Religious Studies

Program Overview

Liverpool Hope's Religious Studies program explores the significance of religion in contemporary society, examining diverse traditions such as Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Through a balance of textual analysis and lived religion, the program equips students to engage with pressing questions of faith and life, preparing them for careers in education, politics, and social work. The program is available only as a Combined Honours degree, allowing students to combine Religious Studies with another subject of their choice.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

Religious Studies at Liverpool Hope explores the practice and significance of religion in contemporary society

through the study of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, African religious traditions, and Indic traditions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. The program balances the study of religious texts and lived religion in the contemporary world.

The program examines profound questions of faith and life

in intellectually challenging, illuminating, and engaging ways. By drawing out the complex issues that surround religious belief and expression, the degree equips students to engage with the pressing questions of our time and to play their part in promoting religious and social harmony.

Outline:

Year One:

• Introduction to the Study of Religion: Covers key theories, ideas, and themes, focusing on concepts like sacred texts, myth, ritual, sacred objects, and examines insider/outsider debates, religion and identity, and key theorists in the field.
• African Traditional Religion: Introduces students to African traditional religions, exploring ritual behavior, myths, songs, dance, and the creation of religious artifacts to express people's worldviews and communities.
• Introduction to Judaism: Explores Judaism as a religion, ethnicity, and culture, examining its authoritative writings (Hebrew Bible, Mishnah, Talmud), beliefs, calendar, rituals, feasts, Messianism, gender, Zionism, and the State of Israel.
• Introduction to Hinduism: Guides students through Hinduism's rich ideas, texts, and images, discussing concepts like Brahman, Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Shaktism, Dharma, society, Caste, Mimamsa, Vedanta, and contemporary Hindu revitalization in India.
• Religion and Violence in Liverpool: Focuses on Liverpool's violent religious past, covering the slave trade, religious arguments around slavery, the impact of Irish emigration on the city's religious landscape, and the roots of the 1909 sectarian riots.
Features a guided walk through Liverpool's historic center focusing on traces of the slave trade.

Year Two:

• Religious Ethics and Spirituality: Examines ethical issues and theories in Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, and secular traditions, exploring the relationship between ethics and spirituality.
Discusses specific case studies and controversial topics like sacrifice, sexuality and gender, the holocaust, jihad and radicalization, environmental ethics, forgiveness, and the problem of evil.
• Christianity: Studies Christianity from a global perspective, examining diverse ritual practices, behaviors, beliefs, and customs.
Engages with film representations of Jesus, modern popular literature, and music inspired by Christian thought. Discusses agreement and divergence across traditions on topics like sex, gender, abortion, feminism, and war stances.
• Buddhism: Offers an introduction to Buddhism, allowing students to delve into specific areas with depth.
Begins with the life and work of Siddhartha Gautama, and then explores key elements of Buddhism, including the Four Noble Truths, the meaning of no-self, liberation, the Buddhist schisms and resulting schools (Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana), emptiness, suchness, and concludes with a study of Zen Buddhism.
• Islamic law and society: Examines Islamic law's engagement with politics, gender, and its application within Western civil legal systems.
Explores differences between Shi’ism and Sunnism and their reflection in modern Iran. The course considers how Islamic law adapts to various societal contexts.
• Second-year Tutorials: Focus on critical analysis of selected chapters from the Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies.

Year Three:

• Islamic political thought: Reads and interprets primary sources related to the main genres of writings on political theory in Islam: Legal, literary, and philosophical.
Explores how these classical texts inform or shape the rise of contemporary political Islam.
• Judaism in the Shadow of the Shoah (Holocaust): Examines responses of Jewish thinkers, artists, and writers to the Holocaust, considering Holocaust Theology, the revival of interest in Jewish mysticism (kabbalah), and how these trends interact as they seek meaning amidst the Shoah.
• Islamic Sufism (mysticism): Explores Sufism as an essential part of Islamic thought, rejecting assumptions that Sufism is foreign to Semitic religious sensibility.
Examines Ghazali's role in synthesizing Sufi ideas and other sources of Islamic knowledge to provide a broad definition of Islamic Orthodoxy.
• Religion, Conflict, and Reconciliation: Critically evaluates key points of conflict worldwide and the roles of religions in cultivating both tensions and resolutions.
Examines the complex interaction of religion and violence and how religious engagement can contribute to societal coherence and peacemaking in conflict-prone environments.
• Independent research project: Allows students to pursue a theme related to their studies through a substantial research project under the guidance of a supervisor.

Assessment:

• Various assessments are conducted throughout the three years of study, including written exams, essays, case studies, and portfolios.
• Depending on choices made in year three, assessments may also include textual analysis, fieldwork reports, and literature reviews.
• Students receive feedback through the University's Virtual Online Learning Environment (Moodle) and in discussions with their tutors.

Teaching:

• Teaching is structured into lectures, smaller seminars, and tutorials with individual attention.
• One-to-one meetings with tutors are offered each week.
• In the first year, expect approximately 6 teaching hours each week, reducing to approximately 5 teaching hours per week in years two and three.
• Students are expected to spend additional hours studying independently and in groups for assessments.
• The program boasts highly-qualified academics with PhDs who are both active researchers and committed teachers.
• The Department invests heavily in learning resources, with combined holdings in Theology and Religion exceeding 100,000 volumes.

Careers:

• Religious Studies equips graduates to enter various careers, including religious education teachers at the primary or secondary levels through the Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) offered at Liverpool Hope University.
• The program's focus on the interaction of religions in the global arena, along with its complex social and political implications, prepares students for careers in politics, media, international relations, and social work.
• Many graduates also pursue further studies, including the Religious Education Masters program at Liverpool Hope.
• The Service and Leadership Award (SALA) offered as an extra-curricular program enhances the degree by developing service-based experiences, leadership potential, and career skills in a changing world.
• The Study Abroad program allows students to spend a semester or a year at one of the university's partner institutions.

Other:

• The program is available only as a Combined Honours degree with the following subjects:
• Computer Science
• Creative Writing
• Education
• English Language
• International Relations
• Philosophy & Ethics
• Politics
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Sport & Physical Education
• Theology

• The tuition fees for the 2024/25 academic year are £9,250 for full-time undergraduate courses.
• If you are a student from the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands, your tuition fees will also be £9,250.
• The University reserves the right to increase Home and EU Undergraduate and PGCE tuition fees in line with any inflationary or other increase authorised by the Secretary of State for future years of study.
• You will also need to consider the cost of your accommodation each year whilst you study at university.