93325 - Politics and Religion in the Modern Age (1)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course students will know the basic kinds of sources for reconstructing the complex interaction between religion and politics over the modern era. They will know how to use the main tools for picking up the drift of the historiographic debate, and thus be able to choose the updating tools best suited to their own skills and purposes. They will be able to illustrate the methods of heuristics, source analysis and historiography as to the relations between politics and religion, bearing in mind the different ways of analysing historical and cultural processes. Working independently and in an orderly fashion, they will have acquired self-criticism and an ability to learn from mingling with others.

Course contents

With the Lutheran Reformation and the concomitant disintegration of unified Christian Europe in the 16th century, the relationship between religion and politics changed fundamentally. The religious wars that shook France and the Empire, the new role of the papacy, the emergence of the new Atlantic empires, and the English Revolution had a decisive impact on thinking about politics and its relationship to Christianity and contributed to a radical change in its key concepts.

The course is divided into two parts. The first part addresses the major issues characterising the relationship between religion and politics in the early modern period through an analysis of the events that led to the European religious conflicts and the ways in which these events influenced the pages of thinkers such as Machiavelli, Montaigne, Hobbes, and Spinoza. The second part is devoted to the use of Jewish history (biblical and post-biblical) and the history and organisation of the Ottoman Empire by European thought in the context of modern theological and religious debates. (1450-1750). By comparing passages from authors such as Machiavelli, Bodin, Hobbes, Montesquieu, and other sources such as travel narratives, biblical commentaries, and historical works, it will be shown that reflection on these topics became a strategic focus on key concepts in the modern theological-political lexicon. (The syllabus for the individual weekly topics will be available on the professor’s website at the beginning of the course.)

Readings/Bibliography

In addition to the lecture notes, attending students should bring:

• Merio Scattola, Teologia politica, Bologna, il Mulino, 2007.
• Noel Malcom, Utili Nemici. Islam e Impero ottomano nel pensiero politico occidentale, 1450-1750, Milano, Hoepli, 2020.
• Michael Walzer, Esodo e rivoluzione, Milano, Feltrinelli, qualsiasi edizione.
• Lea Campos Boralevi – Diego Quaglioni, Politeia Biblica, Firenze, Olschki, 2003.

Non-attending students should bring, in addition to the texts listed above, one other text of their choice from among the following:

• Elena Bonora, Aspettando l’imperatore. Principi italiani tra il papa e Carlo V, Torino, Einaudi, 2014;
• Paolo Prodi, Il sovrano pontefice, Bologna, il Mulino, 2016.
• Vittorio Frajese, Le categorie della Controriforma. Politica e religione nell’Italia della prima età moderna, Roma, Bulzoni, 2011;

Gilberto Sacerdoti, Sacrificio e sovranità. Teologia e politica nell’Europa di Shakespeare e Bruno, Torino, Einaudi 2002 (va bene anche l’edizione Macerata, Quodlibet, 2016).

Teaching methods

The teacher will use texts and images to get the students able to reading the sources and to understanding the representations in history. Any teaching materials will be made available online in the appropriate section of the University's website.

Assessment methods

The oral examination will take place in the exam sessions provided at the end of the course.To evaluate the exam, the teacher will take into account the student's ability to master the contents of the course, to understand the historical concepts, to orientate himself in the bibliography, to know how to read a source, to connect the information acquired, to expose what he has learned in a synthetic way and with an appropriate language. The student who will meet these demands will have an excellent mark. The student who will simply repeat the information acquired in a mnemonic way and with a language not entirely adequate will have a discreet evaluation. The student who will show that he knows the contents superficially and with some gaps, using an inappropriate language, will have a sufficient evaluation. The student unprepared and incapable of orientation in the subject will have a negative evaluation.

Teaching tools

Presentations in Prezi and other downloadable teaching materials from Virtual.

Office hours

See the website of Guido Bartolucci