation between culture and literary memory;
4. The interaction between Greek and Oriental milieus.

 At the end of this course, the student will be familiar with a rigorous scientific approach to textual sources and to questions specific to these communities. He will be able of undertaking a research of limited dimensions on one of the cultural aspects of the Christian communities in the Orient, and of presenting his conclusions orally.

Evaluation is continuous. The students are marked on the work of synthesis and its oral presentation.

Large extracts of the texts concerned will be read and commented on in the course.

The students will be expected to read the monographs and articles that accompany the course (in French, in English, or, if necessary, in other languages), and to study a specific theme, to be presented both orally and in a written synthesis.

This course treats cultural phenomena in the eastern Christian region, an area that is very large geographically, very heterogeneous, multilingual and multi-confessional. In function of the year, the themes studied may be:

- the invention of new alphabets in the Christian Orient, their role in cultural and national  shaping;
- the genesis of oriental Christian literatures, and their connection to the Greek tradition;
- the assimilation and separation of oriental civilisations as regards the Greek heritage;
- the problem of the cultural identity of oriental Christianity;
- the Persian influence in the Caucasus;
- international monasteries and cultural exchange in Palestine and in the Black Mountain (Antioch).

The bibliography and the textual sources will be given in the course.

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