AD317 Religion Today: Tradition, Modernity and Change:
An Arts and Social Sciences Course

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What's this course about?

Religion in context

What will I study?

What's this course about?

Religion, often considered an agent of stability, has been changing rapidly in the last few decades. At the same time it remains of crucial importance for many individuals, and for all societies in all countries.

Religion Today examines many of the most exciting and controversial issues in religion today from an international and multi-faith perspective. Its aim is to enable you to assess the current trends in religious ideas and practice, and to deepen your understanding of how these changes affect the societies in which the traditions exist.

The course is designed to allow you to select, to a certain degree, the themes you want to concentrate on. It investigates a wide variety of religious belief and practice in the contemporary context including:

• religion on the Internet
• modern magic
• present-day Druids
• depictions of divinity in film and television
• Buddhist environmentalism
• Islamic perspectives on human rights
• civil religion
• feminist views of religion
• Evangelical Christianity
• alternative spirituality

Note this course runs for the last time in February 2012.