Center: 
Salamanca
Discipline(s): 
Anthropology
Religious Studies
Course code: 
AN/RL 371
Terms offered: 
Fall
Credits: 
3
Language of instruction: 
Spanish
Instructor: 
José Ramón Matito Fernández
Description: 

The objective of this course is to study religious and cultural pilgrimage as one of the most representative expressions of mankind’s spiritual traditions. Pilgrimage is ideal to understand the soul of a religion since it contains religious doctrine, ritual tradition, history and aesthetic expression of its original culture. This course covers three stages of this religious phenomenon, from the most general to the most specific aspects of pilgrimage: the anthropological and phenomenological basis of pilgrimage; the most important pilgrimages in universal religions worldwide and their meaning for these traditions (Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam); the most important Christian pilgrimages in Europe and, especially, the Camino de Santiago in Spain. We will analyze each example of pilgrimage as well as the history, culture and art connected to each religion.

Prerequisites: 

None

Attendance policy: 

Class attendance is compulsory. Each student will be allowed only two unexcused absences throughout the whole course. For each unexcused absence beyond this there will be a reduction in the final grade. Punctuality: Students who are late to class on a regular basis will also receive a reduction in their final grade.

Learning outcomes: 

Individual and group tasks, exams and a continuous evaluation will help the professor assess the depth and breadth of students’ acquired knowledge, their level of academic progress and the quality of their learning outcomes.

By the end of the course students will be able to:

  • Contextualize the phenomenon of pilgrimage within a specific religious tradition, culture and history of a people.
  • Establish the existing connections between the pilgrimages of each religious tradition: distinguish the universal common features of pilgrimage.
  • Critically assess the positive and negative elements of pilgrimage in its various dimensions (religious, cultural, political and economic).
  • Connect Christian pilgrimage to the development and evolution of political, economic and cultural ideas in Europe.
  • Demonstrate knowledge of the peculiarities of all the religious traditions studied through their corresponding pilgrimages.
  • Critically analyze the cultural meaning of the Camino de Santiago.
Method of presentation: 

Lectures, documentaries, readings, individual and group tasks, and student presentations on activities. Most class materials (presentations, texts, images, etc.) will be available for students on the IES Moodle platform (https://sala.elearning.iesabroad.org).

Course content will be specifically connected to one activity that IES Abroad Salamanca organizes: walking one of the routes of the Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James).

Some of the activities require a previous exercise of research using Internet resources. These research sources are always contrasted and examined by the professor who makes sure they fulfill the criteria of methodological rigor as well as content and interdisciplinary quality. This is why examples of websites are often given which can be used to elaborate some of the corresponding activities. In many cases, the Internet resources refer to documentary and bibliographical sources.

Required work and form of assessment: 

The final grade of the course will be the average of the following partial grades:

Final exam 30%
Mid-term exam  25%
Research paper 20%
Homework: written commentaries, summaries, internet research, etc. 15%
Class participation 10%
TOTAL 100%

-Final exam:

  • Written exam.
  • 35% of final grade.
  • Students must answer 3 essay questions.

-Mid-term exam:

  • Students must prepare and present a PowerPoint presentation.
  • 30% of final grade.
  • Students must write an essay on one of the topics studied in class. Topics must be approved by the instructor.
  • Characteristics of the essay:
    • 1. Students must analyze one aspect of a specific pilgrimage in any of the religious traditions studied in this course. For example: the rite of forgiveness (on Arafah day) in the Islamic Hajj.
    • 2. Once students have chosen and analyzed this specific aspect, they must prepare a presentation in PowerPoint (or other similar format) in order to present their analysis in class. Presentations must have 15 slides minimum and 30 slides maximum.
  • Both the essay and the class presentation will be assessed in this activity.
  •  

-Paper:

  • Written paper (8 pages minimum and 15 pages maximum).
  • 20% of final grade.
  • Two possible topics:

a. A reflection on a specific aspect of the route of the Camino de Santiago organized by IES Abroad Salamanca. The chosen aspect may be analyzed from the student’s personal experience during his/her participation in the activity, but always connecting this experience to a specific element of the religious pilgrimage.
b. The reading of a book on the Camino de Santiago. The book can be a novel, a biography or an essay.

-Class participation:

  • 15% of final grade: this includes class activities and homework assignments such as individual exercises, group tasks, summaries, text commentaries, reports, Internet research, etc. The professor will also value students’ positive and participatory attitude in class.
content: 
  1. ‘Homo viator’ and the path towards the sacred: pilgrimage as the expression of nature and human spirituality (Anthropology of Religion).
  2. Pilgrimage in Oriental religious traditions: Hinduism and Buddhism, Brahmanism and current Hinduism.
  3. Pilgrimage in Judaism and Islam.
  4. Pilgrimage boom in medieval Christian Europe.
  5. Main pilgrimage routes in Europe.
  6. Art, culture and economy connected to pilgrimage in Europe: religious tourism.
  7. Christian pilgrimage in Spain and the Camino de Santiago (Way of Saint James).

WEEK 1

WEEK 2

  • Session 3: PHENOMENOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS PILGRIMAGE
    General characteristics of pilgrimage in religious traditions.
    FRAGMENTS OF DOCUMENTARIES on the role of temples in the small pilgrimages in ancient civilizations.
    Assignments: Read a specialized article on the temples in the religions of ancient civilizations and write a critical essay about the article. The professor will provide students with various articles so that each student can choose one of them.
     
  • Session 4: THE ROLE AND THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGIOUS ART IN PILGRIMAGE
    PRESENTATION OF IMAGES that are representative for each religious tradition and their influence on pilgrimage. Class discussion.
    Assignments: Research and identify a temple where pilgrimages take place in one of the religious traditions studied in class. Describe its art (architecture, pictorial or sculptural ornamentation, objects of worship…). The following are examples of resources:
    www.sacred-destinations.com 
    www.catedraldesantiago.es 
    www.vatican.va 
    www.jasnagora.pl 
    Reading: S. Vijayanand, «Socio-economic impacts in pilgrimage tourism», in Zenith Vol. 2 (2012), 329-343.

WEEK 3

  • Session 5: TRADE ROUTES, EMPIRES AND PILGRIMAGE
    DEBATE ON READING: “Socio-economic impacts in pilgrimage tourism
    Assignments: Critical analysis of the main ideas of the article discussed in class.
     
  • Session 6: PILGRIMAGE IN BRAHMANICAL TRADITION
    Pilgrimage as an allegory of the inner spiritual journey.
    DOCUMENTARY: The Mahabharata.
    Assignments: View the documentary on the Hindu epic poem known as Ramayana. Analyze the religious and moral doctrine of Hinduism in this epic poem in 4 pages maximum. The documentary can be found on the following websites:
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApaYr8m7eyE  PART 1  
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdGElaS50Og&feature=related  PART 2

WEEK 4

  • Session 7: KUMBHA MELA
    Sacred places in Hinduism.
    DOCUMENTARY: Spirit of Moksha-Kumbh Mela.
    Assignments: Write a short essay (4 pages maximum) on the documentary viewed in class.

 

  • Session 8: PILGRIMAGE AS AN INNER JOURNEY
    The awakening of Siddhartha.
    Homework: Read the book by Hermann Hesse, Siddharta. Summarize the story of the book in 5 pages maximum. This summary will be submitted within two weeks maximum from this session.

WEEK 5

  • Session 9: FILM: LITTLE BUDDHA (BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI, 1993)
    Assignments: Prepare a small dossier with ideas and questions on this film to share them in the film forum in the next session.

 

  • Session 10: Film forum on the film Little Buddha.
    Assignments: Read and write a critical analysis of pages 377-395 of the work by the historian of religion Karen Armstrong: La gran transformación. El mundo en la época de Buda, Sócrates, Confucio y Jeremías (the professor will provide students with these pages in PDF format).

WEEK 6

  • Session 11: EXODUS. THE GREAT ALLEGORY OF PILGRIMAGE.
    Assignments: Read three chapters of the work by Claude Wiener, El libro del Éxodo (the professor will provide students with these pages in PDF format).

 

  • Session 12: Shalosh Regalim.
    DOCUMENTARY: The holy cities: Jerusalem, pilgrimage of faith.
    Assignments: Research one of the Shalosh Regalim. Explain this in writing in 3 pages maximum. Examples of websites that can be used for documenting this:
    www.serjudio.com 
    www.aish.com

WEEK 7

  • Session 13: PATH OF THE MESSENGER. MUHAMMAD AND THE MECCA.
    DOCUMENTARY: Empires of faith. Islam.
    Assignments: Read a chapter of the book by Hans Küng, El islam. Historia, presente, futuro (the professor will provide students with these pages in PDF format).
     
  • Session 14: THE HAJJ
    DOCUMENTARY: The Mecca inside.
    Assignments: Research the history of the Ka’ba in the city of the Mecca and summarize (5 pages maximum). Examples of websites where this information can be found, among many others:
    www.islam.about.com 
    www.al-islam.org  

WEEK 8

  • Session 15: Mid-term exam: STUDENT PRESENTATIONS IN POWER-POINT
    1st session for student presentations in PowerPoint on pilgrimages in the religions studied in class.

 

  • Session 16: Mid-term exam: STUDENT PRESENTATIONS IN POWER-POINT
    2nd session for student presentations in PowerPoint on pilgrimages in the religions studied in class.
    Assignments: Read and write a critical analysis and conclusions on two chapters of Medieval European Pilgrimage.

WEEK 9

  • Session 17: CHRISTIAN PILGRIMAGES IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE
    Assignments: Read and elaborate an opinion piece about three chapters of the work by Xosé Luis Barreiro Rivas, La fundación de Occidente. El Camino de Santiago en perspectiva política (the professor will provide students with these pages in PDF format).

 

WEEK 10

  • Session 19: HISTORY OF THE CAMINO DE SANTIAGO
    DOCUMENTARY: National Geographic: In the Camino de Santiago.
    Assignments: Group activity- Each group will research, summarize and present one of the 6 routes of the Camino de Santiago in the next session.

 

  • Session 20: THE SIX ROUTES OF THE CAMINO DE SANTIAGO
    Student presentation of the group activity.
    Assignments: Research on the testimony of North American people who have done the Camino de Santiago and write an essay about their story in 4 pages maximum. Students may use the following as examples:
    www.capetrib.com.au 
    www.csj.org.uk
    www.americanpilgrims.com
    Read and summarize one chapter of Los caminos de Santiago.

WEEK 11

  • Session 21: RUTA DE LA PLATA AND SALAMANCA
    FIELD STUDY ACTIVITY: Visit to places in the city connected to the Camino de Santiago.
    Activity: Students must graphically document the visit with cameras and photographs. Prepare a short PowerPoint presentation (8 slides maximum) with selected images, explaining their meaning in each slide.

 

  • Session 22: OTHER PILGRIMAGES IN THE IBERIAN PENINSULA: FATIMA, LOURDES AND ROCIO
    Assignments: Write a short essay (5 pages maximum) on one of the pilgrimages studied in this session. Explain which one the student would like to visit and why.
    Read and summarize one chapter of From Medieval Pilgrimage to Religious Tourism: The Social and Cultural Economics of Piety.

WEEK 12

  • Session 24: FINAL REVIEW: PILGRIMAGE IN EUROPEAN CHRISTIANITY
Required readings: 

GENERAL:
Armstrong, Karen. La gran transformación. Barcelona: 2007.

Swatos, William H., and Luigi Tomasso (eds.). From Medieval Pilgrimage to Religious Tourism: The Social and Cultural Economics of Piety. Westport CT: Praeger Publishers, 2002.

Vijayanand, S. Socio-economic impacts in pilgrimage tourism, in Zenith Vol. 2 (2012), 329-343.

BUDDHISM:
Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha.

JUDAISM:
Wiener, Claude. El libro del Éxodo. Estella: 2003.

ISLAM:
Küng, Hans. El islam. Historia, presente, futuro. Madrid: 2007.

CHRISTIANITY:
Webb, Diana. Medieval European Pilgrimage. Basingstoke / New York: 2002.

VV.AA. Los caminos de Santiago, 3 vols. Madrid: 2009. (Some chapters from any of the three volumes of this work will be required readings).

Barreiro Rivas, Xosé Luis. La fundación de Occidente. El Camino de Santiago en perspectiva política, Barcelona 2009.

Brief Biography of Instructor: 

José Ramón Matito earned his Ph.D. in Dogmatic Theology (2001), his B.A. in Dogmatic Theology (1996) and his B.A. in Philosophy and Ecclesiastical Studies (1994) at the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca. He worked as an Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Dogmatic Theology at the Maximilian-Ludwig Universität in Munich and he has participated as a lecturer in international conferences in Dortmund (Germany) and Upsala (Sweden). He is currently working as a professor in the School of Theology at the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, teaching “Religion and Christian Faith”, “Phenomenology and History of Religions” and “Psychology and Religion”. He also teaches doctorate courses on Dogmatic Theology and various courses in three different graduate programs: MA in Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue, MA in Church Cultural Heritage and MA in Communication, Religion and Culture. Also, José Ramón Matito was the Director of Courses on Spanish Language and Culture for Foreigners and the Director of International Relations, both at the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca. Some of his latest publications worth mentioning are “El futuro del hombre y el ser de Dios. La escatología trinitaria de Wolfhart Pannenberg” (2009) and “La mirada sobre el mundo como lugar de encuentro con Dios” (2011). He has also translated various articles and books on Theology from German into Spanish, such as “Convocados en el camino de la fe” by Joseph Ratzinger (2004) and “Pío XII” by Johanna Schmid (2005).