Current course offerings

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Course description

This course explores modern psychological theories about belief and unbelief in western religious traditions. Starting in the nineteenth century and continuing to the present day, it examines the development of psychogenic accounts of the origins and reasons for or against belief in God, gods, ghosts and the afterlife. Focussed around texts by William James, Sigmund Freud, Rudolph Otto, Martin Buber, Carl Jung, D. W. Winnicott, Ana-Maria Rizzuto, Julia Kristeva and others, this course introduces students to the intellectual history of the psychology of religion and raises questions about the implications of the West's longstanding efforts to understand religion through the secular paradigm of modern psychology.

Archived offerings