Comparative Religion and Social Anthropology - BA (Hons)

University of Manchester

Our BA Comparative Religion and Social Anthropology course explores how religion is inextricably bound up with ways of being human. Religion is here to stay, and there is a critical need to understand how and why it forms a central part of human cultures. You will explore themes such as ritual, myth, sacred space and iconography as critical features of human societies, both past and present. You will study topics such as Judaism, the problem of evil, the Bible, social theory, power, and ethnography. Your first year of study will cover research methods and key issues in Religion and Anthropology. You will go on to focus on issues related to religion as culture, such as the role played by gender, politics and narrative representation, as well as the developing relationship between anthropology and religion. In your final year, you will get the opportunity to focus further on specific themes and issues, including writing an independently researched dissertation on a topic of your own choice. This course produces graduates who have a clear capacity to analyse and understand the many complex roles played by religion in human societies. These are skills of high value in today's globalised world.