Undergraduate - UnitATS2636 - Sacred and profane: religion, the secular and the state

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered, or view unit timetables.

Notes

Synopsis

The unit explores ways in which religious and secular ideas and interests interact and influence each other. It discusses models of secularization (freedom of religion, freedom from religion), its historical contexts, socio-cultural tensions and governments' responses to them. It examines different models implied by the intersection between the religious and the secular and between politics and the state (religious state/religious politics, secular state/secular politics, religious state/secular politics, secular state/religious politics). Finally, the unit also looks at religio-political discourses of in- and ex-clusion underlying domestic and foreign policies of nation-states.

Outcomes

Students successfully completing this unit should have developed:

1. background knowledge about secular traditions and mainstream theories of secularization and desecularization;
2. an understanding of the historical reasons behind different models of formal religion and state separation (USA and France);
3. acquired the necessary analytical tools to gain deeper insight into the principled issues at stake in contemporary tensions between religion and the state, religion and politics;
4. the ability to compare and analyse different forms of interaction between the religious and the secular/political in the modern world via four empirical case studies a.Israel/Iran b.China c. Sweden/Indonesia d.USA
5. an appreciation of the complex national and international influence of religions on the dynamics of contemporary public life;
6. an understanding of religion's role in the formation of personal and collective identity and alterity;
7. an understanding of religious undercurrents in systems of political and economic alliances;
8. the capacity to analyse, contextualise and discuss contemporary religio-political discourse via empirical case studies.

Assessment

Written work: 90%
Class participation: 10%

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Tamara Prosic

Contact hours

One 90 minute lecture per week
One 1-hour tutorial per week

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

Religion and theology
International studies
History

Prerequisites

ATS1325 and ATS1326 (First-year sequence in International Studies) or
ATS1324 or ATS1873 or permission of the unit coordinator

Prohibitions

ATS3636