Learning outcomes

The course is aimed at a phenomenological inquiry on the possibility and the meaning of the religious experience after Nietzsche’s announcement of the “death of God”. Bearing in mind what “Horizon 2020” wishes for the European constitution of inclusive, innovative and reflective societies, the topic of religious experience will be addressed in the perspective of an interreligious dialogue, in order for it to become the starting point for the overall transcultural relations.

Participants are invited to wonder about their image (or non-image) of the divine and, based on their experience and their interests, to assess critically some reference texts in order write a short well-reasoned summary of some parts of them.
At the end of the course, students will have to prove: their adequate knowledge of the texts; critical assessment; to know how to communicate their knowledge in a clear, coherent and well-supported way; to know how to interact in the discussions with the professor and the other students.

Program

Subject of the course: A minimalist conception of the divine.
What God is dead in Nietzsche’s announcement? Is it possible to still speak of “holy” after it? What kind of “holy” would that be? Does it invite to transcend the world or the back sun of egocentricity? Is an “empirical holy” possible, i.e. something of which we could have a concrete experience? In which connection would it be with fetishism? Would the experience of this kind of “holy” be limited to the religious believer?



TEACHING AND LEARNING METHODS
Frontal lessons and discussions on the papers written by the participants.

Examination Methods

For attending students:
A personalized program will be set together at the beginning of the course.For non-attending students:
The exam is in oral form and aims at verifying the adequate knowledge of the scheduled texts. In order to access the oral examination, students must submit a paper of 20000 characters. The paper must be previously agreed on with the professor during his office hours – after students have read the texts – and is to be submitted at least 7 days before the exam. The paper must be submitted via email, with a .doc document containing the student’s name, surname and identification number.

The paper should be thought as a well-reasoned summary of the sections of the scheduled texts that have raised the student’s interest, but it does not exonerate her to study the remaining parts as well. Specific attention should be payed to the pertinence and the precision in quoting. The paper is to be concluded with a short critical consideration of a couple of pages.