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Department of History
Department of History
Contacts

Address:
190068 Saint Petersburg
123 Griboedov channel, Room 123

Phone:+7 (812)786-92-49 

Postal address: 
190068 Saint Petersburg
123 Griboedov channel

Administration
Adrian A. Selin
Department Head – Adrian A. Selin
Evgeniy Anisimov
Academic Supervisor – Evgeniy Anisimov
About the Department

The Department of History was created in 2012. The overarching goal of the department is systematic development of the field of global, comparative, and transnational history as a potent tool of overcoming the limitations of national history canon, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue in the field of social sciences and humanities, and brining new public relevance to historical knowledge. The department mission includes the development of new type of historical undergraduate and graduate education in Russia and pioneering new research fields in Russian historiography in dialogue with the global historical profession. 

Publications
Book
Shared Images: A History of American Art in the Soviet Union during the Cold War

Chunikhin K.

De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2025.

Article
The Russian Civil War after 100 Years: Within and Beyond the Historiographical Front Lines

Alexander V. Reznik.

Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 2024. Vol. 25. No. 3. P. 644-658.

Book chapter
Individualism and Psychology in the Auto/Biography of Lev Trotsky, 1900–20s

Alexander V. Reznik.

In bk.: Revolutionary Biographies in the 19th and 20th Centuries: Imperial – Inter/national – Decolonial. Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2024. P. 17-34.

Working paper
The Image of the Past in Ciro Spontone’s ‘Historia Della Transilvania’

Khvalkov E., Levin F., Кузнецова А. Д.

Working Papers of Humanities. WP. Издательский дом НИУ ВШЭ, 2021

All publications
Contacts

Address:
190068 Saint Petersburg
123 Griboedov channel, Room 123

Phone:+7 (812)786-92-49 

Postal address: 
190068 Saint Petersburg
123 Griboedov channel

Administration
Adrian A. Selin
Department Head – Adrian A. Selin
Evgeniy Anisimov
Academic Supervisor – Evgeniy Anisimov
Department of History

Аnthropology of Religion

2023/2024
Academic Year
ENG
Instruction in English
3
ECTS credits
Delivered by:
Department of History
Type:
Mago-Lego
When:
1 module

Instructor

Oparin, Dmitriy

Oparin, Dmitriy

Course Syllabus

Full SyllabusAsk Question

Abstract

Questions of religion have been central to anthropology from its beginnings and remain so today when religion (re)emerges as a global force. While early scholarship perceived religious phenomena through the skeptical lens of secular science, recent critiques have brought up anthropology’s own orthodoxies and the need for theoretical and methodological renewal. Every new paradigm took up the challenge to explain religion and its pervasiveness in human culture and society. The anthropology of religion emerged out of such creative tensions as a vibrant field of theoretical inquiry and impressive scholarship. The course is structured around major themes that have shaped the study of religion, exploring topics such as discipline, agency, gender, mediation, the secular and secularism, religious worlds, and the ethnography of religion, aiming for a deep and critical understanding of religion in various cultures and societies.
Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives

  • The aim of the course is to introduce students into current theoretical debates in the filed of anthropology of religion.
  • The aim of the course is to discuss anthropological approach to the study of religion
Expected Learning Outcomes

Expected Learning Outcomes

  • A student compares research design
  • Able to solve professional problems based on synthesis and analysis
Course Contents

Course Contents

  • Problems of definition
  • Varieties of Secularism
  • Morality, Ethics and Self-cultivation
  • Religious Temporalities and Regimes of Historicities
  • Religion, Mediation and Aesthetics s of Presence
  • Secular sensibilities in a postsecular age
  • Trading with God(s)
Assessment Elements

Assessment Elements

  • non-blocking presentation of a text at the seminar, organization of discussion in class
  • non-blocking home exam - two short essays
  • non-blocking homework
Interim Assessment

Interim Assessment

  • 2023/2024 1st module
    0.5 * home exam - two short essays + 0.25 * homework + 0.25 * presentation of a text at the seminar, organization of discussion in class
Bibliography

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

  • James S Bielo. (2015). Anthropology of Religion: The Basics. Routledge.

Recommended Additional Bibliography

  • Bielo, J. S. (2016). A companion to the anthropology of religion. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, 24(1), 103–106. https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-8676.12247

Authors

  • KORMINA ZHANNA VLADIMIROVNA
  • OPARIN DMITRIY ANATOLEVICH
  • TAMBOVTSEVA SVETLANA GEORGIEVNA