General
The course is offered as a freestanding course. It is an elective course in the one-year Master’s program in Eastern Christian Studies.
Course Description
The course prepares the students to understand, assess and work with modern texts in relation to sociology and applied practices. Students choose a subject (Church History, Liturgical Studies, or Ecclesiology), and texts which the students use for their methods and applied theories. The course also discusses how to work with, establish, and use empirical data. Literature is partially chosen in dialogue with the supervisor.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students are expected to be able to:
Knowledge and understanding
- describe in-depth how modern theories and methods relate to historical documents and empirical data
- discuss how sociology and theology can interact informed by current research
- explain the connection between history and sociology
Competence and skills
- independently gather, establish, and critically analyze data, using the methods provided in the course
- independently analyze theological and social issues, and how they relate to each other, in selected texts in translation
- apply theories and methods from social behavioral science to discern and interpret textual sources, within a given time frame
- illustrate the connection between contemporary social structures of the church and the historical development in a popular and scholarly way
Judgement and approach
- critically assess and formulate problems with regard to the relationship between source text, interpretation, and applied practice
- assess various interpretations and practices, and their social and ethical consequences
- assess and argue for the limitations of research, and the need for ongoing research in the field as well as for individual learning
- assess the role of preserving and developing ancient languages and textual sources from democratic, cultural, and ecological perspectives.
See Course Plan for more details.