History, Anthropology, Religions

This course aims to provide an overview of theories of sacrifice that impacted the history of religions during the 19th and 20th centuries, and the theoretical instruments to critically examine how such theories impacted the ways to describe and interpret different religious phenomena. The importance of the study of sacrifice is given by its centrality in the history of religions and in the historiography that oriented research in contexts other than those which inspired the theories themselves. Sacrifice as a fact is a historiographical construction and, as a category, it is no longer enough to critically approach a number of practices involving gift, exchange, sharing, nurturing etc. The risk is to provide a distorted view of the phenomena labelled as 'sacrifice’. Some crucial issues of this course concern, thus, the possibility to define what sacrifice is, whether there is a fact that we can define sacrifice tout court, which consequences derive, at a level of interpretation, from using labelling notions to classify the phenomena we observe.

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A) Two monographs: 1) A. Brelich, Presupposti del sacrificio umano, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 2006.
 2) Robert G. Hamerton Kelly et al., Origini violente : uccisione rituale e genesi culturale, Giuffrè, Milano, 2018


 B) Two essays: 3) Marcel Detienne, Jean-Pierre Vernant, La cucina del sacrificio in terra greca, tr. it. Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2014 [ed. or. 1979]. (soltanto pp. 9-31) 4) C. Grottanelli, Uccidere, donare, mangiare. Problematiche attuali del sacrificio antico, in C. Grottanelli, N. Parise (a cura di), Sacrificio e società nel mondo antico, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1988, pp. 3-56.

 C) Additional readings that will be distributed during the course and made available on Classroom.

Frontal classes. It is also planned the reading, followed by discussion, of a selection of sources inherent to the main issues of the course. During the course, students will be involved to actively work in team in order to explore some aspects specifically related to the course and the teaching program and enhance the historical thinking skills.

Attendance is not compulsory, however, only students who attend will participate in the workshop activities. For those who do not attend the class, additional reading is strongly recommended, as indicated in the program.

The examination will consist of an interview intended to verify the applicant's knowledge on the issues exposed during the course and the methodological, critical and applicable aspects of the History of religions. Also, the exam will verify the applicant's autonomous ability to connect the issues of the corse with other disciplines.

Frontal lessons and seminars. During the course there will be laboratory lessons in which students are actively involved in group work to explore specific aspects of the course and the monographic part of the program.