Master’s degree in International Relations LM52/62

MODULE: Religions, Politics, Identities (MSTO-07)

ECTS: 6

YEAR RUNNING: 2022/2023

LECTURER: Silvia Cristofori

EMAIL ADDRESS: s.cristofori@unilink.it

CONSULTATION TIME: Consultation hours take place after class

LEARNING AND SKILLS OUTCOMES:

The teaching module aims to increase knowledge of the EU policies both on misinformation and freedom of thought, conscience and religion. In fact, it is a part of the “Jean Monnet” project FreeBeRI (“Freedom of Belief and Right to Information”) funded by the European Union, which intends to increase awareness on the mutual reliance between freedom of religion and freedom of expression and information.

In this sense, the module addresses:

the knowledge gap on the role and relevance of religious issues in the history of EU and in its international politics;
the challenges of conspiracy theories by enhancing critical thinking skills and providing students with fundamental tools for recognizing, analyzing, debunking conspiracy theories as well as understanding the reason for their success.

As a consequence, the specific learning objectives are formulated by following the Dublin descriptors with particular emphasis on:

the Dublin descriptor “knowledge and understanding”: knowing the EU policies on misinformation/disinformation and freedom of religion and understanding the mutual reliance of those policies and their relevance for international affairs; understanding the historical connections and discontinuities between new conspiracy theories and old ones (with specific reference to the anti-Semitic propaganda forgery of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion); knowing the ways in which some prominent historians have interpreted fake news, conspiracy theories, and mysteries of state; understanding the threats of fake news, conspiracy theory and propagandistic uses/falsification of history for the democratic participation processes.
the Dublin descriptor “applying knowledge and understanding”: being able to apply the methodological notions provided by the module to different kinds of sources (Internet sources included) by contextualizing, analyzing, and interpreting them;
the Dublin descriptor “making judgments”: being able to use the methodological tools provided by the module for recognizing, understanding, analyzing, and debunkingconspiracy theories;
the Dublin descriptor “learning skills”: being able to find adequate scientific literature and sources to write a short paper on one of the topics of the module.

Method:

The teaching method adopted by the module is meant to enable students to achieve the learning objectives at least satisfactorily (18 p.). Indeed, lessons will be carried out according to three methods:

lectures in which the teacher will explain the topics and the tools provided by the module;
peer learning in the form of workshop in which students will apply the notions and the methodological tools of the module while coping with different kinds of sources;
Flipped classroom through which students will learn to expose their analysis of different kinds of sources, based on the notions and the tools of the module.

During the classes, students are required to: actively contribute to class discussions and workshop; write a short paper; expose at least one presentation.

Students’ active participation allows continuous assessment of their learning progress, which will be conducted by rating their performances following the same criteria of grade determination adopted for the final exam (see below). That process also enables the teacher to better address the specific learning and training needs of the students during the course. Besides, FreeBeRI carries out a series of research activities and dissemination events revolving around the topics of the teaching module. Those activities/events are meant to be a stimulating and rich learning environment in which students are actively involved as auditors, speakers, and/or discussants and have the opportunity to interact with the research network provided by FreeBeRI.

SYLLABUS

The topics covered by the module are the following:

a terminological framework: disinformation/misinformation, fake news, conspiracy theories, post-truth policies;
a long-lasting conspiracy theory: the anti-Semitic propaganda forgery of the protocols of the elders of Zion;
fake news, conspiracy theories, mysteries of state according to Marc Bloch, Carlo Ginzburg, Ernst Kantorowicz;
prime examples of falsification and propagandistic use of history: the case of Russia;
mutual reliance between freedom of religion and freedom of expression and information, as indicated by EU guidelines on the promotion and protection of freedom of religion or belief (art. 31), EU guidelines, and the mandate of the EU Special Envoy on the promotion of freedom of religion or belief outside the EU (art. 10, 21, 21), as well as stated by the European Convention on Human Rights, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
EU instruments against disinformation and EU international policies on the subject of promotion and protection of freedom of religion within the current historical global process of “de-secularization”: the functions of the Strategic Communications Division of the European External Action Service’s (EEAS); The EU Code of Practice on Disinformation (2018); EU Action Plan Against Disinformation (2018); EU Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech (2019); the East StratComTask Force; the Rapid Alert System; EU Guidelines on the promotion and protection of freedom of religion or belief (2013) EU guidelines and the mandate of the EU Special Envoy on the promotion of freedom of religion or belief outside the EU (2019).

In order to provide the students with the methodological tools related to the topics of the module, a workshop will be carried out throughout the course, which will be focused on the tools of the “historian’s craft” for contextualizing, analyzing, and interpreting primary and secondary sources. These tools will be useful for writing the final short paper.

METHOD OF ASSESSMENT

Students will take an oral exam. The examination will start with the discussion of the paper prepared by the student during the module. After the discussion, the student must be able to answer questions about all the topics covered by the module and compulsory texts.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

The evaluation will be based on the following criteria:

in-depth knowledge and understanding of the EU policies on misinformation and freedom of religion (“knowledge and understanding”); understanding the historical connections and discontinuities between new conspiracy theories and old ones (with specific reference to the anti-Semitic propaganda forgery of the protocols of the elders of Zion); in-depth knowledge and understanding of the ways in which some prominent historians have interpreted fake news, conspiracy theories, and mysteries of state; good understanding of the threats of fake news, conspiracy theory and propagandistic uses/falsification of history for the democratic participation processes.
good ability to apply the historiographic methods and notions provided by the module for understanding different kinds of sources (Internet sources included) by contextualizing, analyzing, and interpreting them (“applying knowledge and understanding”);
good ability to use the theoretical and methodological tools provided by the course for recognizing, understanding, analyzing, and debunking conspiracy theories (“making judgment”);
good ability to find adequate scientific literature and sources to write a short paper on one of the topics of the module (“learning skills”).

MARKING CRITERIA

The overall student’s performance will be rated from 18 (passing grade) to 30 (excellent). To measure the achievement of the learning objectives, the grade determination of the final exam will be based on the following criteria: a) “knowledge and understanding” (MIN.: 4,5 – MAX.: 7,5 p.); b) “applying knowledge and understanding” (MIN.: 4,5 – MAX.: 7,5 p.); c) “making judgments” (MIN.: 4,5 – MAX: 7,5 p.); d) “learning skills” (MIN.: 4,5 – MAX.: 7,5 p.).

READING LIST

Mandatory books /chapters / articles to study:

Bloch Marc, The Historian’s Craft, Knopf, New York, 1953 [1949], trans. from the French by Peter Putnam.

Giusti Serena, Piras Elisa (eds.), Democracy and fake news: Information, Manipulation and Post-truth Politics, (Introduction. In search of Paradigms: Disinformation, Fake News, and Post-truth Politics; Part II: From Disinformation to Post-Truth Politics. Evidences from Russia; 13 Radical-Right Political Activism on the Web and the Challenge for European Democracy; 16 The EU Code of Practice on Disinformation and the Risk of the Privatisation of Censorship).

Roy Olivier, Holy Ignorance. When Religion and Culture Part Ways, Oxford University Press, Oxford – London 2013 [2008], trans. from the French by Ros Schwartz (“Introduction”, Part 1 “The Inculturation of Religion”, chapter 7 “The Standardisation of Religion”) .

Soroka George, International Relations by Proxy? The Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church, in «Religions», vol. 13, n. 3, 2022 https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13030208.

One of the following texts to choose from:

Bloch Marc, Reflections of a Historian on the False News of the War, «Michigan War Studies Review», 2013 [1921], pp. 1-11, trans. from the French by James P. Holoka.

Ginzburg Carlo, Threads and Traces. True False Fictive, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2012 [2006], trans. from the Italian by Anne C. Tedeschi and John Tedeschi (chapters: 1 “Description and Quotation”, 10 “Representing the Enemy: On the French Prehistory of the Protocols”).

Kantorowicz Ernst H., Mysteries of State: An Absolutist Concept and Its Late Mediaeval Origins, in «The Harvard Theological Review», vol. 48, no. 1, 1955, pp. 65–91.

N.B. Students who will not attend classes or expose at least a presentation and write a short paper must study all three texts mentioned above and read Eco’s novel enlisted among the suggested readings (see below).

Documents and Tools:

Bourbaki Nicoletta – Collettivo di ricerca sui falsi storici, (a cura), Questo chi lo dice? E perché? Una guida per la fruizione critica delle fonti fuori e dentro il web. Con esempi e proposte di esercizi didattici, 2018 <https://fdocumenti.com/document/questo-chi-lo-dice-e-perche-newspdf-insegnare-a-rapportarsi-criticamente.html>
Eco Umberto, How to Write a Thesis, MIT, Cambridge – London 2015 [1977] (trans. from the Italian by Caterina Mongiat Farina and Geoff Farina);
EU Action Plan Against Disinformation (2018);
EU Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech (2019);
EU Code of Practice on Disinformation (2018);
EU Guidelines on the promotion and protection of freedom of religion or belief (2013);
EU Guidelines and the mandate of the EU Special Envoy on the promotion of freedom of religion or belief outside the EU (2019);
Juurvee Ivo et alii, Falsification of History as a Tool of Influence, NATO Strategic Commu- nications Centre of Excellence.

https://atlasminorityrights.eu/

https://erga-online.eu/?p=1165

https://www.consilium.europa.eu

Suggested readings:

Boltanski Luc, Mysteries and Conspiracies, Detective Stories, Spy Novels and the Making of Modern Societies, Polity Press, Cambridge 2014 (chapters: 1, 5, 6).
Eco Umberto, Il cimitero di Praga, Bompiani, Milano 2010 (trans. from the Italian by Richard Dixon, The Prague Cemetery, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston 2011).
Wu Ming 1, La Q di QAnnon e dintorni. Come le fantasie di complotto difendono il sistema, Alegre, Roma 2021.