
coordinator: dr hab. Ioanna Patera
USOS code WFz.IR-A/115
Semester Winter
Type of class Lecture and Seminar
Teaching hours 60
ECTS 6
Evaluation Exam
Admission limits None
Schedule TBA
Objectives and topics
This course offers an overall picture of the main topics of ancient Greek religion. The Greek theogony and the main gods will be presented through their myths and cults. Human behaviour towards gods and other supernatural beings will show general patterns and a number of variations that are sometimes thoroughly regulated. The topics will be presented along with an adequate methodology proper to the discipline.
Evaluation criteria
Participation, writing and presenting a paper, oral exam
coordinator: dr hab. Małgorzata Sacha
USOS code WFz.IR-B/68
Semester Winter
Type of class Seminar
Teaching hours 30
ECTS 4
Evaluation Exam, Paper
Admission limits 15 students
Schedule TBA
Objectives and topics
The aim of this course is to provide a broad insight into the symbolism of animals and, especially, into the phenomenon of therianthropy and theriomorphism in the chosen world religions. First, students will be introduced to key issues of the Human-Animal Studies (HAS). Then, some anthropological and psychological aspects of the human-animal interactions will be discussed. The course focuses on the issue of animal symbolism in both prehistory and ancient cultures and religions of the Near East, Europe, Asia and America. The most prominent mythical and animal figures, like the animal guardian, trickster, psychopomp etc. will be discussed in the light of the contemporary methodological discourse on the comparative religion and iconology.
Evaluation criteria
To get credits students are obliged to complete the assigned tasks (readings, active participation, essay) and pass an oral final exam. Up to two absences to be admitted to the final exam; to approve the exam it is necessary to score over 50%.
Class participation (discussion, Q&A): 30% of a total grade)
Essay: 25% of a total grade.
Oral examination: 50 % of a total grade.
coordinator: dr Robert Czyżykowski
USOS code WFz.IR-A/110
Semester Winter
Type of class Seminar
Teaching hours 30
ECTS 4
Evaluation Exam, Paper
Admission limits 20 students
Schedule TBA
Objectives and topics
The course is an introduction to the topic of the body and embodiment in the Indian Tantric tradition. Participants in the course will be acquainted with the knowledge about the origins, historical development, social institutions, initiation, rituals, and esoteric aspects of Tantric tradition in the context relating to the main topic of the body. The Tantric tradition underscores special interest in the area of the various methods of Tantric Yoga where the human body is considered as a vehicle for achieving soteriological and other goals. A dominant part of the course will be covered by the most prominent Tantric traditions, namely Vaishnava, Śaiva and Śakta, with some introduction to the Buddhist Tantric tradition. After completing the course students will be able to integrate and evaluate the knowledge about Tantric groups in India and in limited degree outside the India. Students will also gain awareness of theoretical dimensions for studying the topic of body and embodiment with the whole range of the current theories
Evaluation criteria
1/ Oral exam
2/ Participation in classes and presentation of the paper
coordinator: dr hab. Ioanna Patera
USOS code WFz.IR-A/106
Semester Winter
Type of class Lecture and Seminar
Teaching hours 60
ECTS 6
Evaluation Exam
Admission limits None
Schedule TBA
Objectives and topics
This course offers a detailed picture of the setting of Greek festivals. The various means to repeatedly honour the gods will be examined in order to differentiate what is meaningful in each case. These settings will be compared to the discourses about the origins of festivals, the myths regarding the honoured gods and the actual way of honouring them. Variations of patterns will be examined as ways to differentiate the meaningful and the specific aspect making each of the festivals recognizable and unique. We shall examine the great and smaller festivals, their settings and organization, the administration of the sanctuaries as well as the overall modern theories mostly regarding the nature of the honoured gods.
Evaluation criteria
Participation, writing and presenting a paper, oral exam
coordinator: dr hab. Małgorzata Sacha
USOS code WFz.IR-I/77
Semester Winter
Type of class Seminar
Teaching hours 30
ECTS 4
Evaluation Exam, Paper
Admission limits 15 students
Schedule TBA
Objectives and topics
The aim of the course is to provide a broad insight into psychoanalytic theorizing and research on religion. Relevant perspectives from the history of the psychoanalytic thought as well as methodological discussion, will be part of the course. Readings and discussions will be situated within the area of the cross-disciplinary studies.
Recent years have witnessed an increasing interest in religion and spirituality within the field of psychoanalysis. Traditionally there has been a powerful opposition posed between psychoanalysis and religion. We will discuss and reflect on the forms and rationale behind this peculiar contemporary 'religious turn' in the field of psychoanalysis. The aim of the course is both to examine the most essential classic psychoanalytic contributions to the study of religion/religions, and to review the latest psychoanalytic theories on religion and demonstrate their relevance for religious studies. We will focus on the problem of the cultural embedment of the religious phenomena and religious mind vis-à-vis psychoanalytic claim for universality.
Evaluation criteria
To get credits students are obliged to complete the assigned tasks (readings, active participation, essay) and pass an oral final exam. Up to two absences to be admitted to the final exam; to approve the exam it is necessary to score over 50%.
Class participation (discussion, Q&A): 30% of a total grade)
Essay: 25% of a total grade.
Oral examination: 50 % of a total grade.
coordinator: dr Urszula Idziak – Smoczyńska
urszula.idziak-smoczynska@uj.edu.pl
USOS code WFz.IR-E/27
Semester Summer
Type of class Seminar
Teaching hours 30
ECTS 4
Evaluation Exam
Admission limits None
Schedule TBA
Objectives and topics
The course will be devoted to the analysis of selected religious categories present in contemporary philosophical discourse. The choice of the parable, the oath and the prayer offers a wide perspective on the philosophical dialogue with religion in the XXth/XXIst centuries, spreading from individualistic approach (prayer) to political theory (oath). Although this choice is primarly dictated by a linguistic revolution in the realm of continental philosophy drawing on meaning only through linguistic figures. The oath, the prayer and the parable will thus be taken under consideration as a grammar of religious experience, in accordance with Nietzsche’s statement that “we won’t get rid of God being still faithful to grammar”.
Topics:
The narrative of the end of metaphysics
Zoon legon echon
The cartesian fable as method
The history of „mana” as floating signifier
Against communication
The parable as new philosophical paradigm
The parable of the prodigal son between Jews and Christians
Ludwig Wittgenstein as a philosopher of the parable,
The body as subject of confession?
Performative certainty
A prayer for the impossible
Walter Benjamin and the language of justice
The archeology of the oath
The confessing subject
The calling subject
Evaluation criteria
Exam
coordinator: dr Barbara Krawcowicz
barbara.krawcowicz@uj.edu.pl
USOS code WFz.IR-A/116
Semester Summer
Type of class Seminar
Teaching hours 30
ECTS 4
Evaluation Final paper
Admission limits None
Schedule TBA
Objectives and topics
The course is devoted to an exploration of concepts, ideas, and practices related to gender in Jewish religious thought and practice in historical perspective. Using gender as an analytical category, we will begin from analyzing classical Jewish texts to see what they say about men and women, about differences and relations between them. After learning about gender and its understanding(s) in Judaism’s foundational texts we will move on to consider how Jews throughout history understood and lived out sexual difference. Then we will have a closer look at how various Jewish communities today approach questions related to gender and delve into often very heated contemporary Jewish debates about gender identity and equality. In other words, this class will discuss how Jewish texts and traditions present men, women, gender, and sexuality and the contemporary legacy of these representations. The course does not require any prior knowledge of Judaism.
Evaluation criteria
Final paper.
coordinator: dr hab. Piotr Czarnecki
USOS code WFz.IR-A/78
Semester Summer
Type of class Seminar
Teaching hours 30
ECTS 4
Evaluation Essay
Admission limits None
Schedule TBA
Objectives and topics
The aim of a course is a deep, academic analysis of the new, controversial religious phenomena – the Invented Religions, with its main branches: Joke Religions, Parody Religions, Fiction-Based Religions and Socially Involved Invented Religions.
The analysis of source materials, and scholars’ treatises shall give the answers to the fundamental questions of the origins, the specificity and inspirations of such groups. Another important issue will be the analysis of the relations between Invented Religions and other contemporary phenomena, such as New Religious Movements, New Age or pop-culture, that will enable to distinguish characteristic features of Invented religions, to define them and also to give answer to the question: whether such phenomena, that claim to be religions, can be considered religious by the scholars. The answer to the question whether Invented Religions can be called religions, according to the academic definitions is crucial also from the legal point of view, because it determines the attitude of the law towards such phenomena.
During the course, students will discuss source materials and academic texts concerning invented religions, listen to the lectures and watch the multi-media presentations. They will also have the opportunity to present the effects of their own research on a chosen group (or groups) belonging to the current of Invented Religions in the final essay and in the presentations prepared for the classes.
Evaluation criteria
-Final essay (ca. 10 standard pages)
-Short presentation during the classes
coordinator: dr Matylda Ciołkosz
USOS code WF.IFW-Z209Db
Semester Summer
Type of class Seminar
Teaching hours 30
ECTS 4
Evaluation Final presentation or essay
Admission limits None
Schedule TBA
Objectives and topics
The objective of the course is to instill in the participants the understanding of the relations between religion and other domains of culture.
Topics:
Defining culture
Religion: what is it, why is it, and what is it for?
Myth and ritual - the stuff of religion?
Secularisation: Culture without religion?
Religion and science
Religion and art
Religion and physical culture
Religion and psychiatry
Religion and marketing
Religion, ideology, and politics
Popular culture and religious appropriation
Occultism in Popular Culture
Popular culture as religion
Evaluation criteria
Ability to discuss knowledgeably and comprehensively the assigned readings.
Ability to competently discuss a self-selected topic related to the subject matter of the course, through argumentation based on existing academic literature, in a written essay or during an oral presentation.