Aims

The course aims, together with the students, to explore and criticise classical proposals
of conceptualisation and problematisation concerning the analysis of symbolic systems and of
religious phenomena, with a view to stimulating re elaborations that might lead to an appropriate examination of these phenomena in a contemporary setting.

Content and teaching methods

The students will be able to re analyse the ideas of mainstream writers (e.g. Freud,
Durkheim and Weber) that categorise social symbols as a way of linking the affective dynamic and social legitimacy. By situating the 'religious' dimension in this framework, the students will be encouraged to evaluate the relative fecundity of conceptualisations and of
problematisations currently available on the subject, and to outline the potential for development that night sustain analyses and concrete research that will aim to understand and explain the phenomena in the forms that the present themselves in the contemporary context. Particular attention will be paid to the elements of conceptualisation and theorisation that help to establish a link between the evolution of social symbols, religious systems and social contexts by opening up to various approaches that combine the psychic and social fields.

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

Students will be invited, on the basis of reading relevant writers of their own choice, to
show that they able to make a critical interpretation and conceptual and problematic re elaboration based on matters raised in joint work.

Other credits in programs