Aims

Through the exploration of a chosen question, the seminar trains students in the method of historical criticism, in the utilisation of work instruments in the matter and in the development of their personal theological sense through contact with Church history.

Main themes

Each student explores an aspect of the chosen question, presents his/her research work and submits it for debate.
This makes it possible (1) to discover an aspect of history thanks to personal research, done in a critical spirit; (2) to hold a debate of ideas between students, helping to form their theological sense. Each student produces a written work describing his or her contribution to the seminar

Content and teaching methods

On the one hand, it is a question of reflection and methodological practices pertaining to the organisation of intellectual work.
On the other hand, by examining one case, it is a matter of initiation into the human sciences, which will henceforth intervene in all work, notably history.
The seminar acts as a place of mutual discovery and sharing between students who, each year, come from very different cultural backgrounds.
It provides the occasion for a historian's reflection on the great mutations we are witnessing.
What, in Europe, was orality?
And what is it in other cultures?
What does scribality signify?
And, henceforth, electronality?