Study Programme

Themes of Greek Literature (10 ECTS)

[Instructor: Susana Marques Pereira | Cláudia Cravo]

Through the reading and analysis of texts of classical antiquity, this subject proposes a reflection on the role of literature as a means of representation and transmission of behaviours and social values.

Themes of Latin Literature (10 ECTS)

[Instructor: Paulo Sérgio Ferreira]

This seminar seeks to familiarise students with the themes of time and space from a philosophical and literary perspective. Both of these subthemes are further explored. Time, with its linear or cyclical character, as something dependent or independent of human understanding, is closely associated with the myth of ages, the phases of human life, Fortune and Fatum, and astrologers and sorceresses. Space, often loaded with symbolism, is often given propagandistic or moralising purposes. It is the object of important literary ekphrasis, such as loci amoeni and loci horridi, and it can generate war or reveal human vices. Latin texts will be made available alongside their Portuguese translation, properly contextualised according to the authors’ ideas and style.

Study and Edition of Greek and Latin Texts (10 ECTS)*

[Instructors: Frederico Lourenço]

This course aims to provide students with basic knowledge in Greek and Latin manuscripts, preparing them for the critical editing of texts and authors from Classical Antiquity and Neo-Latin literary production. Students will acquire the science behind comparing manuscripts and developing a critical apparatus. By the end of the course, they should be able to paleographically identify the period (and assess the contribution to a critical edition) of various Greek and Latin manuscripts.

Classical Historiography (10 ECTS)*

[Instructors: José Luís Brandão, FCT Tenure Lecturer]

This seminar covers the origins and development of Graeco-Roman historiographical discourse, including:

1. Origin and development of Greek historiography
1.1 Introduction: what is historiography: conceptual clarification. The writing of history from antiquity to the present: main currents, problems, and protagonists.
1.2 Hecataeus of Miletus and the origins of historiographical thought and discourse in the Greek world.
1.3 Herodotus: life and work. Methodological reflections. The meaning of history and the historian’s role as master of truth.
1.4 Thucydides's "History of the Peloponnesian War": a political and methodological historiography. Confrontation with Herodotus.
1.5 Metahistorical reflection on other Greek-speaking authors: Xenophon, Ephorus of Scythia, Aristotle, and Plutarch.

2. The development of Roman historiography
2.1 From the pontifical annals to republican historiography in Greek and Latin.
2.2 Historiography at the end of the Republic. Retrojection and moralising discourse.
2.3 The emergence of biography and autobiography: comentarii de vita sua, res gestae.
2.4 Writing the history of the empire: imperial historiography and biography of emperors and other major figures.

*Optional Courses [Optional course units are offered annually, depending on the availability of the Organic Unit]

Classical Tradition (10 ECTS)

Religious Literature and Cultural Pluralism

I. KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS ACROSS RELIGIOUS, POLITICAL, AND CULTURAL COMMUNITIES [RED GLOBAL COURSE TITLE]

Saints and Sinners: Revolutions in Hagiography, narrative, and what it means to be human

--

[Instructors: Carlota Miranda Urbano | FCT Tenure Lecturer]

Topics:

• Confrontation between Graeco-Latin antiquity texts and their reception, aimed at a critical reflection on the presence and relevance of classical culture to Western culture. Issues such as the vitality and plasticity of myth, the intercultural crossings based on the classical tradition, and the modern expression of ancient themes, namely continuity and rupture will be explored;
• Important literary traditions or genres, traceable to classical literature. This includes religious literature, namely Christian hagiography, which dealt with cultural dialogue and clashes over the centuries;
• Different perspectives on hagiography, depending on a multiplicity of interests and contexts. The active reception of hagiography through cultural performances inspired by these works throughout the ages, in different geographical and cultural settings;
• Traces of political, geographical, ethnic, and religious tensions in religious literature, and ways to overcome them.

Learning Outcomes: After successfully completing this course, students will be able to:

• Analyse the presence of classical culture in various forms within Western culture throughout the centuries;
• Understand new themes and genres that emerged from classical subjects and literary genres, which were given continuity by later Latin and vernacular authors;
• Identify literary codes of Middle Ages and Renaissance authors;
• Appreciate the literary pragmatics and aesthetics of those works and the literary production during those periods, especially within their religious context.

Greek and Latin Cultures (10 ECTS)

Religious Dialogue and its Limits in Late Antiquity

II. THE CONSTRUCTION OF RELIGIOUS IDENTITIES IN EUROPE [RED GLOBAL COURSE TITLE]

Interreligious Dialogue and its limits in Late Antiquity and the Medieval world (UC)

--

[Instructor: Paula Barata Dias]

Topics:

• The complexity of the religious phenomenon in Late Antiquity, its connection with social, political, economic, and cultural changes in a turbulent world;
• Overlapping religious languages, their inter-influences, and their tensions, particularly between polytheism and monotheism;
• New leadership and protagonists associated with the transition from religious dominance (emperors, bishops, monastic leaders, female aristocracy);
• The intense religious communication system in Late Antiquity and the High Medieval World, in its capacity to create new spiritual values and new models for human excellence through controversies and argumentative texts.

Learning Outcomes: After successfully completing this course, students will be able to:

• Locate the institutional and cultural historic episodes that led to the transformation of the polytheistic religious model into the monotheistic one;
• Understand, through reading and analysing texts of religious controversy literature – Apologetics and Invective – rhetorical tools and their pragmatic efficacy;
• Identify, in ecclesiastical and political normative and legal texts, the negotiation and struggle for unanimity;
• Recognise the religious discourses that, with the construction of unanimity, have been displaced to the periphery of the religious communication system.

Renaissance Humanism (10 ECTS)

The Jesuits and Religious Controversies of the 16th and 17th century

III. GROWTH AND EXPANSION OF RELIGIOUS IDENTITIES [RED GLOBAL COURSE TITLE]

The Jesuits and Religious Controversies across Cultures in a Globalising World

--

[Instructors: Margarida Miranda, Carlota Miranda Urbano]

Topics:

• Jesuit colleges and the teaching of humanism in Europe and in the New World: the pursuit of excellence in teaching and learning;
• The configuration of the Jesuits' intellectual framework and the creation of the first global school network. The unity and diversity of knowledge: the Ratio Studiorum; the place of the humanities, sciences, and natural philosophy in the Jesuit curriculum;
• Jesuits as protagonists of religious controversy in Europe, the Far East, India, or in Brazil. Jesuit rhetorical doctrine and action; literary production and religious controversy, the hallmark of modern Europe: theology, philosophy, oratory, poetry, theatre, and music as objects of religious controversy.

Learning Outcomes: After successfully completing this course, students will be able to:

• Take an opportunity undertake original research, developing new issues on the large Jesuit experience in dealing with different cultures and religions across the globe;
• See religious diversity not only as an academic issue but as a human achievement, valuing procedures and experiments of coexistence;
• Seek understanding across lines of difference, rather than just tolerance.
• Develop skills of dialogue, criticism, and self-criticism, bearing in mind the Jesuit experience across cultures. Armed with these skills, students may notice both common understandings and real differences between peoples and cultures;
• Respect and honour identities and commitments, instead of leaving them behind.

Follow-up Seminar (15 ECTS)
[Master’s Supervisor]

Dissertation | Internship + Report | Project (45 ECTS)