Art and Religion

How do people use art to express their belief?  What makes a work of art or a place “religious”? What are the functions and uses of images, spaces and places in religious traditions around the world? What difference does it make if a religious artifact is encountered in the Rijksmuseum, St Peter’s Basilica, or a wayside shrine? These questions lie at the heart of the minor Art and Religion.

The closure of large numbers of churches, global migration, climate change, attacks on religious minorities, and destruction of religious sites and artifacts, has lent urgency to the question of the relationship between religion and art. Learning to understand, analyse, and communicate material and immaterial religious heritage has important economic, political, educational, and cultural implications.

The many and sometimes contradictory ways in which images, objects, spaces, and places are used in religion constitute a guiding focus of the minor. Attention to the ways in which people use art and spaces helps us to raise questions about a too-easy distinction between the religious and the secular. At the same time it helps us to identify similar (or contrasting) functions of art across religious traditions. In this way the minor will equip you to approach the study of religion and art in religious traditions and contexts well beyond the scope of the course itself. It will also prepare you to work in and contribute to the broader field of heritage, and is the perfect start for enrolment in the MA programme in Heritage and Religion.

Studieschema

Inschrijven

Behalve voor de minor dienen studenten zich in Progress ook in te schrijven voor de keuzemodulen van hun keuze.

Studenten van RCS kunnen er voor kiezen om zich in te schrijven voor Spirituality and Secular Religion in Blok 1A in combinatie met Koranisch Arabisch 1 of een universitair minorvak bij een andere faculteit.

Geïnteresseerden van buiten de RUG kunnen contact opnemen met de minorcoördinator voor inschrijving.

Programma opties

30 ECTS of 15 ECTS

Meer informatie en contact

Neem een kijkje op de RUG-minorenpagina voor meer informatie over voorlichtingsevenementen, de intekenprocedure en veelgestelde vragen.

Of neem contact op met dr. Andrew Irving, coördinator van de minor Art and Religion.

Kwaliteitszorg

A. ‘Thuisbasis’ van de minor Art and Religion is de bacheloropleiding Religiewetenschappen.
B. De minor valt onder de opleidingscommissie van de bachelors Theologie en Religiewetenschappen.
C. De minor valt onder de OER van de bachelor Religiewetenschappen.
D. De minor valt onder de examencommissie van de Faculteit Religie, Cultuur en Maatschappij.