The degree programme sets out to develop specialist and highly interdisciplinary profiles in the research, mediation and popularisation of inter-religious and multicultural phenomena, based on texts and sources from the main religious traditions and multicultural and inter-religious contexts. Graduates will be able to interpret current religious phenomena through the analysis of the methodologies, history, hermeneutics and cultural and symbolic representations of some of the great religious traditions. Graduates will use historical investigation tools to understand historical and religious phenomena and cultural transformations and the dynamic processes of religious history underlying the key aspects, with particular reference to the Mediterranean area and the Near and Far East, from antiquity to today.At the end of their studies, graduates will therefore have developed the following theoretical, methodological and practical competences:● Knowledge of and the ability to use the main theoretical and methodological tools in a multidisciplinary approach to the study of religious phenomena and contexts characterised by cultural, linguistic and religious pluralism.● Critical knowledge of the socio-cultural matrix of the main religious traditions and contemporary religions, in order to analyse their texts and cultural products in an interdisciplinary perspective.● Ability to identify and assess the transformations of religious phenomena in complex societies, tackling and solving issues relating to the management of religious pluralism, promoting the value of religious differences.● Ability to carry out philological, historical, religious and documentary research on different kinds of bibliographic and documentary sources.● Ability to carry out field research, applying data collection, interpretation and analysis techniques and processing empirical data, and communicating the results obtained.● Ability to use hard and digital data in drafting texts and publications on the study of religious phenomena and text traditions, using communication registers suited to contexts characterised by cultural, linguistic and religious pluralism and the various recipients.The programme covers four strongly characterised subject areas (orientations) (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Asian religions), each of which studies the following fields in detail: texts and history; history; social sciences, philosophy and law; exegesis, theology and the arts. The first year of the programme includes some core course units on the main religious traditions, multicultural and inter-religious contexts, texts and sources and legal systems with an interdisciplinary perspective. The course units focus on the three monotheistic religions and Asian religions, interconnected in complex historical and geographical contexts. Also during the first year, students have the possibility to gain competences in languages and methodologies for accessing the texts and cultural products of the various religious traditions on different levels. These course units are then accompanied by other elective subjects investigating the sources, history, social, philosophical and legal sciences, with reference to Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Asian religious contexts, in order to offer the students in-depth knowledge of the religious traditions and cultural and social contexts of multi-religious societies. The second year includes some mandatory course units in sociology/anthropology, methodological/historical and interdisciplinary fields to analyse multicultural and inter-religious contexts. A further group of elective course units focus on the fields of exegesis, theology and the arts, aiming to provide the tools to analyse cultural products of religious traditions (texts and material culture), and produce epistemological-doctrinal works in exegetic and theological fields relating both the their historical evolution and their modern outcomes. In the second year, students' language skills (to level B2 in English, French, German or Spanish) will also be tested. A senior seminar on inter-woven religious histories will close the year II studies, aiming to allow the students to assess religious phenomena and dynamics in local and global socio-cultural contexts, identifying connections, developments, persisting conditions and transformations of religious phenomena in complex societies, tackling and solving issues linked to religious pluralism, with particular attention to the gender perspective. Students can customise their study plan, with 12 CFU devoted to elective courses running at the university or the partner universities, according to the rules set by each one.
