87367 - Entangled History and Religions (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course students will have acquired a thorough knowledge of the methods and historiography necessary for the study of religions in interconnected contexts. They will be able to analyze different source material in order to understand and describe how religions create their worldviews and interact with the broader cultural, economic and material context.

Course contents

Religious diversity and the city. A historical journey

The aim of this class is to investigate the relationship between religion and urban life, focusing on the theme of religious diversity, as it might have been organised and performed in different urban contexts. A historical journey through different cities will offer a number of different urban examples of how religion contributed to forge the built environment, how religious interactions and encounters were established and negotiated, and ultimately how religious conflict and interactions might determine the future of cities.

Week 1: Introduction to key terms: Religion & Urbanity. Theoretical approaches: the School of Chicago and the German School. Ancient urban models. Case study: Ancient Alexandria

Week 2: The rise of Christianity and Islam and their relationship to cities. What is diversity? How to conceptualize religious diversity in the city: urban models, rituals, and practices. Visibility and invisibility of religious groups. Case-studies: the ghetto and the Muslim city.

Week 3: Religious diversity: the age of exploration and the Reformation; The rise of early global capitalism. Case studies: Mexico City and Surat

Week 4: Religious diversity, the age of exploration and the rise of early global capitalism (1500-1800). Port cities and cosmopolitanism. Case Studies: Trieste and Salonika

Week 5: Religious diversity, migration, violence & memory. Religious diversity between nationalism and empires. Religion and the industrial city. Current questions. A case study: Jerusalem

Readings/Bibliography

Week 1

• Richard Sennet, ed., Classic Essays on the Culture of the Cities, Meredith Corporation, New York 1969
• Richard Sennet, Flesh and Stone: the Body and the City in Western Civilization, Norton, New York - London, 1996 (chaps. 1-4)
• Guy G. Stroumsa, “Alexandria and the Myth of Multiculturalism,” in L. Perrone, ed., Origeniana Octava: Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition, vol. 1 (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 23-29
• Lewis Mumford, The City in History, New York, 1961 (chap. 7)
• Richard Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals: Topography and Politics, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1983 (Chapter 1)

Week 2

• Richard Sennet, Flesh and Stone: the Body and the City in Western Civilization, Norton, New York - London, 1996 (chap. 7)
  
• Lewis Mumford, The City in History, New York, 1961 (chap. 9)
  
• Nina Rowe,The Jew, the Cathedral, and the Medieval City: Synagoga and Ecclesia in the Thirteen Century, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge – New York, 2011 (chaps. 3,4,5)
• Dana Katz, The Jewish Ghetto and the Visual Imagination of Early Modern Venice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017
• Louis Wirth, The Ghetto, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1928
  
• Cristiana Facchini, “The city, the ghetto and two books. Venice and Jewish early Modernity”, in Cristiana Facchini, ed., Modernity and the Cities of the Jews, Numero monografico di Quest. Issues in contemporary Jewish history 2 (2011), pp. 11-44
• Mark Mazower, Salonika, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims, and Jews, 1430-1950, Vintage Books, New York, 2004 (part I)

Week 3

• Heinz Schilling, “Calvinist and Catholic Cities: Ritual Architecture and Ritual in Confessional Europe” European Review 12/3 (2004): 293-312
• Space and conversion in Global Perspective, eds., Giuseppe Marcocci, Wietse De Boer, Brill
• Cristiana Facchini, Seeing: cities and religious diversity in the early modern period, De Gruyter, Berlin 2019 (online publication ~ see Teaching Materials IOL)
  
• Jay Kinsbruner, The Colonial Spanish-American City: Urban Life in the Age of Capitalism, University of Texas Press, Austin, 2005 (Chapters 1 and 8)
• Barbara Mundy, The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City, University of Texas Press, Austin 2015
• Sanjay Subranmanyam, “The Hidden Face of Surat: Reflection on a Cosmopolitan Indian Ocean Centre, 1540-1750, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 61 (2018): 2015-255

Week 4

• Cities and Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400-1700, eds. Donatella Calabi and Stephen Turk Christiansen, 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007 (Part 2, chaps 5,8,9)
• Liam Matthew Brockey, ed., Portuguese Colonial Cities in the Early Modern World, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2009 (Chapter 2 and 8)
  
• Mark Mazower, Salonika, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims, and Jews, 1430-1950, Vintage Books, New York, 2004 (part I)
• David Sorkin, Port Jews and the Three Regions of Emancipation, in David Cesarani, ed., Jewish Communities in Cosmopolitan Maritime Trading Centres, 1550-1950, Frank Cass, Portland - London, 2002

Week 5

• Barrington Moore Jr, “Ethnic and Religious Hostilities in Early Modern Port Cities” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 14/4 (2001): 687-727
• Tullia Catalan,"The Ambivalence of a Port-City. The Jews of Trieste from the 19th to the 20th Century", in Modernity and the Cities of the Jews, eds. Cristiana Facchini, Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History. Journal of Fondazione CDEC, n.2 October 2011
  
• Charles King, Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams, Norton & Company, 2011 (anche in italiano)
  
• Konstantin Akinsha, Grigorij Kozlov, Silvia Hochfield, The Holy Place: Architecture, Ideology, and History in Russia, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2007
• Sharon MacDonald, Difficult Heritage: Negotiating the Nazi Past in Nuremberg and Beyond, London – New York: Nuremberg, 2009
• Simon Goldhill, Jerusalem City of Longing, Cambridge – London, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008
• Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: the Biography, London: Widenfeld & Nicholson, 2011

Teaching methods

Lectures, and seminar methodology based on discussions of texts and sources. Students are required to read the material which is listed in the Syllabus

Assessment methods

Students who attend at least 75% of the lessons are considered to be attending.

Students will select 3 books from the bibliography listed below, and will have to pass an oral examination. The questions will be aimed at testing the student's ability in exposing with an appropriate language some of the topics tackled by the books, as well as his/her skills in making connections between different texts in order to build an argument. Proper language and the ability to critically speak about the books' content will lead to a good/excellent final grade. Acceptable language and the ability to resume the books' content will lead to a sufficient/fair grade. Insufficient linguistic proficiency and fragmentary knowledge of the books' content will lead to a failure in passing the exam.

Bibliography

1 book between:

Richard Sennet, ed., Classic Essays on the Culture of the Cities, Meredith Corporation, New York 1969

Richard Sennet, Flesh and Stone: the Body and the City in Western Civilization, Norton, New York - London, 1996 

2 books among:

Dana Katz, The Jewish Ghetto and the Visual Imagination of Early Modern Venice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017

Space and conversion in Global Perspective, eds., Giuseppe Marcocci, Wietse De Boer, Aliocha Maldawki, IlariaPavan, Brill, Leiden – Boston, 2015

Benjamin Kaplan, Divided by Faith: Religious Connflict and the Practice of Religious Toleration in Early Europe, Cambridge – London, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007

Robert A. Orsi, Gods of the City: Religion and the American Urban Landscapei, Bloomington& Indianopolis, Indiana University Press, 1999

Liam Matthew Brockey, ed., Portuguese Colonial Cities in the Early Modern World, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2009

Simon Goldhill, Jerusalem City of Longing, Cambridge – London, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008

Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: the Biography, London: Widenfeld & Nicholson, 2011

Mark Mazower, Salonika, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims, and Jews, 1430-1950, Vintage Books, New York, 2004

Teaching tools

Visual Aid, Powerpoint, Documentaries

Office hours

See the website of Cristiana Facchini