HIST 647 Religious Interpretation and Cultural Criticism in Modern Europe
This course examines the links between biblical criticism, challenging interpretations of Christianity, and political and cultural criticism. We examine why leading political analysts and cultural critics felt compelled to offer interpretations of the Bible and its significance, and why religious thinkers offered new interpretations of the meaning of Christianity (and its links to or distance from Judaism) in light of changing historical understandings. The focus is on the nineteenth century, but to put it in historical context, we will first look at how these issues were addressed by major thinkers from Hobbes through Kant. We then focus on comparing the analyses of Christianity and its relationship to modern culture in the work of John Henry Newman, Matthew Arnold and Friedrich Nietzsche.