Cultures and Religions

The course - provides the student with knowledge and understanding of the methodological, critical-problematic and application aspects of the Discipline; proposes area and sectoral perspectives in which research projects relating to the Discipline are active or can be activated; shows the variability of the fields of interest within which disciplinary skills can be applied (descriptor 1); - develops the student's autonomous ability to relate what has been learned with other SSDs: historical, literary, artistic, cultural, economic, political, historical-religious, etc. (descriptor 2); - enables the student to use the knowledge acquired and the specific language learned in view of the so-called "transversal skills" (autonomy of judgment, communication skills, descriptors 3-5). In particular, the course intends to develop themes and problems related to the birth, development, diffusion, institutionalization, liturgical conformation, internal diversification, languages ​​of expression, of two religious phenomena that were capital in late antiquity and the Middle Ages in the West and Near East such as Gnosticism and Manichaeism, proposing the study and discussion of literary and documentary texts produced by these religious groups, of polemical texts written against them, and of historiographic texts about them