Learning objectives

AIMS The course aims to provide the methodological and cultural foundations for a study of the history of Christianity within the wider context of the history of the Western world. It sets out to develop the skills needed to: -read and interpret sources and use the tools of historical-religious scholarship; -critique sources in relation to the issues faced by historical-religious scholarship; -navigate specialised bibliography, in addition to the manual; -the ability to prepare a paper/presentation on a chosen topic (working on a specialised bibliography or on documents).

Learning assessment procedures

Examination methods: oral interviews
The oral exam will be an interview covering the topics that were dealt with during the lectures and expanded on in the study manuals. The interview will aim to determine:
-the students’ knowledge of the topic,
-their ability to use a specialised language,
-their ability to make connections between various arguments and to argue points in an appropriate manner
-their ability to read, contextualize and interpret a source

Evaluation criteria

Assessment Criteria
In order to pass the examination, students must be able to develop the topics listed below, arguing with appropriate vocabulary from documents and/or data acquired during lectures or in the course of studying the bibliography. Topics required in order to pass the examination are the following:
-Mary in the Gospels
-The development of the figure of Mary in the apocryphal texts
-Mary in the Church Fathers
-Mary in the early Middle Ages
-Marian cult in the mendicant orders
-Mary in Islam
-The evolution of the main Marian dogmas
-Marian apparitions and the birth of Marian shrines