Religion and Memory: Belief, Society, and the Past (THE1009)

Staff	Dr David Tollerton - Convenor
Credit Value	15
ECTS Value	7.5
NQF Level	4
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
Duration of Module	Term 1: 11 weeks;

Module aims

This module will introduce you to academic memory studies and enable you to reflect on its varied interfaces with religious identities, practices, and beliefs. You will have the opportunity to develop critical tools to understand and assess the religious dimensions of how societies remember/construct their pasts, integrating a survey of memory studies theory with local, national, and international case studies related to a variety of media, locations, and practices. The module aims to sensitise you to some of the conflicted and evolving ways in which such interactions develop, incorporating examples related to sacred space, ritual, pilgrimage, and visual culture, alongside cases in which societal memory blurs religious-secular boundaries or becomes entangled with national identity-construction. The module will be of interest to students across the humanities and social sciences, including those considering entry into teaching on religion or history, or employment in the heritage sector.

ILO: Module-specific skills

1. Link memory studies theories with researched case studies of interaction between society memory and religious identity, practices, and belief
2. Reflect critically in writing on the varied ways in which the interface between religion and memory may manifest in contexts of sacred space, ritual, pilgrimage, and visual culture

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

3. Engage in close readings of a specific local religious location and its mediations of the past
4. Integrate textual theoretical discussions with assessment of specific historical and contemporary religious contexts
5. Demonstrate an understanding of the varied ways in which communities express values and ideologies through sacred spaces, ritual, pilgrimage, and visual culture

ILO: Personal and key skills

6. Attend carefully and closely to details of researched case studies and their relationship to scholarly theory
7. Reflect critically in writing on different constructions of meaning and the ways in which they derive from particular orientations toward the past
8. Engage sensitively with contested and controversial topics related to religion and society
9. Demonstrate an awareness of the module as a learning community by listening to the viewpoints of others, contributing sensitively to discussion, and critically reflecting on the learning process

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that the module will cover some or all of the following topics:

Key theories in memory studies
Religion, memory, and social belonging
Memory and sacred spaces (including local Exeter sites)
Ritualising memory
Memory and pilgrimage
Memory and the visual
Memory and blasphemy
Remembering religious persecution / victory
Memory between religiosity and secularity

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
35	115	0

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning and Teaching	22	11 x 2-hour lectures (asynchronous)
Scheduled Learning and Teaching	11	11 x 1-hour seminars (synchronous)
Scheduled Learning and Teaching	2	2 hour site study (asynchronous)
Guided Independent Study	115	Private and/or small group study

Formative assessment

Form of assessment	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Seminar presentation	10 minutes	1-2,4-8	Oral

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Coursework	Written exams	Practical exams
100	0	0

Details of summative assessment

Form of assessment	% of credit	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Memorial site report	20	800 words	1, 3, 7-8	Written comments
Essay	70	1800 words	1-2, 4-8	Written comments
Participation	10	In-class participation	9	Written comments

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Original form of assessment	Form of re-assessment	ILOs re-assessed	Timescale for re-assessment
Memorial site report	Memorial site report	1,3,7-8	Referral/deferral period
Essay	Essay	1-2,4-8	Referral/deferral period
Participation	30 Minute 1-to-1 tutorial	9	Referral/deferral period

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Basic reading:

Bond, Lucy, Stef Craps, Pieter Vermeulen, Memory Unbound: Tracing the Dynamics of Memory Studies (New York: Berghahn, 2017).
Buggeln, Gretchen, Crispin Paine, and S. Brent Plate, Religion in Museums: Global and Multidisciplinary Perspectives (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017).
Erll, Astrid, Ansgar Nünning, Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008).
Hassner, Ron E., War on Sacred Grounds (New York: Cornell University Press, 2013).
Misztal, Barbara A., Theories of Social Remembering (Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2003).

Module has an active ELE page?

Yes

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

ELE: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=11446

Available as distance learning?

Origin date

11/02/2020

Last revision date

22/07/2020

Key words search

Religion, memory, history, sacred, pilgrimage, ritual, visual culture