TFF4215 – Ritual Studies
Course description
Schedule, syllabus and examination date
Course content
This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary study of ritual as embodied action, textual production, religious practice and cultural performance. Special attention will be given to lived ritual and to ritual inventions. Ritualizing will be approached as a conceptual lens for cultural analysis, theological reflection and social transformation. Issues concerning ritual such as gender, agency, identity and power will be addressed, including how ritual migrates and evolves with new interreligious contexts. Students will explore basic ritual elements experientially and learn to examine theoretical and methodological matters. Each student must read a monograph from one ritual field and conduct their own short field research on a particular group’s ritual practice (religious or secular), such as Christian worship, Muslim practice, New Age practice, funeral, festival, pilgrimage, rites of passage, etc., and learn requisite skills and methodologies for participant-observation, writing accounts, comparison and analysis.
Learning outcome
- Understand basic concepts, methods and content of the interdisciplinary field of ritual studies.
- Learn the methods and theory of ritual studies by conducting ethnographic research on liturgical worship, religious performance or secular forms of ritualizing.
- Learn skills in the conduct of field based research, participant observation, writing and analysis.
- Develop skills in imaginative and analytical thinking about the function of ritual in society, including the community-building and transformative potential of ritual in human life.
Admission
Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.
If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.
The course requires at least 80 credits in theology, religion or social sciences with emphasis on religious studies. Each student must be admitted to a Masters program.
Prerequisites
Formal prerequisite knowledge
Completed Bachelor degree in theology, religion, or social sciences with an emphasis on religious studies.
Teaching
Obligatory requirements
Each student must read attentively all assigned materials, focusing not only on the authors’ argument but also on how the argument is constructed and set within a wider conceptual framework. Engagement in class discussions indispensable. Students are required to attend 80 % of the lectures/seminars.
Each student will be required to post two short papers in Classfronter (1500 words), first a description of fieldwork experience with an in integrated methods reflection related to curriculum, second a curriculum reflection. In second paper students should identify main arguments, comment on the theory espoused by author(s) used and offer question or topics for discussion. Papers should be written in English. Each student will be required once to present own paper orally in class and once to respond to another student’s fronter presentation orally in class.
Access to teaching
A student who has completed compulsory instruction and coursework and has had these approved, is not entitled to repeat that instruction and coursework. A student who has been admitted to a course, but who has not completed compulsory instruction and coursework or had these approved, is entitled to repeat that instruction and coursework, depending on available capacity.
Examination
The student’s portfolio will be the basis for her or his evaluation.
The portfolio consists of the two short papers (1500 words) and of one term essay (between 4000-6000 words) on a chosen topic. Elements from the short papers can be used in term essay, which preferably should be grounded in the short ethnographic fieldwork. Supervision and help from teacher will be given to set up a bibliography for the essay. Essay can be written in English or in a Scandinavian language.
In the evaluation, the short papers weight 20% (each) and the essay weights 60%.
The portfolio will be evaluated with a single grade.
Examination support material
No examination support material is allowed.
Language of examination
You may submit your response in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish or English. If you would prefer to have the exam text in English, you may apply to the course administrators.
Grading scale
Grades are awarded on a scale from A to F, where A is the best grade and F is a fail. Read more about the grading system.
Explanations and appeals
Resit an examination
Special examination arrangements
Application form, deadline and requirements for special examination arrangements.
Evaluation
The course is subject to continuous evaluation. At regular intervals we also ask students to participate in a more comprehensive evaluation.
Other
Fagansvarlige for temauka v?ren 2009 er:
Rolv N?tvik Jakobsen, F?rsteamanuensis, Praktisk teologisk seminar
Sivert Angel, stipendiat, Det teologiske fakultet, UiO