Università Roma Tre

The course consists of 2 modules of 6 CFU (= 12 CFU), the first by Prof. Carla Noce (= Storia del cristianesimo antico LM), the second by Dr. Matteo Mennini().
I Module (Carla Noce)
Gomp: 20702466 e 20702465-1
Course title 2020-2021: Purity and pollution, guilt and sin, contamination and contagion in Ancient Christianity

Christians inherit from the Jewish world a corpus of Scriptures that they reinterpret in the light of Jesus' message: among them, a prescriptive book like Leviticus which, through a sophisticated classification system, regulates rites and behaviors. The detailed description of the sources of pollution (unclean animals, corpses of animals, blood, diseases such as leprosy, illicit sexual intercourse, etc.) and the rites necessary to restore the state of purity, acquires, in Christian reading, new and multiple meanings, expressions of different Christianities. These interpretations are rooted in specific conceptions of the relationships that must exist between God, the world and man and are often able to provide the faithful with answers to the questions raised by personal misfortune, natural disasters, illnesses; furthermore, they contribute to determine an alternative religious system to Judaism and the Greco-Roman religious world.
The course aims to focus attention on some texts - chosen as emblematic of different conceptions and practices - and to reconstruct their cultural assumptions through an appropriate historical contextualization.

Bibliography:
Attending students
Bibliographic material will be indicated and provided during the course.

Non-attending students
P. Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity, Columbia University Press, 2008
J. Le Goff, Une Histoire du corps au Moyen-Age, Liana Lévi, Paris 2003.

Poverty, mission and development cooperation in contemporary Christianity

Since the post–World War II, the Christian churches have begun to consider the "social question" as a global question, as a result of the decolonization, of a new theological regard of poverty and of the international climate of the Cold War. Issues such as poverty, work, peace and development have gradually become part of the public discourse of the churches with an impact on the traditional exercise of charity: from paternalistic welfarism to the NGOs came out of associations and religious institutes, this evolution is a trace of a dynamic and conflictual confrontation with the affirmation of civil rights in liberal societies and with the secularization. Through the study of the historical documents, reconstructing the main debates in Christian churches, the course will deal in particular with the following topics: the relationship between missions, decolonization and Third-Worldism; the "church of the poor" and the Second Vatican Council; peace and development of peoples.

1. Dossier of historical documents proposed by the professor

2. Two books to be chosen from following:

a. MASSIMO DE GIUSEPPE, L’altra America: i cattolici italiani e l’America latina. Da Medellín a Francesco, Morcelliana, Brescia 2017

b. MATTEO MENNINI, La Chiesa dei poveri. Dal Vaticano II a papa Francesco, Guerini e Associati, Milano 2017.

c. MAURO FORNO, La cultura degli altri. Il mondo delle missioni e la decolonizzazione, Carocci, Roma 2017.

Attending students will be provided with other indications during the lessons
Non-attending students are invited to agree on the program with the teacher. It is recommended to those who have never supported an examination on the modern history of Christianity to consult an handbook, for example:

- Storia del Cristianesimo, a cura di GIOVANNI FILORAMO e DANIELE MENOZZI, L’età contemporanea, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1995.

- Storia del Cristianesimo, dir. EMANUELA PRINZIVALLI, IV. L'età contemporanea (secc. XIX-XXI), a cura di GIOVANNI VIAN, Roma, Carocci, 2015 (Frecce, 195).

- ROBERTO RUSCONI, Storia del Cristianesimo e delle Chiese dalle origini ai giorni nostri, Brescia, Morcelliana, 2019, pp. 291-406.

- or another in another language.