29664 - Religions and Society (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

The student at the end of the course is able to identify the main religious problems that arise within complex social systems.

Course contents

I semester, 2 period
Jews and Christians: interactions, conflicts and coexistence (Middle Ages to the 19th century)

This course presents a long-term course that addresses the complex history of Jewish-Christian relations. It aims to analyze three interrelated issues: 1. forms of Christian anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism (conflict); 2. forms of coexistence and interaction between Jews and Christians; 3. representations of Christianity in Jewish culture. Special attention will be paid to the early modern age and the debates between Christians and Jews, with a focus on Venice and Amsterdam.

S.1. Jews and Judaism in the ancient world. Jewish Jesus and Second Temple Judaism. Judaism and Christianity in the first centuries of the Christian era. The polemics adversos Judaeos. Augustine. Jewish diasporas. Readings: excerpts from Adversos Judaeos.

S.2. The medieval age: Jews in the Christian and Islamic worlds. Settlements, representations, conflicts, expulsions. Spain of the three religions. Geography of blood accusation: the case of Simoninus (in-class source readings).

S.3. Modern Age: The Protestant Reformation and the Jews; the Counter-Reformation and the Jews: ghettos and new settlements. The issue of conversos (new Christians and new Jews). Two case studies: Venice and Amsterdam. Readings: Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice.

S.4. Exercise: The great religious debates between Venice and Amsterdam. Leone Modena, Simone Luzzatto, the anti-Christian polemics of the New Jews, Baruch Spinoza. Reading of texts.

S.5. Libertines and critique of Christianity. Religious and anti-religious enlightenment. French Revolution and the birth of human rights. Representations of Judaism and Jewish society. Readings from John Toland and Abbé Grègoire. Conclusions.

Readings/Bibliography

Attending Students

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

2. Quattro capitoli a scelta di Key Concepts in the Study of Antisemitism (in Virtuale)

3. Cristiana Facchini, Raccolta di Saggi (in Virtuale)

4. Un libro a scelta tra:

Età medievale

• Paula Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).
• G. Todeschini, Gli ebrei nell'Italia medievale, Carocci, Roma, 2018 (2a edizione)
• N. Rowe, The Jew, the Cathedral and the Medieval City. Synagoga and Ecclesia in the Thirteen Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011
• S. Lipton, Dark Mirror. The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Iconography, New York, Metropolitan Books, 2014

Età moderna

• Facchini C. (2014) Infamanti dicerie. La prima autodifesa ebraica dall’accusa del sangue, Collana Lapislazzuli, EDB, Bologna, 2014
• Facchini C. Raccolta di saggi, testo scaricabile tra i materiali didattici dall'applicativo Virtuale)
  
• S. Nadler, Spinoza e l'Olanda del Seicento, Einaudi, Torino, 2020.
  F. Trivellato, Ebrei e capitalismo. Storia di una leggenda dimenticata, Laterza, Bari-Roma, 2021.
• M. Teter, Blood Libel. On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth, Cambridge, Harvard University press, 2020
• T. Herzig, A Convert's Tale: Art, Crime, and Jewish Apostasy in Renaissance Italy, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019 (ora in italiano: Viella 2023).
• D. Katz, The Jewish Ghetto and the Visual Imagination of Renaissance Venice, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2017
• M 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).
• Cristiana Facchini & Annelies Lannoy, Eds. The Many Lives of Jesus: Scholarship, Religion, and the Nineteenth Century Imagination (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023)

STUDENTI NON FREQUENTANTI

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

2. Cristiana Facchini, Raccolta di Saggi (in Virtuale)

3. 2 testi a scelta tra:

• P. Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).
• P. Schaefer, Giudeofobia. L'antisemitismo nel mondo antico, Carocci, Roma 2011 (2 ed.)
• N. Rowe, The Jew, the Cathedral and the Medieval City. Synagoga and Ecclesia in the Thirteen Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011
• S. Lipton, Dark Mirror. The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Iconography, New York, Metropolitan Books, 2014
  
• C. Facchini, Infamanti dicerie. La prima autodifesa ebraica dall’accusa del sangue, Collana Lapislazzuli, EDB, Bologna, 2014
  
• S. Nadler, Spinoza e l'Olanda del Seicento, Einaudi, Torino, 2020 (edizione rivista).
  F. Trivellato, Ebrei e capitalismo. Storia di una leggenda dimenticata, Laterza, Bari-Roma, 2021.
• M. Teter, Blood Libel. On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth, Cambridge, Harvard University press, 2020
• T. Herzig, A Convert's Tale: Art, Crime, and Jewish Apostasy in Renaissance Italy, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019
• D. Katz, The Jewish Ghetto and the Visual Imagination of Renaissance Venice, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2017
• M 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.
• G. Todeschini, Gli ebrei nell'Italia medievale, Carocci, Roma, 2018 (2a edizione)
  
• C. Facchini, David Castelli. Ebraismo e scienze delle religioni tra Otto e Novecento, Brescia: Morcelliana, 2005
  
• E. Mazzini, L'ebraismo cattolico dopo la Shoah, Viella, Roma, 2013
• E. Fattorini, Pio XI, Hitler e Mussolini. La solitudine di un papa, Einaudi, Torino, 2007H. Wolf, Il Papa e il diavolo. Il Vaticano e il Terzo Reich, Donzelli, Roma, 2008G. Miccoli, Antisemitismo e cattolicesimo, Morcelliana, Brescia, 2013
• E. Bemporad, Eredità di sangue. Ebrei, pogrom e omicidio rituale in Unione Sovietica, Castelvecchi, Roma 2021
• D. Schwartz, The Ghetto. The History of a Word, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019
• I. Kieval, Blood Inscriptions. Science, Modernity, and Ritual Murder in Europe Fin de Siècle, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022
• Cristiana Facchini, Annelies Lannoy, Eds. The Many Lives of Jesus: Scholarship, Religion, and the Nineteenth Century Imagination (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023).

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.

Teaching tools

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

Office hours

See the website of Cristiana Facchini