Animal sacrifice and its critics between past and present

Uncover the roots and question the rituals with a deep dive into animal sacrifice across time and religions

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CIVIS focus area
Society, culture, heritage
Open to
  • Bachelor's
  • Master's
  • PhD candidates/ students
  • PhD candidates/ students
Field of studies
  • Social Science and humanities
Type
  • Blended Intensive Programmes (BIP)
Course dates
3 March 2025 - 4 July 2025

The course will explore and analyze the historical and contemporary criticisms of animal sacrifice across various religious and cultural contexts. It will focus on the persistence, opposition, and reinterpretation of sacrifice practices from antiquity to the present day, covering religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Candomblé.

During the course, experts from different disciplines, including Indology, Classics, Archaeology, History of Religions, Anthropology, and Sociology, will lead discussions on key themes:

- The concept of sacrifice as a “survival” in academic and non-academic discourses.

- Theological critiques of sacrifice, such as the juxtaposition of Christ's sacrifice versus animal sacrifice.

- Secular critiques centered on violence, bloodshed, and meat consumption.

- The notions of impurity and taboo in sacrifice, as well as its “spiritualization” through non-bloody offerings.

- The role of sacrifice in spiritual practices like healing, divination, and exorcism.

- Strategies to preserve animal sacrifice through reinterpretation or resemantization.

- Secular critiques focusing on vegetarianism, health, and animal rights.

- The contestation of sacrifice in political narratives and legal frameworks, including European regulations on animal protection during killing.

This interdisciplinary course will be tailored for undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students in fields such as history, anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies. The course will feature a mix of virtual and physical teaching, facilitated by faculty from participating universities and external specialists. Topics will range from Armenian rituals to the politics of ritual vegetarianism in ancient Greece, India, and modern South Asia, the contested practices of Christian and Muslim sacrifices in the Balkans, and ritual innovations in Candomblé’s perspectives on animals.

Main topics addressed

The program provides to the students knowledge related to the following fields:

  • Animal Sacrifice
  • Vegetarianism
  • Cultural and Religious Prohibition
  • Sacrificial Violence
  • Cultural Heritage Rights
  • Animal Rights Advocacy
  • Vernacular practice, aesthetics and counter-propagand

Learning outcomes

  • Students will develop a critical understanding of animal sacrifice across various religious traditions, spanning from antiquity to the present day.
  • Students will gain theoretical insights that will enable them to analyze this religious ritual from comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives, employing research methodologies from history, anthropology, and sociology. This approach will help them identify both similarities and differences in the criticisms of sacrificial practices across different historical periods.
  • Additionally, students will explore the relevance of traditional practices in contemporary secularized societies and critically evaluate the traditional categories used to describe religious phenomena.
  • Moreover, students will be equipped to act as advisors, contributing to the development of policies on religious and secular sacrifices to prevent social tensions that arise when vernacular cultures are overlooked.
Dates:  3 March 2025 - 4 July 2025  Total workload: 150 hours
Format: Blended ECTS: 6*
Location: Rome, Italy Language: English (B2)
Contact: marianna.ferrara@uniroma1.it  

*Recognition of ECTS depends on your home university.

Physical mobility

The physical mobility part will be running from 30 June 2025 to 4 July 2025 and will be held in Rome, Italy, hosted by the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy at Sapienza Università di Roma. Venue: Sapienza Campus, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5.

During this week, students and teachers will be invited to explore key aspects of sacrifice across different cultures. The program includes visits to significant museums and cultural sites in Rome, such as the Museum of Civilizations and the Giuseppe Tucci Museum of Oriental Art, featuring exhibits related to the themes discussed in the virtual sessions.

Students will present their research projects on-site, providing insights based on specific works and artifacts pertinent to their studies.

Schedule of the physical part

30 June 2025

  • Thematic itinerary 1: “The notion of sacrifice in ancient world”.

- Morning: Welcome meeting and formation of groups for in-person activities.

- Afternoon: Visit to the archaeological site of Ostia Antica with an expert guide.

1 July 2025

  • Thematic Itinerary 2: “Voices of Dissent: Critiques of Sacrifice in Late Antiquity”.

- Morning: Lecture and group work.

- Afternoon: Visit to the Ara Pacis and other cultural sites.

2 July 2025

  • Thematic Itinerary 3: “Eastern philosophies against Sacrifice: Buddhism and Jainism”.

- Morning/Afternoon: Lecture at the Museum and Exploration of the Giuseppe Tucci Museum of Oriental Art, highlighting Buddhist critiques of Vedic animal sacrifices in ancient India, featuring artifacts and texts that promote non-violence.

3 July 2025

  • Thematic itinerary 4: “Challenges in Classifying Rituals as Sacrifices”.

- Morning: Lecture.

- Afternoon: Visit to the Museo delle Civiltà with an expert guide.

4 July 2025

  • Thematic itinerary 5: Final discussion of the group works.

- Morning: presentation of the group works.

- Afternoon: visit to Rome.

Virtual part

The virtual part will be running from 3 March 2025 to 21 April 2025.

Moreover, the virtual component will take place over seven Mondays, each session lasting approximately three hours. The first part of each session will feature a lecture by two professors from one of the participating universities and other invited scholars, focusing on a specific aspect of sacrifice across different cultures.

Schedule of the virtual part

  • Monday 3 March 2025: Introduction (2h). Instructors: Marianna Ferrara & Pierluigi Lanfranchi.

Theoretical Sacrifice: themes, problems, consequences.

  • Monday 10 March 2025: 16:00 - 19:00 CET (3 hours duration, including discussion). Instructor: Pierluigi Lanfranchi. 

1) Attitudes of Judaism, Christianity and Islam toward animal sacrifice (Pierluigi Lanfranchi). 

2) Animal sacrifice in the Caucasus: practice and polemics (Yulia Antonian); Viewing session of the documentary: Matagh. A Sacrifice for Safety (2024).

Discussion.

  • Monday 17 March 2025: 16:00 - 19:00 CET (3 hours duration, including discussion). Instructor: Adrian Stoicescu.

1) From animal sacrifice to the metaphor of human sacrifice - a case study on the folk text memory of construction rituals.

2) Animal sacrifice - from traditional practice to urban legend and movies. Counter-narratives to propaganda. Watching the 20-minute episode The Greedy Policeman from Tales from the Golden Age (2009) - set up the in communist Romania before the collapse of iron curtain.

Discussion.

  • Monday 24 March 2025: 16:00 - 19:00 CET (3 hours duration, including discussion). Instructor: Nadia Cattoni.

1) Blood sacrifice in Hindu traditions (Nadia Cattoni)

2) Sacrifices in the Polemics between Christian Missionaries, Colonial Administrators, and Indian Intellectuals (India, 19th-20th Centuries) (Philippe Bornet)

Discussion.

  • Monday 31 March 2025: 16:00 - 19:00 CET (3 hours duration, including discussion). Instructor: Philippe Bornet.

1) Imagining Indian Rituals: The Place of India in Theories of Sacrifice (Philippe Bornet)

2) Ritual sacrifice and cultural contestation in Nepal (Chiara Letizia) 

  • Monday 14 April 2025: 16:00 - 19:00 CET (3 hours duration, including discussion). Instructor: Marianna Ferrara.

1) Sacrifice and sociological theories (Raquel Weiss)

2) Food and animals in Candomblé rituals (Giovanna Capponi)

 Discussion.

  • Monday 21 April: 3 hours duration 

Students will participate in a concluding discussion to summarize and highlight the most important aspects covered throughout the course, focusing on its main topics.

 

  • Monday 28 April: 3 hours duration  

Students will participate in a concluding discussion to summarize and highlight the most important aspects covered throughout the course, focusing on its main topics.

Requirements

This course is open to Bachelor's, Master's and PhD students at CIVIS member universities with a high interest in Anthropology, History, Sociology, Classical Literature, and History of Religions. 

Participants should have a good level of written and spoken English (B2). As additional competencies are also considered the following: Critical thinking, ability to evaluate without bias, communication and teamwork, cultural sensitivity.

NB: Visiting Students - Erasmus Funding Eligibility

To be eligible for your selected CIVIS programme, you must be a fully enrolled student at your CIVIS home university at the time you will be undertaking the programme. Click here to learn more about the eligibility criteria.

Students from CIVIS’ strategic partner universities in Africa cannot apply for participation in this course.

Application process

Send your application by filling in the online application form by 31 October 2024, including:

  • CV
  • Motivation letter

  • Level of english (According to CEFR)

Applications will be evaluated based on the relevance of the CV and the motivation of the applicants.

Apply now

Assessment

The assessment will be based on the following criteria:

  1. Attendance and active participation during the online sessions (30%)
  2. Group work (20%)
  3. Attendance and active participation during the physical part (20%)
  4. A final presentation (30%)
  • Final presentation: written portfolio about the online lectures, plus general reflection on the elaborated notions, ca. 3000 words to be presented on April 21, 2025.
  • Group work: research and design of a collaborative poster to be presented at the end of the physical part (July 4, 2025).

Blended Intensive Programme

This CIVIS course is a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP): a new format of Erasmus+ mobility which combines online teaching with a short trip to another campus to learn alongside students and professors across Europe. Click here to learn more about CIVIS BIPs.

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  • Philippe Bornet, Associate Professor in South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Lausanne.
  • Nadia Cattoni, Assistant Professor in South Asian literary traditions, University of Lausanne.
  • Marianna Ferrara, Associate Professor in History of Religions, Sapienza Università di Roma.
  • Pierluigi Lanfranchi, Associate Professor in Greek language and literature, Aix-Marseille Université.
  • Adrian Stoicescu, Associate Professor in Cultural Studies, University of Bucharest.