RELG4001: Global Religions and Society

• Terms Taught: Michaelmas
• US Credits: 5
• ECTS Credits: 10
• Pre-requisites: None

Outline Syllabus

This module explores religion as a central dimension of global society, focusing on how religious ideas, practices, and identities intersect with major political and ethical issues. As a one-term module, it provides a focused introduction to religion in global contexts, with its broader scope complemented by a second core module within the programme.

The module is organised into three teaching blocks, which explore “religion” as a category of analysis. These may be organised either regionally - for example, Africa, South Asia, and the Muslim world- or thematically, depending on available expertise. Thematic focuses may include issues such as conflict and peacebuilding, climate change and environmental ethics, or questions of gender, identity, and power.

Across these blocks, students engage with case studies that illustrate how religion shapes and is shaped by global political, cultural, and social dynamics.

RELG5001: Global Religions Guided Project

• Terms Taught: Michaelmas
• US Credits: 5
• ECTS Credits: 10
• Pre-requisites: None

Outline Syllabus

Create a portfolio of investigative and critical writing which explores a particular topic in the study of global religions in depth. In this module you will be guided with expert support from staff in Religious Studies to develop your research, analytical, and independent study skills. Through sustained engagement with a focused topic, you will develop your ability to interpret texts, analyse arguments, and make independent judgements informed by evidence and critical reflection. You will work with an academic specialist on a chosen topic, engaging both collaboratively in small groups and independently on your own project.

Project topics offered each year will be drawn from core areas of expertise within the Global Religions programme, such as:

• African Indigenous Religions
• Protest Politics
• Cults and Conspiracies
• Islamic Philosophical thought
• Global Religions, Conflict, and Peace
• Classical Indian Religions and Philosophies
• Colonialism, Conflict and Religion
• Islam
• Islamic Law and Ethics
• Love and Friendship in Global Religion
• Sociology of Religion

Students will select a topic aligned with their interests and will be supported in developing a focused research question within that area. The module emphasises both conceptual and contextual approaches, encouraging engagement with historical, textual, and ethnographic materials where appropriate.

Completion of this module will equip students with the skills and confidence required for independent research and extended writing in their final year, particularly in preparation for the dissertation or independent project.

RELG5002: Global Religions, Women and Gender

• Terms Taught: Lent/Summer
• US Credits: 5
• ECTS Credits: 10
• Pre-requisites: None

Outline Syllabus

This module explores how issues concerning gender, womanhood, and sexuality have played out in relation to culture and religious traditions across the world and through time. Encouraging students to question preconceptions, the module examines, through an analytical gender lens, how practices of piety have both empowered and enabled, as well as controlled, women in expressing their experiences, identities, and agency. Case studies from Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and indigenous traditions will be used to explore how religious texts, rituals, and institutions have constrained or facilitated gendered expressions.

A focus on the subcontinent may examine sacred womanhood, investigating connections between power, antinomianism, transcendence, and female power-essences embodied in wild goddesses, women philosophers, and mystics. Alongside gender, womanhood, and femininity, it will also explore conceptions of transgenderism in religious imagery, mythology, and counternormative narrative traditions in which patriarchal hierarchies are questioned and subverted.

Within the context of Islam, the module may consider how women have historically occupied roles as transmitters of ?adith (prophetic tradition), jurists, and theologians, while also being subjects of legal, theological, and mystical discourses that both regulate and sanctify female bodies. Alongside this, it explores the rich traditions of female piety and mystical experience within Sufism, where women have served as spiritual guides, poets, and saints, often occupying forms of authority that transcend formal hierarchies.

Depending on the expertise of the teaching team, the module may also include a comparative focus on other religious traditions, bringing new questions to light about how gender and power intersect across different cultural contexts. Drawing on feminist, postcolonial, and decolonial approaches, the module overall examines global parallels in how women have negotiated, subverted, and reinterpreted normative gender frameworks in religions—whether through embodied practices of piety, counter-normative narrative, or decolonial feminist frameworks

RELG6001: State and Religion

• Terms Taught: Michaelmas
• US Credits: 5
• ECTS Credits: 10
• Pre-requisites: None

Outline Syllabus

This module explores how religion and the modern state have developed in relation to one another across different historical and global contexts. Encouraging students to question taken-for-granted assumptions about secularism and political authority, the module examines how religion continues to shape political life, even in contexts often described as “secular.” Through a comparative lens, students will analyse how religious traditions both influence and are transformed by modern state structures.

The module engages with key questions such as: What role does religion play in contemporary governance? How have modern states redefined religious authority and practice? To what extent does religion support, challenge, or reconfigure political ideologies such as liberal democracy and human rights? And why does religion remain central to political mobilisation in many postcolonial and non-Western contexts?

Case studies from Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and other traditions will be used to explore how religion intersects with law, political authority, and national identity. Particular attention may be given to themes such as secularism and the postcolonial nation-state; religion and law-making; religion and human rights, especially in relation to minority and women’s rights; and religion as a site of political protest and resistance. The module may also examine the concept of civil religion, particularly in relation to nationalism and state identity, as well as the ways in which religion is mobilised in contemporary political discourse. Drawing on interdisciplinary approaches, including political theory, anthropology, and religious studies, the module highlights the global complexity of the relationship between religion and the modern state.

RELG6003: Global Religions and Intellectual Traditions

• Terms Taught: Michaelmas
• US Credits: 5
• ECTS Credits: 10
• Pre-requisites: None