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Summer School on Religion & Global Politics

19 May - 20 June 2014
John Cabot University, Via della Lungara, 233, 00165 Rome, Italy

Supported by:
Standing Group on Religion and Politics
Application deadline
Fees
Fees are still to be confirmed.
Further information and booking


Target Audience

Bologna Master's and upper level undergraduates

Objectives

The JCU Summer Institute for Religion and Global Politics offers students a comprehensive introduction to contemporary issues and debates regarding the roles of religious actors, ideas and institutions in democratic political life and the impacts of democratic politics on religions themselves.

Courses

During the Institute students will

  1. Take two intensive courses (12 ECTS or 6 US credits); 
  2. Visit a series of relevant religious and political institutions in Rome; 
  3. Attend a two-day international conference on Political Catholicism; and 
  4. Participate in opening and closing discussion sessions.

In addition, Masters’ students will attend regular tutorials with one of the programmes lecturers.

The centerpiece of the Institute will be the Religion and Global Politics Seminar, co-taught by Tom Bailey (Professor of Philosophy), Pamela Harris (Professor of Law) and Michael Driessen (Professor of Political Science). This obligatory course will be offered at both (upper-level) undergraduate and Master’s level (with additional reading and writing obligations for Master’s level students). It will meet for two hours a day four times a week and be divided into three sections, introducing students respectively to the theoretical (Bailey), legal (Harris) and empirical (Driessen) issues raised by the multiple interactions between religion and politics. This will provide both for the detailed study of each disciplinary perspective and the exploration of interdisciplinary connections among them.

The seminar will have two guiding themes, both reflecting the University’s distinctive location and mission. First, reflecting the University’s position as a secular institution in a religious society, particular emphasis will be given to the complexities of religious-secular encounters in modern democratic environments, as well as to the rights of religious minorities in religiously homogenous societies. Second, reflecting the University’s location in the Mediterranean, the seminar will explore the complexities of religion in democratic and democratising societies, paying particular attention to the experiences of southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. In particular, it will examine the challenges and opportunities which Political Catholicism and Political Islam present to democracy and democratisation in the region. At the end of the course, students will write a substantive term paper under the close supervision of Professors Bailey, Harris or Driessen.

In addition to the Religion and Global Politics Seminar, students participating in the Institute will be required to take one other for-credit course among those offered by the University for the Institute. These courses may include the following: Sociology of Religion, Italy and the Middle East, Politics of the Middle East, History of Islam, Living the Good Life: Religion and Philosophical Ethics, Religion in the Greco-Roman World, Mystics, Saints and Sinners: Studies in Medieval Catholic Culture, and Popes of Rome: A History of the Catholic Church.

Visits will be arranged to the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See, the Pontifical Council for Peace and Justice, the Sant’Egidio Community for Inter-religious dialogue, the Rome Synagogue, and the Grand Mosque of Italy. Through these on-site visits students will be exposed to the institutional settings in which major religious and political actors interact in a global and democratic political environment. Students will be encouraged to incorporate the experience of these visits into the writing of their term papers.

Finally, students will be expected to attend a two-day international conference, “Political Catholicism: New Trends,” to be held at the University at the end of May, 2014. Scholars from Italy, Europe and the U.S. will showcase new research on both theoretical issues in the study of public religions and new socio-political trends in Political Catholicism in contemporary Europe and the United States.