Master of Advanced Studies in Theology and Religion

Contents

Study programme

An individual student’s programme consists of sixty credits. Before the start of the academic year, each student is invited to select a major area of specialization. They are asked to follow all three courses and one seminar (16 credits) offered within their major.

Students are also required to write a research paper (16 credits) in which they present the results of their study of an original research topic. The paper must be approximately fifty pages in length (25,000 words), and provide a structured and coherent survey of the issue. It should include an evaluation of research already undertaken and give evidence of an awareness of problems related to the topic. Students who were enrolled in the initial Master’s may continue and extend that year’s thesis to a thesis of about eighty to one hundred pages (40,000-50,000 words) in the advanced Master’s programme. Usually, the selection of the two elective courses (8 credits) is also related to the student’s research focus.

Although a full two-thirds of the programme (40 credits), as explained above, is dedicated to specialized research, it remains an important policy of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies to encourage its students to continue to focus on the other domains of Theology and Religious Studies. Upon successful completion of their studies, they will obtain the advanced Master’s degree of Theology and Religious Studies, rather than a degree specialising exclusively in the history of Church and theology or pastoral theology, for example.

For this reason, all students in the pre-doctoral programme include one course from each of the remaining five majors (20 credits) in their individual study programme.