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Comparative Religion: Turku University
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Since 1968, a total of seventeen scholars have written their doctoral dissertations within departments of comparative religion in Finnish universities. Aili Nenola first wrote her Licentiate thesis on the topic of ritual lament (Rituaalisen itkennän dimensiot Inkerin häänäytelmässä: sosiaalisten suhteiden analyysi, 1974). In her doctoral dissertation, Studies in Ingrian Laments (1982) she examined the system and meaning of metaphorical substitute names in laments and connected the genre of laments to other women’s songs. In addition to Van Gennepian notion of rites of passage, the theoretical issues raised from the material focused on the ritual expression of role relationships and the meaning of ritual mourning. In her doctoral dissertation Saarna, saarnaaja, tilanne (Sermon, preacher, situation, 1978), Päivikki Suojanen, now Professor emerita of ethnology/folkloristics at the University of Jyväskylä, the production of spontaneous sermon among the Beseechers Movement of Western Finland. In her analysis, Suojanen focused on the lives and personalities of two lay preachers in terms of the internalization and individual use of tradition.
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Comparative religion maintains together with Folkloristics the archive of ethnographic materials. The collections include for instance data on religious traditions and folklore from Ingria (area close to St. Petersburg, Russia) and India (mostly Kerala area), ethnomedicine of Peruvian Amazon, laments of the Baltic Sea Finns and village projects in Lappland. Since the early 1970's information of religious groups in Turku area have been collected systematically, too. This is characteristically an audiovisual research and teaching archive. The TKU archive in Turku University is the second largest tradition archive in Finland and the vast audiovisual materials have been catalogued using the means provided by data-base techniques. Due to the fieldwork-oriented production of research data, the majority of the students and researchers frequently utilize and add to the collections.
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Although comparative religion became an autonomous academic discipline relatively late in Finland – compared to many other countries in Europe – it has roots that... go farther back in late 19th century. The discipline was first introduced within the Finnish academic community in the latter part of the nineteenth century as an ethnological and folkloristic field of study. The particular concern of the new discipline was not with the history of the major world religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity or the Mesopotamian religions, but with the general evolution of forms of belief and practice among the Finns and other Finno-Ugric peoples, as well as among the various ethnic groups of North Africa, New Guinea and South America. Comparative religion was established in its pre-institutionalized stage at the University of Helsinki in the 1880’s, when a special interest had arisen in the study of the “origin and development"? of the ethnic traditions of peoples belonging to the Finno-Ugric language family. Comparative religion became part of a scholarly program whose aim was to highlight the linguistic and cultural evolution of peoples speaking languages related to Finnish.
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Annually 20 new students are selected to study comparative religion at Turku University through an entrance examination. The modes of teaching are mainly lectures and seminars. Along with examinations students are expected to prepare essays and reports. The focus of these works is to learn critical thinking and developing their literal skills. Studying antropological field work methods with excercises is important, too. Due to this, many M.A. theses are based on individual field work projects.
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The course requirement of the university upper-division baccalaureate writing course is met through Comparative Religion 485T. It is highly recommended that students majoring in Religious Studies pursue the study of classical languages such as Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Sanskrit when such languages are offered.
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The award was conferred on him at the American University, where he teaches comparative religion and international relations, by the Key Spiritual Life Centre. Some time earlier, the Pakistani academic and former civil servant was given the Professor of the Year award by the District of Columbia.
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