General information

• Study points: 4.00
• Language: English
• Category: lecture - assignment
• Duration: 26.0 hours 
• Periodicity: Taught next academic year in the second semester
• POC: Facultaire onderwijscel Godgeleerdheid

Taught by

Broeckaert Bert

Aims

• to show the importance of detailed anthropological research when discussing the relationship between religion and culture in general and the relationship between religion, morality and culture in Nilotic cultures in particular.
• to introduce the exemplary studies, in the field of the anthropology of religion, by Evans-Pritchard and Lienhardt.
• to show the cultural and moral importance of religion in traditional Atuot, Dinka and Nuer societies.

Content

This course deals with the traditional religion, values and culture of the Atuot, Dinka and Nuer (Southern Sudan). Basing ourselves on the classical studies by Evans-Pritchard and Lienhardt and on a secondary analysis of their fieldwork, that of Burton and of the other available sources, the culture, values and religion of these Nilotic people are introduced. Wit the help of a number of theories, prominent in comparative religious ethics, the relationship between morality/values and religion in these cultures is examined in detail.  
 

Course Material

• Powerpointpresentations
• Toledo
• Reader
• Recommended reading:
• J.W. Burton, God's Arts. A Study of Atuot Religion, St. Augustin: Anthropos Institute, 1981.
• E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Nuer Religion, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970 (1956).
• G. Lienhardt, Divinity and Experience. The Religion of the Dinka, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978 (1961).

Evaluation description

Examination type:
    oral with written preparation