Module THEO41930: Anglican Theology in Context

Department: Theology and Religion

THEO41930: Anglican Theology in Context

Prerequisites

• None.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To deepen the skills of theological interpretation and analysis required for advanced research in the study of theology.
• To research and analyse key points of development in Anglican theological reflection, particularly enhancing students' capacity for interdisciplinary research projects across a wide range of theological categories as they find expression in texts, practices, and modes of awareness from many periods and cultures.

Content

• This module investigates the development of Anglican theology over almost 500 years, studying the formative theological, intellectual, cultural, social and political influences upon some key figures and currents in the Anglican theological tradition. In doing so, the module aims to give students an intensive introduction to a number of classical texts and to central doctrinal concerns and interests in the Anglican theological tradition. The variable focus of the module from year to year includes such figures and themes as Latimer and the English Reformers, Perkins and the Puritan Divines, Hooker and the Caroline Divines, the Cambridge and Oxford Platonists, the Latitudinarians, the Evangelicals, Newman and the Tractarians, Charles Gore and the Liberal Catholics, Charles Raven and the Liberals, and John Milbank and the Radical Orthodox.

Learning Outcomes

• A detailed and systematic understanding of the complex development of Anglican theology, its formative influences, conversation partners, and its interaction with wider cultural, intellectual and political developments.

• An ability to analyse religious texts and practices with intellectual rigour and appropriate historical depth. A capacity to perceive and understand the relationship between key theological texts, figures and movements, their wider societal context and their interrelatedness over time.

• Skills in the analysis of the interaction between theory and practice in a wide range of disciplinary expressions. An ability to read sophisticated and multivalent texts with intellectual nuance. Research, presentation, and writing skills. A capacity to discern the deep range of meanings suggested in metaphorical or imaginative language, and the ability to apply this discernment when investigating both logical arguments and non-discursive discourse.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Seminars enhance subject-specific knowledge and understanding both through preparation and through interaction with students and staff, promoting awareness of different viewpoints and approaches, as well as affording developmental opportunities for skills in theological reflection, critical research, and oral presentation.
• Formative essays develop subject-specific knowledge and understanding, along with student skills in the acquisition of information through reading and research, and in the structured presentation of information in written form.
• Summative essays assess subject-specific knowledge and understanding, along with student skills in research, analysis, and argumentation, including the written presentation of information in the written form of an argument for a field-advancing thesis.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Preparation for seminars and one 5000 word essay

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University