29664 - Religions and Society (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course student will be able to identify the main religious problems that arise within complex social systems.

Course contents

1st Semester, 2nd Period

Between Venice and Amsterdam: Judaism, Christianity, and the Emergence of Religious Toleration in the Early Modern World

This course adopts an urban perspective to explore the complex cultural relationships between Jews and Christians in the cities of the early modern world. It focuses on Venice and Amsterdam, two major port cities—one ancient and one emerging—closely connected through the circulation of people, books, and ideas. Far more than places of religious coexistence, both cities functioned as privileged laboratories in which encounters across religious boundaries generated new ways of thinking about the Bible, history, and religion itself.

The course begins by examining two major historical transformations. The first is the collapse of religious pluralism in the Iberian Peninsula following the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain and the emergence of converso cultures. The second is the profound rupture introduced by the Protestant Reformation within Latin Christendom. Against this background, the course explores the intertwined development of new practices of biblical interpretation, changing conceptions of religion, and debates surrounding mysticism, prophecy, and eschatological expectations.

Venice and Amsterdam will be studied not simply as centres of religious diversity, but as spaces of cultural production in which polemics, collaboration, translation, conversion, and publishing networks fostered the circulation of ideas across confessional boundaries. Through the works of authors such as Leon Modena, Menasseh ben Israel, Baruch Spinoza, and other protagonists of the European intellectual debate, the course reconstructs the exchanges, connections, and mutual influences that linked Jews and Christians. In doing so, it examines how these interactions reshaped the political and religious vocabulary of early modern Europe and contributed to the gradual emergence of new conceptions of religious toleration.

 

Readings/Bibliography

Attending Students will follow instructions from the Syllabus (in Virtuale)

Non attending students

1. David Nirenberg, Antigiudaismo. La tradizione occidentale, Viella, Roma, 2016

2. One book to select among: 

Paula Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).

Nina Rowe, The Jew, the Cathedral and the Medieval City. Synagoga and Ecclesia in the Thirteen Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011

Sara Lipton, Dark Mirror. The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Iconography, New York, Metropolitan Books, 2014

Cristiana Facchini, Infamanti dicerie. La prima autodifesaebraica dall’accusa del sangue, Collana Lapislazzuli, EDB, Bologna, 2014

Cristiana Facchini, Ebraismo e mondo cristiano. Saggi sull'età moderna (in Virtuale)

Steven Nadler, Spinoza e l'Olanda del Seicento, Einaudi, Torino, 2020.

Francesca Trivellato, Ebrei e capitalismo. Storia di una leggenda dimenticata, Laterza, Bari-Roma, 2021.

Magda Teter, Blood Libel. On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth, Cambridge, Harvard University press, 2020

Tamar Herzig, A Convert's Tale: Art, Crime, and Jewish Apostasy in Renaissance Italy, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019 (in italiano: Storia di un ebreo convertito. Arte, criminalità e religione nell'Italia del Rinascimento (Roma: Viella, 2023)).

Dana Katz, The Jewish Ghetto and the Visual Imagination of Renaissance Venice, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2017

Miriam Benfatto, Gesù frainteso. La polemica ebraica anticristiana nel Sefer ḥizzuq emunah di Yiṣḥaq ben Avraham Troqi (c. 1533-1594), Roma, Viella 2022

Michelson, Catholic's Spectacle and Roman Jews. Early Modern Conversion and Resistance, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2022.

Anne Albert, Jewish Politics in Spinoza's Amsterdam (Liverpool: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2023).

Daniel Schwartz, Ghetto. Storia di una parola (Milano: Hoepli, 2024)

Mathilde Monge, Natalia Muchnik, Early Moder Diasporas: A European History (London & New York: Routledge, 2022)

Teaching methods

lectures based on seminar methodology.

Text reading, analysis of iconographic sources, films and documentaries.

Students are invited to actively participate in the lectures with the presentation of a text in the bibliography.

Assessment methods

 

A student who attends at least 75% of the lectures is considered to be attending.


Oral test.


The evaluation takes into account the soundness of preparation, analytical and synthetic skills, clarity of exposition and the ability to use appropriate terminology.


- The achievement of a comprehensive and synthetic view of the topics covered, combined with the ability to critically analyze them and the use of precise and appropriate language will be evaluated with grades 28-30L.


- Fair but not in-depth knowledge of the subject matter, limited ability to synthesize and analyze, and the use of imprecise language will be assessed with grades from 24-27.


- Poor knowledge of course topics, use of imprecise terminology, and lack of familiarity with the course bibliography will result in grades from 18-23.

During the exam the use of AI is not allowed.

During the academic year, six exam sessions are scheduled, generally in the following months: January, February, May, June, September for all students.

Teaching tools

Powerpoint; Visual Aid; Documentaries and Films; Primary Sources.

 

Students with learning disorders and/or temporary or permanent disabilities: please, contact the office responsible (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students ) as soon as possible so that they can propose acceptable adjustments. The request for adaptation must be submitted in advance (15 days before the exam date) to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of the adjustments, taking into account the teaching objectives.

Office hours

See the website of Cristiana Facchini