Reading: Gavin Flood, The Truth Within, chapter 9 ‘The Historical Self and Comparative Religion’ (OUP 2013)

The purpose of this seminar series is to understand some more recent developments in the study of religions and to raise critical questions about the discipline or subject area. In particular, we will look at the implications of brain science and evolutionary anthropology and its relevance for the study of religions and secondly at philological study and its wider application in the religious field. Throughout we will raise questions about the study of religions, how we do it, and suggest ways of moving forward.

This term we will be reading Thiemo Breyer’s On the Topology of Cultural Memory: Different Modalities of Inscription and Transmission (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2007).

In the wake of the large literature now developed on memory and particularly cultural memory, this book creates a topology of cultural memory, linking anthropological work with phenomenological reflection. Breyer looks at cultural memory, memory as occupying an inter-personal realm, memory in oral and literate cultures, and the philosophical implications of empirical study. I can photocopy relevant chapters.

This term we will be reading Thiemo Breyer’s On the Topology of Cultural Memory: Different Modalities of Inscription and Transmission (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2007).

In the wake of the large literature now developed on memory and particularly cultural memory, this book creates a topology of cultural memory, linking anthropological work with phenomenological reflection. Breyer looks at cultural memory, memory as occupying an inter-personal realm, memory in oral and literate cultures, and the philosophical implications of empirical study. I can photocopy relevant chapters.

Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century, and it has also had a deep impact on other theoretical fields more widely conceived. This seminar series seeks to engage with some of the fundamental concepts of phenomenology, and has turned in the past to thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Peter Sloterdijk, Quentin Meillassoux, and others.

This term we will be reading Paul Ricoeur’s Memory, History, Forgetting.

Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century, and it has also had a deep impact on other theoretical fields more widely conceived. This seminar series seeks to engage with some of the fundamental concepts of phenomenology, and has turned in the past to thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Peter Sloterdijk, Quentin Meillassoux, and others.

This term we will be reading Paul Ricoeur’s Memory, History, Forgetting.