Religious History

Module code: HS2232

Why have states been so concerned with the control and regulation of religion? How has religious persecution been justified? How has the secular state been theorised, and what happens in practice?

This module considers Religious History as a way of analysing the past, using the contexts of Bolshevik Russia and a second case study to explore exciting developments in the field. You’ll consider how changing approaches to religion and belief have shaped the way historians understand and interpret historical events.

Religious History has undergone its own revolution in recent decades. Exciting new avenues of research have opened up since 1991, when the collapse of the Soviet Union allowed historians from both east and west to look afresh at religion, free from the ideological constraints of the Cold War. You’ll be exploring this changing historiography, and adding your own theories to emerging research.