Section outline

  • Syllabus

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    Subject title: Religion and Society

    Teacher: Peter Morée Dr.

  • Week 1: Introduction

  • Week 2

    The debate about religiosity, secularization and institutional religion: setting the terms. Central questions: what do we understand by religion, faith, secularization etc.; what are the different approaches; how do faith communities reflect the situation?

    Required reading: Meerten ter Borg, Non-institutional Religion in Modern Society, 2008

  • Week 3

    The situation: Religiosity in Central and Eastern Europe. Central questions: what is the situation of religion in Central and Eastern Europe; what are the differences to Western Europe; which are the models of interpretation?

  • Week 4

    The Historical Perspective: Reformation and Recatholicization

    Central questions: what was the development of religion in its relation to public and political life during the 15th to the 17th c.

    Required reading: Wolfgang Reinhard, Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and the Early Modern State. A Reassessment, in: The Catholic Historical Review , Jul., 1989, Vol. 75, No. 3 (Jul., 1989), 383-404

  • Week 5

    The Historical Perspective: The 19th century - Nationalism and Religion

    Central questions: What role did religion play in the rise of the modern world? How did it interact with a key movement of the 19th century, namely nationalism?

    Required reading: Patrick Cabanel, Protestantism in the Czech historical narrative and Czech nationalism of the nineteenth century, in: National Identities, Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2009, 31-43

  • Week 6

    Communism and Religion

    Central questions: What was the development of religion in its relation to public and political life during the second half of the 20th c. especially in communist dominated countries? How were the communist parties able to use religious motives for their own ideological benefit?

    Required reading: Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, “Forced” Secularity? On the Appropriation of Repressive Secularization, in: Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe, 2011, 4 (1), 63-77.

  • Week 8: 17 April

    What happened in the 1990s, after the end of the Cold War and the communist regimes. Did religion gain a central role in the democratic society? What became the role of religion in the public space after the end of communism? Did religion "reconquer" post-communist societies?

    Required reading: Stephen White et al., Religion and Political Action in Postcommunist Europe, in: Political Studies: 2000, Vol. 48, 681-705

  • 24 April

    - Religion in contemporary Czech culture: Which images of religion and religious figures do we find in contemporary Czech film and literature? (Dagmar)
    Required reading: Ivana Noble Ph.D. and Tim Noble, Christ Images in Contemporary Czech Film, in: Journal of Reformed Theology, 1 (2007), 84-106.

    - Religion and State: What are the models of state-church relations in the EU and in Central Europe; what is the development of them? (Denisa)
    Required reading: Silvio Ferrari, State regulation of religion in the European democracies:     the decline of the old pattern, in: Gabriel Motzkin, Yochi Fischer (eds), Religion and Democracy in Contemporary Europe, London: Alliance Publishing Trust, 2008, 103-112

    - Religion and Values: Are believers better citizens? (Jan)
    Ingrid Storm, Morality in Context: A Multilevel Analysis of the Relationship between Religion and Values in Europe, in: Politics and Religion, 9 (2016), 111–138

  • 15 May

    Highlighted

    - Religion and Violence: How are religion and conflict related in post-communist Central Europe? (Johana)
    Required reading: Matjaž Klemenčič, Religious and Ethnic Diversity in the Second Half of the 20th Century: War and Political Changes in the Territories of Former Yugoslavia, in: Ausma Cimdina (ed.), Religion and Political Change in Europe: Past and Present, Pisa: Universita di Pisa, 2003, 195-209

    - Religion and Human Rights: What are the reasons for the ambivalent relation between religion and human rights; what are the tendencies in the several post-communist countries? (Eirini)
    Required reading: Dorota A. Gozdecka, Religions and legal boundaries of democracy in Europe: European commitment to democratic principles, Helsinki: University of Helsinki (Dissertation), 2009, ch. 5: Freedom of expression versus freedom of religion and discussion of the essence of democracy, 171-202 

    - Religious Aspects of the War in Ukraine (Marco)

  • 22 May

    - Religion and Voting Patterns: How do believers vote in European elections? (Launa)
    Margarete Scherer, Euroscepticism and Protestant Heritage: The Role of Religion on EU Issue Voting, in: Politics and Religion, 13 (2020), 119–149.

    - Secularization Revisited: Is the secularization theory (the more human development, the less religion) still valid? (Luca)
    Kostanca Dhima, Matt Golder, Secularization Theory and Religion, in: Politics and Religion, 14 (2021), 37–53

    - The Perspective for Religion: What can be expected in the next decades concerning the role of religion in society? (Daniel)
    Kees de Groot, Three Types of Liquid Religion, in: Implicit Religion, Vol. 11, No. 3 (2008), 277-296