RELIGIOUS IMAGINARIES AND MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Bibliography
- Delivery method
- Teaching methods
- Secondary school general knowledge.
- Interest in the intercultural and interreligious debates and in the way they are portrayed by the media.
Learning will be verified through an oral test.
The oral exam consists of a presentation of the topics covered within the course which aim to ascertain the candidate's preparation and their ability to give a critical interpretation.
The following skills will be evaluated:
• The acquisition of the fundamentals of the proposed analysis methodology and the correctness of the conceptual references used (10 points);
• Exposition capacity and acquired terminology (10 points);
• The critical capacity and autonomy of the student (10 points).
The aim of the course is to analyse how press, television, cinema and web play a part in reinforcing preconceptions, prejudices and stereotypes on “other” cultural identities, specifically in the religious sphere.
Influence, persistence, conflictuality and transformation of religious systems will be addressed, especially in the Mediterranean monotheist context (Christianity, Judaism and Islam), and how the media influence them.
The underlying scientific framework will be interdisciplinary, as it will take into consideration both philosophical and anthropological concepts from a mediology perspective.
The course will be focused on three main topics.
1. Theoretical principles to develop a critical approach to religious matters as portrayed by the media. In-dept study of religious imaginary and mediology concept (in particular the analyses of Peter Sloterdijk and Régis Debray) to understand differently the relation between the media and the religious roots of our cultural identities (institutional part).
2. The problem of secularization, the return of religion and reuse of religions in the media. Change and new media forms of the sacred.
3. Conflicts over religious identity and their representation in mainstream media for a critical analysis.
Documentaries and media documents may be considered during the course. For the exam it will be necessary to prepare two texts,
The first mandatory concerning the methodological foundations .: Jeppe Sinding Jensen, What is religion, Bulzoni Editore, Roma 2018
By choice, instead, a text between the two following paths
1. Secularizationand return of religions. A text s chosen from:
• Luigi Berzano, Fourth secularization. Autonomy of styles, Mimesis Edizioni, Milan 2018
• Ulrich Beck, The personal God. The birth of secular religiosity, Laterza, Rome-Bari 2009
2. Religious imagery in the media, conflictual media representation. A text s chosen from:
• Bruno Nassim Aboudrar, How the veil became Muslim, Cortina, Milan 2015.
• Peter Sloterdijk, The Fury of God. On the Conflict of the Three Monotheisms, Cortina, Milan 2008.
• Peter Sloterdijk, Sfere I, Cortina, Milan 2014
• Ugo Fabietti, Materia sacra. Bodies, objects, images, fetishes in religious practice, Cortina, Milan 2015
Frontal lessons