Master of Arts - Religious Studies - Specialization in Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Major Research Paper or Project)

The Department of Classics and Religious Studies offers programs of study leading to the degrees of Master of Arts (MA) in Religious Studies and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Religious Studies.

The Department of Classics and Religious Studies (sector: Religious Studies) focuses on the study of the religious phenomenon through teaching and research in the same manner and on the same level as any other category of facts accessible to human experience and observation.

The disciplines that play a role in the study of religions are primarily of a historical, sociological, psychological and anthropological nature. Such a study must take into account the plurality of religious traditions and expressions in society and examine the relationships among them.

Research on the meaning of religious phenomena is accomplished through analysis and comparison of the various means of religious expression, both in the past and present. No tradition is considered normative.

The programs focus on religions in Canada, including Amerindian and Inuit traditions, and on religions in the comparative cultural context as well as religions in the Graeco-Roman World. The comparative cultural approach provides an opportunity to explore religious phenomena across different religious traditions expressly within their specific cultural contexts. The program favours the methods of anthropology, history, psychology and sociology.

The collaborative master’s in Medieval and Renaissance Studies (MDR) has two goals: • To offer at the graduate level a multi-disciplinary education in Medieval and Renaissance Studies; • To teach students the theoretical approaches and methods of research specific to the study of the period.

Since the 16th century, study of the middle ages implies studying a ‘middle’, or intermediary period, seen as standing between two great civilizations: Roman antiquity and the modern western world. This definition has had a major impact on scholarship, crystallizing a periodization that has now become traditional in most of the humanities.