Undergraduate - UnitATS4006 - Political theology

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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12 points, SCA Band 1, 0.250 EFTSL

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

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Organisational Unit	Centre for Religious Studies
Offered	Not offered in 2015
Coordinator(s)	Dr Tamara Prosic

Synopsis

Political theology examines explicit and implicit connections between religious and political ideas. It is both a theory and a method and the unit introduces students to both of these dimensions. The theoretical aspect offers students a way of thinking about how religion, power and politics are intertwined through reading and discussion of various texts by modern philosophers, such as Carl Schmitt, Ernest Bloch, Claude Lefort and others. The other aspect offers students a way of using political theology as a method for reading variety of texts in order to uncover forgotten or repressed religious influences in modern secular discourses.

Outcomes

Understand important approaches to political theology
Understand the history of political theology
Enter into current conversations about political theology
Employ a range of theoretical frameworks for understanding the links between theologies and various aspects of politics
Practice political theology as a method of thinking critically, conceptually and creatively about political problems
Research and analyse modern politics using political theology as theoretical and methodological framework

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 100%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 288 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Tamara Prosic

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

Religious studies
History
Philosophy