Doctoral Courses in Theology and Religious Studies: New Forms for Examination and Nordic and Interdisciplinary Co-operation

Traditionally, doctoral studies at the Theological faculty are conducted individually, at least when it comes to tutoring, literature courses and examination. Apart from this, regular seminars are held for discussing papers and preliminary chapters. The particular structure of the Theological faculty means specific difficulties. The faculty includes eleven disciplines, all dependent on their specific traditions and methodological trends. Within each of these disciplines, there are a relatively small number of doctoral students, which means that actual courses cannot realistically be held regularly within the separate disciplines, most of which will also become even smaller when the effects of the new national regulations become more obvious. The project consists in developing a structure including courses as an integrated part of the doctoral studies at the Theological Faculty, new and more pedagogical forms for examination, and forms for co-operation and exchange with other disciplines at the Faculty of Arts as well as with other theological faculties in Sweden and the other Nordic countries. The project is planned to cover a period of three years, and shall include testing and evaluating alternative forms for seminars, courses and examination. The focus of the project lies on the development of forms for doctoral courses, which could be examined through writing and discussing papers, reviews and articles. Actual doctoral courses have not been offered earlier on a regular basis, and the doctoral students have generally taken their literature courses (covering a period of 1½ year) individually. Thus, most of the teachers do not have any experience of developing doctoral courses or of conducting tutoring in the form of such courses. The project is therefore not aiming at developing courses within an already existing structure, but at acquiring a competence for performing doctoral education in this way, and at developing a partly new structure. For this purpose, experience from other faculties must be obtained. The project thus has as one of its purpose to acquire and evaluate experience from theological faculties in other countries, such as the Netherlands and the United States. The project will include two journeys for such consultation. Basically, the project involves three interrelated aspects, all included in the work on developing forms for doctoral courses: a) integration of examination and learning in a way corresponding to the students' writing of their theses; b) presentation and discussion of papers, reviews and preliminary articles; c) internationalisation of the doctoral program. During the project's first year, four interdisciplinary groups of students and teachers have responsibility for the further development of one course each, which might be regularly given as doctoral courses at the faculty and/or in co-operation with other faculties and universities. The courses should be at various levels and relevant for different groups of doctoral students. The four courses will then be given for the first time during the second year of the project, two during that year's spring term and the other two during the autumn, and evaluated by teachers and students together. Two models will be tested to start with: 1. Two thematic and interdisciplinary courses, in co-operation between two or more disciplines at the faculty. 2. Two courses within one discipline each, in co-operation with other faculties and/or universities. Parallel to the internal work with developing and evaluating courses, those responsible for the project will, during the first year of the project, consult theological faculties and departments of religious studies at Berkeley, with long experience of doctoral education in the form of regular courses. In the second year, a visit to Utrecht, Netherlands, will have the same purpose. This consultation will focus on questions regarding scholarly and pedagogical conditions specific for the fields of theology and religious studies. Such conditions may involve, among other things, methodological, theoretical and other prerequisites for interdisciplinary, thematic courses as well as specific courses within these particular fields of study, as well as with disciplines outside the fields of theology or religious studies. The results of this consultation will be part of the basis for the development of a course structure, and of specific courses, within the Theological faculty. In several of the faculty's disciplines, it may be relevant to co-ordinate courses with other Nordic theological faculties. During the first year of the project, possible forms for such co-operation as well as possible means of funding joint Nordic arrangements on a regular basis will be investigated. More generally, the doctoral program should acquire a higher degree of international connection, and students get acquainted with scholarly milieus in other countries. Possibilities for flexible student exchange between universities and colleges in primarily the Nordic countries should therefore also be investigated, with the aim of developing routines for an exchange system on the level of supervisors, which would mean that doctoral students in the same discipline at different Nordic universities could choose to spend part of their studies at another Nordic university. Such possibilities will be examined in connection with the development of forms for co-operation regarding doctoral courses. The conclusions reached through the project will be of three kinds. First, the faculty will reach organisational, economical and other conclusions from the process of building up a new structure and competence within the faculty's doctoral program. Secondly, teachers and students will acquire pedagogical, qualitative and other conclusions from the courses that have been tested within the project. Thirdly, conclusions from the international consultations and from the work on developing forms for international co-operation will be reached in dialogue with the international and Nordic contacts. The results and conclusions will be summarised in English, for reviews and comments from the international contacts consulted in the project. Thereafter, the summary together with comments from the external reviewers will be discussed within the Theological faculty as a background for the continued development of doctoral courses and for further conclusions concerning the project. Finally, the report shall be printed in the form of a final report, where also general conclusions about how they might be applied in other areas will be discussed. The final report shall be available in printing and sent to the Council for Higher Education and to Swedish universities with undergraduate and doctoral programs in theology and religious studies

Människor och makter: En introduktion till religionsvetenskap

Recension av: Människor och makter: En introduktion till religionsvetenskap. 2008. Red. Jonas Svensson och Stefan Arvidsson. Halmstad: Högskolan i Halmstad. 91 sidor. urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-1399

Den teologiske andre

Religious Studies has a history of distancing itself from theology with the claim of being descriptive and theologically neutral. University theology, with reference here to Mårten Björk's recent article, on its part dis­tances itself against confessional theology. A norm-critical reading of these two claims makes clear that they are not substantiated. With Ingemar Hedenius as a starting point, it becomes clear that he assumes a particular view of "faith" as not entailing any extra type of knowledge, while this would be contested by theologians such as Augustine and Duns Scotus. What an awareness of the theological debates about faith and reason shows is that theological claims of the relationship between nature and supernature precedes the choice of method in Religious Studies and confessionally informed theology of ministry is used to defend a "two-room" solution between confessional and university theology

Islamisk teologi och filosofi vid Uppsala universitet

This article describes the development that led to the appointment of a professor in Islamic Theology and Philosophy at the Faculty of Theology, Uppsala University, and, at a later stage, to a renewed understanding of Systematic Theology, with two orientations: (1) Worldview Studies and Christian Theology and (2) Islamic Theology. The point of departure is earlier theoretical and methodological considerations by the authors concerning Islamic theology in a contemporary Nordic university setting. Mikael Stenmark was later to become the Dean of the Faculty of Theology, between 2008 and 2014, and during that period new courses in Islamic Theology and Philosophy were designed and Professor Mohammad Fazlhashemi was hired to lead the development of Islamic Theology and Philosophy. This is described in the first section of the article. In the following sections, the academic discipline in which Islamic Theology later was to be integrated, Systematic Theology, is described historically and theoretically in view of the broader work with rethinking the disciplinary structure of the Faculty of Theology during the period when Mattias Martinson was Dean, between 2014 and 2020. The article concludes with a reflection on the current situation and an outlook towards the challenges that a commitment to Islamic Theology entails at a Northern European state university

Praktisk teologi i ny skepnad

The article takes its starting point in the return of Practical Theology as a specialization at the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University in 2020, half a century after the discipline was replaced by ecclesiology. The question that the author wishes to answer is how the return may be interpreted. The return of Practical Theology has to do with a reform of both study programmes and organization of research at the faculty, resulting in a new research subject called Empirical-Practical Studies of Religion and Theology. Practical Theology is one of two specializations within the new subject area, the other being Sociology of Religion. Both specializations are possible to study with a profile in Didactics of Religion. The empirical turn in theology and humanities at large is a major driving force behind the creation of the new research subject. Lived religion and lived theology are increasingly at the forefront of studies in Sociology of Religion as well as in Ecclesiology, two former research subjects that now are merged. What unites the previously separate disciplines is a common interest in theories and methods for studying practices in a new multireligious Swedish context, where traditional confessional and religious boundaries are increasingly blurred. The special contribution of Practical Theology is the theological perspective, which consciously brings issues related to belief in God into the discussion

Inledning

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