Panel description: Religion has re-emerged as a central element in contemporary geopolitical competition, serving not merely as a source of identity or values but as a strategic asset deployed by states seeking to expand influence and challenge liberal democratic norms. This panel examines the instrumentalization of religion in international relations, with particular focus on how the Russian Federation leverages religious actors, narratives, and networks as components of its soft and sharp power strategies within the framework of global culture wars. The panel brings together three complementary perspectives to illuminate this phenomenon. The first paper establishes the broader context by mapping the contemporary landscape of religious geopolitics, analyzing how multiple state and non-state actors employ religion to advance political objectives, build transnational coalitions, and contest normative frameworks around issues including gender, sexuality, family, and secularism. The second paper focuses specifically on Moscow's strategic deployment of religion in its external relations. It examines how Russian state actors and religious institutions—particularly the Russian Orthodox Church—collaborate to project influence abroad, positioning Russia as a defender of "traditional values" against Western liberalism. This analysis explores the mechanisms, narratives, and diplomatic channels through which religious discourse is integrated into Russian foreign policy objectives. The third paper provides a critical regional case study of Russian religious influence operations in the Global South. Drawing on field research and policy analysis, it investigates how Russian actors cultivate relationships with religious leaders and institutions across regions such as Africa and Latin America, leveraging both Orthodox Christianity and inter-religious dialogue to advance geopolitical interests, challenge Western influence, and build networks of support for Moscow's global positioning.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel will feature presentations on the fundamental disparity between the divine and the human. This includes the difference between Creator and creation, between the sacred and the profane, between earth and heaven, and more generally between transcendence and immanence. The panel welcomes studies in systematic theology, philosophy of religion, history of ideas, historical theology, public theology, ethics, psychology, and practical theology, concerning questions like: - metaphysics: how do contrast-properties like 'holy' compare to other non-natural properties like 'beautiful', 'virtuous' or 'right'? - secularization: which historical narratives may be told about the 'disappearance' in Western modernity of the transcendental/divine? - creation: how to account of the sacredness of non-human nature (in countering ecological deterioration) without ignoring that God and creation are qualitatively different? - hell and heaven: what theological import do these deeply different categories have? - politics and religion: when does the merge of religion and politics lead to sacralization of ideas, symbols and/or persons and how to avoid idolatry? - psychology: what makes an experience into a religious experience of the Divine?

Papers:

Panel description: The panel engages reasonings on religion and spirituality on the frontier of emerging technologies investigating how religious and spiritual practices are evolving alongside the emergence of digital technologies. This panel asks: What values, biases, and social norms do these technologies encode? Are they used to promote equality, or to accentuate differences and deepen social, political and cultural differences? In what ways are emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence used to contribute to or challenge existing empirical and theoretical debates? Through concrete and diverse case studies, this panel examines how forms of spiritual life and expression are evolving across multiple cultural and religious contexts through their encounter with emerging technologies. From the integration of artificial intelligence tools by professional spiritual care providers in healthcare settings to the emergence of new, AI-related eschatological imaginaries, and the global rise of digital platforms within new religious movements, this panel explores the ways in which technology is simultaneously used to enable new forms of connection, ritual, tradition, and meaning-making, while also raising profound ethical questions. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship in the field of digital religion(s), the panellists will engage with theoretical and empirical debates from theology, religious studies, and anthropology. In exploring their research questions, the panellists foster constructive and critical dialogue with religious and spiritual communities, and deepen our understanding of how faith, spirituality, and technology co-evolve in a rapidly changing world. Ultimately, this panel invites participants to reflect on the potential role and responsibility of religion and spirituality in (re)shaping responsible and compassionate technological futures—futures that acknowledge both the possibilities and dangers of innovation in an increasingly connected yet divided world.

Papers:

Panel description: Contributing to the conference theme "Religion and In/Equality," this panel examines theology's entanglement with structures of domination and inequality. Across diverse contexts, Christian theological imaginaries have too often claimed innocence in the face of harm by conceiving themselves as sources of salvation, reconciliation, or moral guidance while remaining implicated in practices of exclusion, violence, and hierarchical power. The panel takes as its starting point the recognition that theology is never innocent: it participates in shaping the conditions under which inequality is justified, sustained, and sometimes resisted. Focusing on soteriological and ecclesial frameworks, the panel explores how doctrines of salvation, pastoral care, and ecclesial life both reflect and reproduce asymmetrical relations of power, even as the (cl)aim to be transformative. The concept of vulnerance - the active capacity to harm - serves as a central analytical lens through which to interrogate these theological dynamics. By confronting the vulnerance of theology itself, the panel seeks to uncover how Christian discourses of redemption and care can perpetuate inequality and how they might be reimagined in ways attentive to accountability and justice. Drawing on insights from feminist, queer, political, and postcolonial theologies, the panel situates its critique within wider efforts to expose the complicity of Christian thought in sustaining systemic inequality, while seeking resources within the tradition for a more accountable and liberative theological practice. Together, the contributions uncover the manifold ways theology itself participates in inequality conceptually, institutionally, and pastorally, while opening spaces for critical and constructive reorientation. Moving beyond innocence requires acknowledging theology's vulnerance and cultivating practices of thought and care grounded in equality, justice, and interconnectedness.

Papers:

Panel description: For the past five years, the REDESM Research Center (Religions, Rights and Economies in the Mediterranean Space) at the University of Insubria (www.redesm.org) has developed its own editorial series: the Giappichelli-Routledge series Religion, Law and Economics in the Mediterranean Space, which has begun to offer an insightful overview of the dynamics of religious freedom across the two shores of the Mediterranean. Economic and social transformations significantly affect core dimensions of this right: the role of freedom of conscience, relations among religious communities, the place of religious phenomena within constitutional frameworks, the status of women, questions of security, and, more broadly, the geopolitical position of the Mediterranean region within the international arena. This panel aims to take stock of these issues by presenting four volumes of the series, each of which seeks to build a bridge of analysis, research, and reflection between two worlds that are increasingly interconnected. Particular attention will be devoted to three volumes that help provide a comprehensive picture of the main issues at stake: Freedom of Religion, Security and the Law (2023); Women, Agency and Religion: Social and Legal Issues in the Mediterranean Public Space (2024); Diversity, Fear and Religions: Cultural Accommodation in a Globalized World (2025); and Political, Social, Religious and Economic Challenges in the Middle East and North Africa from Covid-19 to Agenda 2030 (2025). The panel will present the findings of four research projects, offering an interdisciplinary, forward-looking, and comparative reflection that provides an up-to-date perspective on some of the most pressing topics in contemporary religious studies.

Papers:

Panel description: This Author Meets Critique (AMC) session introduces the anthology Queering Theology, edited by Charlotte Jacobs, Sonja Thomaier, and Jörg Rieger. The volume advances a distinctive approach to queer theological work by centering the concept of queering. "Queer" is understood here not only as an identity but also as a critical practice: queering. From this starting point, queer theology draws not only on queer theory but also on liberation theology and materialist social analysis in order to address the matters of (in)equalities and (in)justice. Queering theology thus becomes a practice of challenging and overcoming the perceived non-alternativeness of dominant ways of thinking, working, and living. It is not an end in itself, but a collective endeavour aimed at enabling a better life for all. In this perspective, queer and materialist approaches are inherently intertwined, and transformative queer theologies integrate them from the outset. The contributions in this volume follow these trajectories while also breaking new ground. By deepening queer theology's liberationist commitments, the anthology reclaims queer theology as a mode of interrogating structures of power and imagining collective alternatives. It raises essential next questions for the field: How can queer theologies maintain their resistive edge? How can they unfold their transformative potential? And how might they become theologies of liberation for the 99%? In this panel, respondents J.J. Warren, Tris Genoske and Luke Larner - each well-versed in the field - offer critical and constructive responses to the volume. Their perspectives will open into a broader conversation with the editors and the audience, creating an opportunity for scholars to engage with the book's contributions to international queer theological discourse and to reflect on its relevance for reshaping theological practice today.

Papers:

Panel description: This session is tailored to fit this year's conference theme on religion and (in)equalities. Our four papers collectively address the two biggest inequality concerns in Hinduism: caste and sex. Historically, Hindu traditions have often been complicit in promoting discrimination against women and low-caste groups. But they have also often been wielded as a weapon of resistance against entrenched social hierarchies. The papers in this session examine the intersection between Hinduism and (in)equalities in four contexts. The first paper examines two of the novels written by a contemporary Hindu author, Koral Dasgupta. Dasgupta rewrites the stories of two mythic women, Tara and Ahalya, who appear in the Hindu epics primarily as virtuous wives. Dasgupta centers their stories in ways that override patriarchal prescriptions, rendering them complex figures with narrative voice, political consciousness, and moral agency. The second paper examines the lyrics of three Hindu poet saints--a Brahmin man, a woman, and a low-caste man-from Gujarat. The paper explores how bhakti, "devotion," not only functions on the individual level as a purely religious path, but also as a movement can be a path of resistance to entrenched social inequalities. The third paper examines the samādhi (gravesite) of the Gaudiya Vaishnava theologian Rupa Gosvamin at a temple in North India. As a counterpoint to the second paper, this paper shows how Hindu devotional traditions may not only challenge inequalities, but may simultaneously reproduce them. The final paper explores the intersections of religion and film in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, focusing on issues of religion and gender inequality in film narrative. This paper critically examines the ideological implications of Hindi films' patriarchal representations of women.

Papers:

Panel description: Addressing bioethical questions through the lens of religious traditions is both demanding and necessary. Even in contemporary secularised societies, religious imaginaries continue to shape how we understand life and death, illness and healing, vulnerability and care. Yet when we speak of bioethical standards, whose standards are we invoking? The language of dignity, autonomy, or vulnerability embedded in the debate and reported in protocols and policies often presents itself as universal while reflecting particular Western and secular genealogies. This framing can obscure a more complex reality: bioethics as a field shaped by plural grammars of value, lived identities, and overlapping worlds of meaning. Rather than presupposing a fixed opposition between religious and secular ethics, the panel invites reflection on how diverse moral worlds intersect, challenge, and translate one another. We aim to move beyond narratives of conflict or incompatibility by exploring how religious and faith traditions may function as substantive interlocutors in contemporary bioethical discourse. We welcome contributions that examine how religious and faith values and imaginaries are reconfigured within secular frameworks, how they inform practices of care, clinical decision-making, and policy debates, and how they might help articulate more equitable and imaginative bioethical futures. Possible Topics and Approaches - Comparative analyses of religious and non-religious approaches to autonomy, dignity, or vulnerability - The translations and adaptations of religious values within non-religious bioethical or legal frameworks - The role of ritual, embodiment, and suffering in shaping moral reasoning in healthcare - Public theology and bioethics in democratic deliberation and policy design - Empirical or ethnographic studies of how religious and moral imaginaries inform care practices

Papers:

Panel description: This panel explores how Alevi communities from Turkey have redefined their religious identity and navigated structures of (in)equality in the diaspora contexts of Germany and Austria. Migration opened not only new socio-economic spaces but also initiated a process of religious and political self-empowerment, allowing Alevi actors to articulate their faith more freely within pluralist societies. The panel examines the multi-phased institutionalization of Alevism, from informal gatherings to formalized religious communities engaged in education, welfare, and political representation. Special attention will be given to the ambivalent relationship of Alevi diasporas to both their country of origin and their host societies: While Turkish state institutions have continued to exert regulatory control over diasporic communities, Germany and Austria have provided new opportunities for institutional recognition. Nevertheless, Alevis still struggle against persistent external categorizations that frame them as a heterodox Islamic sect, undermining their claim to religious autonomy. Drawing on historical analogies and contemporary developments, the panel analyzes how second and third generation Alevi actors serve as key agents of transformation, negotiating visibility, recognition, and self-definition within diasporic and transnational fields. Speakers: Prof. Rauf Ceylan (University of Osnabrück) Mag. Yilmaz Kahraman (PH Weingarten) Prof. Hillary Mooney (PH Weingarten Prof. Hüseyin Çiçek (PH Weingarten / University of Vienna) Chair: Dr. Shilan Hussein Fuad ( Disciplinary Focus: Sociology of Religion, Migration Studies, Political Science, Islamic Studies, Religious Studies

Papers:

Panel description: This panel explores the complex interplay between material realities and the production of inequality and injustice at the intersections of race, class, gender and religion. While scholarship on (in)equality has increasingly emphasized the multifaceted nature of social hierarchies, the role of material conditions - such as labour relations, economic resources, and lived environments - in shaping and transforming these hierarchies remains a pressing focus. An examination of material relations does not merely enumerate intersecting symptoms of systemic inequalities but seeks to explain their causes and functions in order to challenge them at their roots. As religion both reflects and shapes material realities through religious traditions, institutions, and communities, it can reinforce inequalities and injustices as well as offer resources for resistance, solidarity, and transformation. We therefore invite scholars, activists, and practitioners from various backgrounds with varying academic focuses (biblical studies, ethics, religion and society, etc.) who seek to give renewed critical attention to the material dimensions of race, class, gender, and queer realities, with particular attention to religion. By foregrounding material realities, this panel invites a conversation on how inequalities are produced, naturalized, and finally dismantled across these interlocking domains. The panel continues a series from five previous EuARe annual conference panels on labour, economic justice, and queering liberation. It is open to anyone who wishes to join the critical conversation on the material production of inequality, exchange insights and strategies for resistance and transformation, and contribute to this ongoing work.

Papers:

Panel description: The Reformed view of human nature is often summarized as "total depravity." This is the T in the acronym TULIP, which is often presented as a concise representation of Reformed doctrine. However, TULIP was not used as such until the 20th century. Is it a correct summary of classical Reformed doctrine, or a later (mis)interpretation of it? This panel examines what the classical Reformed view of humanity was, what its sources were, how it relates to the view of humanity held by other Christian denominations, how it has developed, and what its consequences are for, for example, preaching, pastoral care, psychology, and education. It focuses on redefining Reformed anthropology for the present day, in relation to classical Reformed and Christian sources.

Papers:

Panel description: Enhancing inclusion and equality in todays' society is difficult. In our time of popularism and short text messages, reflection on what you say to another person is rare, as well as realising that other person is a human being too. Listening in a genuine dialogue, also when the other tells you what you rather not would like to hear, is very difficult. Even more, if their story sounds different or even 'strange' to you, as a consequence of another background, different race, gender, religion or spirituality. In this panel we exchange didactical approaches to work on inclusion and equality in the classroom. We allow scholars to enter the panel who also conduct research amongst teachers or pupils regarding didactic strategies to work on more inclusion in a safe classroom at for instance secondary schools or at university. Critical thinking is needed to owrk on the moral compass of pupils or students, and reflection to what other people's stories bring up inside you. In a real dialogue, both sender and receiver will develop their own compass further. Growing awareness in these processes is a focus on which we base some of our research. Equality between people with a different gender, race, religion is not easy to achieve, even in our highly developed country with high standards on democracy and equal human rights. Research will be presented how young people look towards these issues and what they value in life. This will present a diverse image, that also mirrors the intense situation in the multi-diverse classrooms. Moreover, the different backgrounds of the speakers and their perspectives will add more diversity into the equation in this panel, and therefore will help us to elaborate further on the very topic of the panel and conference.

Papers:

Panel description: The world is increasingly marked by many crises including political polarization, many forms of inequality, pending environmental catastrophe, war and violence, and the rise of militant and exclusive forms of nationalism. In such a context, the Church is called to be a prophetic voice of peace, reconciliation, and inclusion. The papacies of Pope Francis and Pope Leo have served as a call to openness and solidarity, embodying in both word and deed the prophetic vocation the Church is called to embody in our increasingly wounded world. The call to synodality initiated by Pope Francis and continued under Pope Leo has been an especially potent sign of the direction and posture the Church is called to take at this time, namely, one of humility, dialogical openness, and receptive listening, all in service of creating missionary disciples who are able to proclaim the Kingdom of God prophetically and effectively. And yet, despite the Church's external commitment to its prophetic and synodal vocation, many ecclesial structures, positions, and mentalities remain seemingly closed to dialogue, growth, and critique (i.e. questions of sex and gender, womens' sacramental leadership, and addressing the causes of sexual abuse, to name a few of the most glaring instances). Moreover, the Church in some part of the world (i.e. Eastern Europe and parts of the United States) uncritically adopting far right political ideologies and the piecemeal and ideologically motivated implementation (or lack thereof) of synodality remain challenges to the Church in fully embracing its prophetic and synodal vocation. All of these realities witness to various "inequalities" within the Church which the Church must respond to faithfully, creatively, and critically. This panel will offer such responses, highlighting how tools within our theological tradition, creatively and critically employed, can enable the Church to better embody its prophetic and synodal vocation.

Papers:

Panel description: The Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network invites proposals for an open call panel, "Prophetic Imaginations and Ecclesial Futures." In his landmark text, The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Bruggemann writes, "The prophet engages in futuring fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented… the imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing." (40) This session aims to envision what church in a future may be or look like. What does it mean for the church to be prophetic or to have a prophetic imagination? What does this prophetic - or propheticist (Ignacio Ellacuría) - imagination look like in the future? How might church be like or look like in the future? What does it mean to "future fantasy" in the context of church? And what resources can a prophetic imagination bring to support or critique such a church? Scholars are invited to engage this topic and these questions creatively and are not restricted to the questions covered in this CfP. Possible ideas that might be broached include theological questions such as how to think ecclesiologically about having a prophetic imagination, or what it means to be prophetic, or the relationship between imagination and implementation. Other questions can be raised on church and social issues such as how the prophetic imagination interfaces on artificial intelligence, transhumanism, technology-backed nationalism, ecojustice, migration, and other subjects. Further questions can also include intra-church or ecumenical matters such as how the church can prophetically re-envision, engage, or concretize synodality, diakonia, or church institutions and programs such as the New International Financial and Economic Architecture (NIFEA) initiative, and where they fit into the church in the future. This panel is open to a maximum of four presentations.

Papers:

Panel description: The interdisciplinary University Research Priority Program (URPP) «Digital Religion(s)» at the University of Zurich examines how digital transformations influence and reconfigure religious practices, forms of authority, and modes of community among individuals and institutions. Within different research areas - like digital pastoral care or emeriging technologies - four subprojects within an interdisciplinary cluster focus on «Religious Education within the Post-Digital Context». A central concern of this cluster is how religious education can foster critical media reflection and thereby strengthen religious digital literacy as a key competency for navigating contemporary mediatized environments. Attention is also given to how issues of equality and inequality are reproduced, negotiated, or challenged within digital media practices. While the concept of literacy has a long intellectual history, it remains indispensable in light of accelerated developments in digitalization and artificial intelligence. Religious education is thus understood not merely as the transmission of technical digital skills but as fostering ethical, analytical, and critical capacities that enable adolescents to engage responsibly and reflectively with digital media and AI, including an awareness of power relations and ethical responsibilities in digitally mediated contexts. The post-digital is approached as a critical analytical concept highlighting opportunities and challenges inherent in digital transformation processes. It raises questions about how young people encounter and manage these dynamics and how reflective, autonomous, and ethically grounded media practices can be supported in religious educational settings. The proposed panel introduces the interdisciplinary framework of the URPP «Digital Religion(s)» and presents initial empirical and theoretical insights from two educational subprojects for scholarly discussion.

Papers:

Panel description: Across Europe, profound religious and ritual transformations are reshaping the landscapes of worship and community life. Churches, monasteries, and other sacred sites are increasingly confronted with questions of continuity and change: some are adapted for new liturgical practices, others are shared between different communities and users, and many are repurposed for secular or hybrid functions. At the same time, repurposed and multi-use religious buildings raise questions about how people and communities inhabit and share sacred environments. Adaptive reuse is often celebrated as cultural resilience: saving buildings from vacancy and decay, while opening them to new forms of meaning. Yet each intervention also entails loss: of ritual coherence, of symbolic depth, of the intangible "spirit of place." How can we acknowledge both sides of this dynamic? How is 'loss' or absence spatially expressed? Is there such a thing as a neutral shared space, and how far can adaptation and reuse go before too much is surrendered? This panel invites religious studies scholars, architects, sociologists, theologians, liturgists, and artists to reflect on these tensions. We welcome contributions that explore the delicate balance between preservation and transformation, heritage and innovation, memory and forgetting. Case studies may address contemporary design responses to shifting worship practices, including the rise of Pentecostalism and the emergence of quasi-Christian spaces blending wellness and alternative spiritualities. Papers can also investigate historical repurposing or sharing of religious spaces, demolished or memorial spaces, or rather focus on architectural styles and experiments with minimalism and emptiness, highlighting how spaces negotiate the move from the religious to the spiritual. The conveners will also inquire into possibilities of academically publishing (a selection of) submitted papers.

Papers:

Panel description: This open panel invites PhD candidates to present and discuss their ongoing or recently completed research within the wide field of the study of religion. The aim of the session is to provide a scholarly forum in which emerging researchers can share their current research, receive constructive feedback, and engage in critical dialogue with peers and senior academics. Contributions may address any topic related to the study of religion with a particular interest in peace and conflicts in memory and identity constructions as well as questions related to religion and (in)equalities. By offering a platform for doctoral research, this panel seeks to highlight new directions in the study of religion and encourage international exchange among early-career researchers. The panel is organized jointly by the PhD in Politics in Luiss (Kristina Stoeckl and Maximilian Kunte) and the Italian National PhD in Peace Studies (Maria Chiara Giorda, Uni Roma Tre, and Carmelo Russo, Uni Sapienza). Submission Guidelines Please submit a paper title, abstract (2000 characters), and a short biographical note (1000 characters) directly to mkunte@luiss.it as soon as possible (to benefit from early bird registration) and no later than 13 March 2026.

Papers:

Panel description: Based on the author's previous fundamental-theological work on 'a theology of interruption' and his practical experiences as head of Catholic education in Flanders (Belgium), Lieven Boeve explores how Catholic schools can reconfigure their identity in a context that is profoundly transformed by the processes of secularisation and pluralisation. After elaborating on the way in which the Catholic dialogue school project has taken concrete shape in Flanders, Boeve explains the theological, social, empirical and ecclesial background of the project. He also provides examples of mission texts, a variety of good practices, empirical data, and a strategy to implement an integral and coherent identity policy at school. He concludes the book by formulating a number of challenges, as well as some advice for the future of Catholic education in Europe. So doing, he argues that the project of the Catholic dialogue school offers a both contextually plausible and theological legitimate recontextualisation of the Catholic identity of schools in the current post-Christian and post-secular European context.

Papers:

Panel description: The Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network invites papers for a session that explores ecclesial and theological responses to generational shifts in society. To what extent do the spiritual needs of younger generations shape the structure of the church, notions of Christian identity, and the explicit and implicit ecclesiologies shaping both common life and public witness in the church? What are possible visions of youth ministries in a future where young people are navigating increasingly complex matters? Possible paper topics might include, but are not limited to: 1. The intersection of masculinity studies with religious conversion and deconversion, particularly in view of the recent phenomenon of interest in Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions among young men 2. Eco-ecclesiology and other responses to climate disaster and apocalypticism 3. The church's engagement with content creators and online spiritual communities 4. Loci for theological research and education that are found beyond the limits of traditional settings such as seminaries and universities 5. The church's reception of post-denominational Christianity and/or multiple religious belongings 6. Unity and conflict in intergenerational and intercultural spaces

Papers:

Panel description: As the communist regimes of Eastern Europe collapsed towards the close of the twentieth century, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) reemerged as an influential actor in Russian society. In Family, Sex, and Faith: The Biopolitics of the Russian Orthodox Church, Pål Kolstø investigates the manifestations of the ROC's newfound influence and legitimacy and the purposes of its strategic action. Here, Kolstø makes the argument that the fulcrum of the ROC's intrusion of the private sphere and its negligence of socioeconomic issues lies in a detailed ethical program and advocacy for traditional family values. These cardinal points, however, cater to different audiences. The ethical program of traditional values speaks to broader Russian and international society, whereas the inculcation of traditional values targets a more restricted circle of hardcore adherents. The ethics of private life, moreover, serve as instruments of regimentation of individual sexuality and sexual relations. In his book, Kolstø points out that the moral teachings of the ROC involve what Foucault called "biopolitics": The management of life itself in the modern age as opposed to ancient right to take life and let live. At the heart of Foucault's concept of biopower lies the regulation of sexuality: This power is invested in the individual discipline of the body (anatomo-politics) and the control over populations and biological processes (biopolitics). As the bridge between the individual and populations, normative prescriptions on families becomes the object of the ROC's biopower. In this Author-Meets-Critics session, the author will discuss his book with Bojidar Kolov, author of "Ecclesiastical populism in contemporary Russia? 'The people' in the political discourse of the orthodox church" (2024) and with Kristina Stoeckl and Dmitry Uzlaner, authors of The Moralist International. Russia in the Global Culture Wars (2022).

Papers:

Panel description: This panel examines how charitable and religious institutions shaped, exploited, and mediated the lives of enslaved women across the early modern Catholic Mediterranean. Mobilizing case studies from Florence, Livorno, and Lisbon, the papers argue that charitable institutions were ambivalent spaces, aimed to cater for the salvation of enslaved women while also reinforcing and reproducing gendered, racialised, and religious inequalities. In sixteenth-century Florence, the Ospedale degli Innocenti relied on the reproductive and domestic labour of enslaved wetnurses while simultaneously receiving and baptising their abandoned children, revealing the racialised and religious logics that shaped the exploitation of enslaved women and the future of their offspring within Catholic institutions. In the same years, in Lisbon, the experiences of Maghrebi washerwomen sentenced by the Inquisition to serve in the Royal Hospital highlight the convergence of punitive and charitable structures. Their skilled yet stigmatised labour made them indispensable to the daily functioning of the hospital, while their coerced service was framed as a moral rehabilitation into Catholic society. The third paper explores the forced artisanal labour of enslaved Muslim women in Livorno who crafted components of their baptismal garments. The ceremony of baptism, materially staged by a charitable institution, relied both on the symbolic purity of Christian ritual and the economic utility of enslaved women's craftsmanship. Together, the papers illuminate how charitable institutions managed poverty and welfare while controlling the bodies and labour of enslaved women, whose presence destabilised notions of domestic order and civic responsibility. They demonstrate that charitable practices and related religious rituals were entangled with quotidian labour regimes and the management of enslaved women's bodies, through processes that naturalised, prolonged, and legitimised gendered inequality.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel examines how enslaved women in early modern Europe and the Mediterranean navigated the pressures, constraints, and opportunities embedded in processes of religious conversion. By bringing together the work of Chizzolini, Abend, and Jaffe, it investigates conversion not as a unidirectional act of assimilation but as a dynamic field of negotiation shaped by overlapping systems of coercion, religious authority, and systems of power within households. Chizzolini shows how the baptisms of enslaved Muslim and Jewish women in Medicean Tuscany functioned both as an instrument of grand ducal policy and as one of the few avenues through which captives could seek protection, mitigate mistreatment, or alter their symbolic status. Abend examines cases from seventeenth-century Spain in which enslaved women accused of renouncing God mobilized the jurisdiction of the Spanish Inquisition to challenge their masters' violence, revealing how the language of apostasy could be transformed into a tactical resource. Jaffe analyzes the complex trajectories of enslaved women in converso households in Italy, where informal judaizing and contested forms of religious practice exposed competing Christian and Jewish claims over their identities. Together, the papers aim to demonstrate that conversion—Christian or Jewish, formal or informal, strategic or coerced—was a crucial arena in which enslaved women in early modern Europe confronted structures of domination while forging fragile yet meaningful forms of agency

Papers:

Panel description: This Author Meets Critique (AMC) session engages Joerg Rieger's book Theology in the Capitalocene—Theologie im Kapitalozän, which will be available in German adaptation in the Spring of 2026 (Charlotte Jacobs, trans., Theologische Interventionen, Kohlhammer Verlag). Several chapters of this book are adapted from the English original and revised for European contexts, with some new chapters added. The book (English subtitle: Ecology, Identity, Class, and Solidarity) argues that the study of theology and religion needs to engage the signs of the times both critically and constructively, proposing that the neologism "Capitalocene" describes our geological age more appropriately than the more common notion of the "Anthropocene." If we find ourselves in times when the flow of capital determines not only economics and politics but also religion and the future of the planet, theologians and scholars of religion may be able to contribute not only by deepening an understanding of the resulting problems but also by identifying potential solutions. As many people find it easier to envision the end of the world than the end of capitalism, theologians and scholars of religion face a formidable task. This panel brings together scholars, intellectuals, and activists who have engaged earlier versions of Rieger's work. Their presentations will touch on the theme of this year's European Academy of Religion, "Religions and (Inequalities)," and include reflections on deeper causes, implications, and possible responses to the emergent problems of our time.

Papers:

Panel description: Religious, cultural, and social inequalities are a structural dimension of contemporary societies, shaped by power relations, belonging, and recognition. Religions, cultures, and territories act as interconnected spheres where meanings, norms, and practices of inclusion and exclusion emerge. The panel adopts sociological and geographic perspectives to explore how religions both reproduce and transform inequalities. From a sociological perspective, religions operate as institutions and symbolic systems that shape norms, values, gender arrangements, and hierarchies. Through rituals, discourse, digital media, and sacred objects, they may reinforce subordination or open spaces for critique and emancipation. From a geographic point of view, inequalities are seen as spatially embedded. Sacred places, devotional geographies, pilgrimages, and urban boundaries show how religions influence access to resources, visibility, and belonging. Concepts such as liminality highlight thresholds—urban margins, shrines, ritual paths—where identities and hierarchies can be renegotiated. Integrating these viewpoints allows for a multidimensional understanding of how religions reshape visibility, recognition, and symbolic redistribution in contemporary societies. Keywords: Religion, Space, Inequality, Symbols, Digitalization, Pluralism

Papers:

Panel description: This open panel aims to examine the relationship between Pope John XXII (1316-1334) and the diverse dissident groups that emerged before and during his pontificate. The late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries witnessed the proliferation of dissenting religious movements—such as, but not limited to, the Spiritual Franciscans—as well as lay communities including, for instance, beguines and beghards. These groups sought official recognition from the Avignon papacy or struggled to preserve their identity—at times denied, at times reshaped—and their institutional autonomy. At the same time, several figures saw their positions formally condemned. A notable example is Meister Eckhart, whose propositions were censured in the bull In agro dominico (1329), illustrating John XXII's determination to define the boundaries of orthodoxy in the face of emerging theological currents. His pontificate was also marked by vigorous action against a broader spectrum of opponents. The conflicts with major Italian Ghibelline powers—such as the Visconti and the Della Scala—reveal how accusations of heresy, rebellion, and political disobedience could intersect, especially when ambitions in temporal matters challenged papal claims. The panel seeks to shed light on the dynamics of encounter, negotiation, and conflict between these religious, lay, political, and intellectual actors and John XXII. It will explore how different communities and individuals positioned themselves in relation to papal authority, which strategies they adopted in moments of tension, and what political, social, theological, and ecclesiological consequences arose from such confrontations. Proposals addressing these themes are welcome. Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words by 13 March, 2026 to: francesca.barresi@unimore.it and martinamaria.caragnano@unimore.it

Papers:

Panel description: This panel, convened by Daniela Tarantino (University of Genoa), Director of the Interdepartmental Research Centre on Migratory Religious Phenomena and Territorial Transformations, explores how religion, migration, and space intersect in shaping contemporary inequalities. It examines the dual role of religion as both a resource for social cohesion and a source of exclusion, focusing on how faith-based actors, institutions, and communities negotiate visibility, recognition, and justice within contexts of mobility and structural inequality. Through interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives, the panel seeks to rethink religion's contribution to the redefinition of equality, belonging, and coexistence in an era marked by global migration and territorial transformation. The panel is organized into two complementary sections, reflecting both the historical-legal roots of religious inequality and the contemporary and future dynamics of faith, mobility, and justice.

Papers:

Panel description: Religious traditions have long been engaged in the pursuit of justice and in political decision-making since antiquity. Such worldly engagement is not unusual in traditions that developed in what are conventionally coined as "West" and "East". From a non-Eurocentric perspective, since Śākyamuni, the historical Buddha, Buddhist traditions have articulated teachings and practices aimed at the reduction of suffering, interdependence, and the ethical transformation of individual and collective relations. Throughout their history, diverse Buddhist traditions have interpreted these principles across varying social contexts, offering conceptual and practical resources for reflecting on inequality, collective responsibility, and social justice. Similarly, traditions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, African religions, and Indigenous cosmologies articulate normative visions of justice grounded in their ethical, ritual, and communal foundations. This panel proposes an interfaith and interdisciplinary dialogue on how religious and philosophical traditions respond, historically and in the present, to social, economic, and environmental injustices. In a global context marked by widening inequalities between the Global North and South, the rise of far-right ideologies, and new configurations of religious fundamentalism, the panel seeks to examine the contributions of various traditions towards lasting peace and conflict resolution. The panel intends to discuss the possibilities in which social injustice can be tackled through an inter-relational and interfaith dialogue by different traditions, including their oral transmissions, texts, and practices, that are crucial for a critical dialogue, mutual learning, and transformative action - and thus, engaging in the world.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel examines the impact of the Reformations (Protestant and Catholic) on women's religious lives and equality in the early modern Europe. The multiauthored volume "Women Reformers in the Early Modern Europe: Profiles, Contexts, and Texts" (2022) serves as the foundation for interdisciplinary critical discourse on theological grounds - and obstacles - for gender equality and the historical evidence vis-a-vis women's agency in the religious scene of the 16th century. Kirsi Stjerna, California Lutheran University-Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, moderator and organizer: "Women at the center, and not in the margins: trajectories in scholarship" Päivi Räisänen-Schröder, Helsinki University, "Sixteenth-century women doing Anabaptism: Managing faith, family and fortune" Sini Mikkola, University of Eastern Finland, "Men and masculinities in 16th century German women's confessional writings: new perspectives on (in)equality?" Virpi Mäkinen, Helsinki University, "Blamed and shamed: unmarried single mothers in 16th-century legal texts and social reforms."

Papers:

Panel description: This panel revisits the place of Enlightenment in the intellectual history of the Middle East from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Rather than treating Enlightenment as a singular, secular, and exclusively European phenomenon, the four papers collectively argue for a plural, dialogical, and multi-religious understanding of Enlightenment. By bringing together Jewish, Muslim, and Christian intellectual engagements with Enlightenment under Ottoman and post-Ottoman rule, the panel highlights the Middle East as an active site of knowledge production, critique, and epistemic negotiation. At the core of the panel lies a shared concern with how intellectuals working within religious frameworks engaged with Enlightenment ideas. Across confessional boundaries, these figures confronted similar dilemmas: how to reconcile inherited forms of religious authority with emerging regimes of reason, science, and history; how to reform communal life without epistemic subordination; and how to articulate notions of progress that could preserve moral authority and social cohesion in a rapidly changing imperial and global order.

Papers:

Panel description: Contemporary approaches and contributions to the field of philosophy of religion can be presented. The issue of the overall EuARe conference "(In)equalities" can be addressed regarding its relevance in and for philosophical study of religion. Of particular interest are contributions which attempt to reconstruct and reorient philosophy of religion considering contemporarily relevant philosophical challenges. The panel also welcomes papers that propose new methodological approaches and studies in the field of philosophy of religion broadly construed. This panel is organized in cooperation with the European Society for Philosophy of Religion (ESPR).

Papers:

Panel description: This Author Meets Critique panel engages with Paolo Santangelo's Facets of the Self in Early Modern China: Escape from Authoritarian and Moralistic Predicaments (Cambria Press, Amherst-New York, 2025). The book examines how Confucian moral discourse, religious thought, and political authority interacted in shaping — and contesting — moral hierarchies, social inequalities, and individual subordination from the late Ming to the early Qing. Challenging the view of Confucianism as an exclusively communitarian and hierarchical tradition, Santangelo reconstructs a vibrant intellectual landscape in which thinkers reassessed key oppositions such as collective interest (gong 公) and private interest (si 私), governance by virtue (dezhi 德治) and governance by law (fazhi 法治), ritual conformity and moral conscience. Central to this reconfiguration is the rehabilitation of emotions (qing 情) and desires (yu 欲), traditionally distrusted, as morally meaningful forces capable of grounding a more autonomous yet socially embedded self.By foregrounding figures such as Li Zhi, Wang Yangming, Dai Zhen, Yuan Mei, and Huang Zongxi, the book shows how critiques of Confucian orthodoxy and moralistic paternalism exposed the use of religious-ethical norms to legitimize inequality and authoritarian control, while also providing resources for dignity, moral equality, and resistance. Religion thus emerges as an ambivalent force, simultaneously reinforcing and challenging unequal moral and political orders. The panel aims to explores how Confucian ethical frameworks contributed to debates on (in)equality, authority, and moral governance, and how these debates resonate with contemporary discussions on religion's role in sustaining or contesting social and political inequalities. With Paolo Santangelo present as author, the discussion will be led by Riccardo Pozzo (Università di Roma 2, Tor Vergata) and Maurizio Paolillo (Università di Napoli, L'Orientale).

Papers:

Panel description: Across religious traditions, gender has functioned as a central axis through which systems of authority, normativity, and social hierarchy have been articulated, contested, and transformed. Theologies, legal frameworks, ritual practices, and symbolic imaginaries have historically both legitimized gendered inequalities and, in certain contexts, provided resources for their critique and reconfiguration. This panel aims to explore how gender (in)equalities are constructed, maintained, and negotiated within diverse religious systems, examining both classical formulations and contemporary reinterpretations. Bringing together comparative, historical, theological, and anthropological perspectives, the panel invites contributions that analyse gender as a site of tension between tradition and change. Attention will be given to how sacred texts, doctrinal discourses, jurisprudential traditions, and ritual practices shape gender roles, access to religious authority, and embodied religious experience. At the same time, the panel seeks to highlight internal debates, reformist movements, and feminist, womanist, and queer theologies that challenge inherited hierarchies and propose alternative hermeneutical and ethical frameworks. By situating gender within broader discussions of power, embodiment, and social inequality, this panel aims to foster critical dialogue on the ways religions both reflect and actively participate in the production of gendered (in)equalities. Contributions may address one or more religious traditions or adopt a comparative or transdisciplinary approach, offering insights into how religious thought and practice continue to shape—and be reshaped by—contemporary struggles for gender justice.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel takes Re-membering Medusa as a critical lens through which to rethink contemporary spirituality from radical and intersectional perspectives. Its point of departure is the 2012 initiative Medusa's Head Has Been Restored, an international ritual performed by groups of contemporary Witches, which sought to reclaim Medusa from centuries of patriarchal demonization and epistemic violence, reframing the Gorgon as a figure of female power, rage, and resistance within Goddess and alternative spiritual milieus. Over the past decade, Medusa's meanings have further evolved. Increasingly, she has been mobilized not only as a feminist symbol but as an intersectional one, invoked to address embodied difference, marginalization, trauma, queerness, racialization, and disability in spiritual, mythic, and ritual contexts. Her figure thus serves as a powerful prototype for examining how other mythic, saintly, or archetypal personas are similarly reworked within contemporary spiritualities to contest gender essentialism, challenge binary cosmologies, and articulate more complex configurations of power and identity. Moving beyond polarized academic readings of alternative spirituality as either empowering and feminist or conservative and essentialist, this panel invites contributions that explore how gender, sexuality, race, and embodiment are negotiated within contemporary spiritual practices and discourses. Drawing on religious studies, intersectionality, gender studies, and critical myth studies, we focus on "re-membering" as both an act of remembrance and a practice of reassembling fragmented bodies, histories, and subjectivities. By centering Medusa as a dynamic and contested emblem, the panel highlights contemporary spirituality as a key site for the rearticulation of intersectional imaginaries, where myth, politics, and lived experience converge in ways that call for renewed scholarly attention.

Papers:

Panel description: The normative history of modernity begins with the Renaissance and the invention of linear perspective in order to emphasize the placing of man, instead of God, at the center of the world. The vanishing point of linear perspective gives the world to be seen from the perspective of the single right eye of a singular subject, and it is this perspective that inspired Descartes' optics and his isolated cogito as the prime example of modern subjectivity. This book will return to the invention of linear perspective in order to seek another interpretation of linear perspective that might give an alternative modernity to be seen. Using the work of Renaissance theologian and mystic Nicolas of Cusa, we will trace a different genealogy, one that provides a different vision of modernity that allows the world, and the painting, to return our gaze. In elucidating the critique of the Cartesian subject by 20th century philosophers Benjamin, Heidegger, Lacan, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Marion, we will ask how modernity could be re-conceived if philosophers were to take into account the geometric vision of Nicolas de Cusa, and how his alternative vision might enable us to escape narcissism and share our world with the absolute other.

Papers:

Panel description: Christian discourse frequently declares itself in favour of equality and human liberation. Yet how authentic is this commitment? What theological, scriptural and psychological resources might be brought to its aid? This wide-ranging panel, which discusses not only theology as such, but also its biblical underwriting and its outworking in the psychology of political agents, seeks to address these, and other, questions. The premise of the panel is that conversations between these three subject areas - theology, biblical studies, and psychology - will prove fruitful for resourcing a Christian commitment to liberation. Particularly novel is our inclusion of psychology in the conversation. This results from a conviction that the operation of ideology at the level of thoughts, desires, and emotions is important to understand as integral to an account of how theology can promote transformation. We are interested in both explicitly religiously-inflected psychological work and in work which draws out the theologico-political implications of 'secular' psychologies. Theologically, we want to see how the major themes of Christian theology can be brought to bear on questions of liberation and equality, as well as how theology can interact with other disciplines to this end. Biblically, insights concerning the text and historical context of biblical writings, as well as ones about the reception history and contextual reading of those writings, well help to situate our questions within Christian communities understood as reading communities. Submissions would be welcome on theology, biblical studies or psychology - as these subjects relate to liberation and equality. Alternatively, submissions dealing with the intersection of two or more of these subject areas would be particularly welcome.

Papers:

Panel description: Language is exhausted both in the sense of those forms of speech that are tired or worn out by over-use, as well as in the apophatic sense where representation cannot continue, it fails. Any theological or philosophical language regarding suffering reaches its limits when confronted with its concrete applicability. Among the limits of applicability are the challenges of representing different types of precarity, vulnerability, and inequality, while respecting the Other's affective agency. The Other stands before the theologian as other. What relational responsibilities might frame theologian's engagement with the suffering of others? Shaped by these responsibilities, what kind of language should theologians use, if any, in these discourses? The panel will explore how narratives, biblical dialogues, poetry, and other artistic media interrogate their own representational limitations around suffering. We invite theological and philosophical contributions that address the ethical and epistemic limitations of representation, drawing on the insights of trauma studies, critical and literary theory, and the arts.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel invites papers that examine inequality in the contemporary Catholic Church from a wide range of theological perspectives. While Catholic theology affirms the equal dignity of all persons, inequalities persist in how authority is exercised, how experiences are recognized as theologically meaningful, and how inclusion and marginalization are negotiated within ecclesial life. The panel is anchored by contributions that approach inequality as a theological and hermeneutical problem rather than merely a sociological one. Existing papers engage questions such as the theological status of Christian experience in responding to social inequality; the interpretation of bodily difference, particularly intersex embodiment, within Catholic theological anthropology; and the role of Catholic media in shaping the reception of magisterial authority during the pontificate of Pope Francis. We warmly welcome papers addressing other dimensions of inequality in the contemporary Catholic Church, including but not limited to: authority and dissent, poverty and economic injustice, gender and sexuality, race and colonial legacies, global Catholicism, synodality, media and power, participation in ecclesial structures, and the reception of doctrine in diverse contexts. By fostering dialogue across methodologies and themes, the panel aims to contribute to constructive theological reflection on inequality, authority, and justice in the life of the Church today. This panel is organized on behalf of the Young Curatorium of the European Society for Catholic Theology.

Papers:

Panel description: The Thomistic tradition is currently experiencing a revival within philosophy and theology. However, recent developments within artificial intelligence raise questions about the nature of cognition, abstract thought, artifacts, the soul, and the notion of imago Dei that seem to challenge Thomistic conceptions and favor materialist stances. For example, assuming that AI agents will eventually outperform human beings in most areas, would it still be intellectually viable to hold that artificial intelligence is merely a simulacrum of intelligence and that artificial agents lack true insight and understanding? Can the Thomistic view that abstract thought requires an immaterial medium (a rational soul) be sustained? Is the Aristotelian-Thomistic dichotomy between "natural substances" and "artifacts" able to account for the nature of potentially superintelligent AI-agents? How is the relationship between AI-agents and their human creators to be conceived, and to what extent will the AI-revolution force us to reconceive what it means to be created in the image of God? These questions concern human uniqueness and have social consequences regarding agency, autonomy, and the future of work. Human dignity and equality need to be reestablished in relation to a social life that includes increasingly competent simulations of human rationality and creativity. The panel is dedicated to discussing whether the Thomistic tradition, broadly understood, offers valuable insights for Christian reflections on the ontological, anthropological, and social implications of AI, or whether Thomism is of limited use due to its Aristotelian background, especially as regards natural sciences and technology.

Papers:

Panel description: The God of justice and peace stands with the whole Creation, human and non-human, that are vulnerable and have suffered the injustices of human greed. In a time marked by common ecological challenges that affect all peoples and all religious traditions —Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Indigenous spiritualities—, we seek interreligious theological and ecumenical reflections on human responsibility toward the just community with the "neighbours" (Luke 10:25-37), human and non-human creation that are today being wiped up at risk through extinction, degradation, and pollution from human overexploitations. The contemporary global crises are reflected in outrageous inequalities of access to natural resources and widespread lack of respect to existential rights for the overall Creation. The eco-justice crisis is the defining moral and spiritual challenge of our time. Climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation and widening economic inequalities demand not only technological or political responses but mainly theological, ethical and interreligious engagement. These crises call for shared responses grounded in dialogue, solidarity and collaborative action across traditions. This open panel invites papers that explore how interreligious and ecumenical theologies can respond to the urgent need for eco-justice - justice that embraces the integrity of creation, the dignity of all beings and the flourishing of all communities. We particularly welcome contributions that show religious pathways to solve universal eco-justice challenges and inequalities. We, representatives from the World Council of Churches (WCC), the Ecological Theology and Environmental Ethics (ECOTHEE) and the European Christian Ecotheology Research Network (ECErN) invite theologians, activists, policymakers, and scientists, to contribute to this vital conversation at the intersection of faith, ecology, and justice.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel invites scholars to explore the notion of bio-egalitarianism among humans, animals, and plants, as well as non-anthropocentric ethical approaches to life, in the context of traditional and modern religiosity. The philosophical dynamic between humanity, nature, and the divine has been debated since Spinoza's formulation of Deus sive Natura. However, in contemporary scholarship, the academic exploration of religious environmentalism is often traced back to Lynn White's article in Nature, titled The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis (1967). White argues that ecological degradation was caused by the anthropocentric and instrumentalist evaluation of nature, attributed to Christian doctrine. While White's paper sparked decades of critique, the discourse generated by his essay highlighted the need to explore new moral frameworks in religion that could shift the relationship between humans and other species in a less anthropocentric direction. Today, religious environmental ethics is a recognized multidisciplinary field, represented by researchers such as Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Allen Grim, among others, engaging questions such as: • How can religious traditions relate to contemporary ideas such as environmentalism or conservationism? • What historical and exemplary (textual or ritual) evidence indicates bio-egalitarian or non-anthropocentric narratives within religious traditions? • How do contemporary religious specialists, influential figures, and their communities respond to ecological crises and the ethics of non-human life? • How does religious practice adapt and transform in the light of new socio-environmental challenges, such as ecological degradation, consumerism, and capitalism? This panel welcomes scholars from all disciplines to contribute their findings and research relating to one or more of these themes.

Papers:

Panel description: Extensive scholarly work on Nicholas of Cusa only began in earnest with the Cusanus renaissance of the nineteenth century. Originally centered in Tubingen, this work culminated with the Heidelberg edition of Cusa's Opera omnia initiated under Raymond Klibansky's editorial guidance in 1932. This project was only completed in 1982, long after Klibansky had moved to McGill University. Along with the publication of the important work Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance in 1927 by Klibanky's colleague Ernst Cassirer, this set the frame of reference for subsequent accounts of Cusa's reception in terms of a debate on the appropriateness of applying medieval or modern categories to Cusa. While Cusa's thought is perpetually innovative in anticipating both contemporary philosophical and theological debates, this innovation is tied directly to an intensive retrieval of ancient Greek philosophy. His influence on subsequent thought is both wide-ranging and extensive—ranging across German Idealism, neo-Kantianism and French phenomenology—but this influence is not always easy to track and quantify in precise terms. In this panel, we propose to explore the problematic of 'reception' in Cusanus' philosophy. This panel will therefore address the question of reception in Nicholas of Cusa from three interrelated angles: (i) Cusa's own reception of ancient Greek philosophy, especially Plato and Aristotle in light of his Medieval/Renaissance context; (ii) the nineteenth century retrieval of Cusa and how this has shaped the subsequent assessments and re-assessments of Cusa's thought and debates surrounding its historical location; (iii) ongoing or possible applications of Cusa's work to novel philosophical works and contexts. Re-thinking the concept of reception both in and for Nicholas of Cusa's work will aid us in moving past impasses in the scholarship, as well as underscore the growing significance of Cusa's work.

Papers:

Panel description: In 2025, the new established European Christian Ecotheology Research network (ECErN), in collaboration with the World Council of Churches (WCC), the VID university and other ecumenical institutions, have initiated the process of making Ecotheology as academic discipline in an international conference involving many theologians from all over the world. This panel on "Ecotheology in the World Religions" explores the capacities of ecotheology as an academic discipline and theological perspectives of diverse faiths to promote ethical frameworks and ecological responsibilites that intercept with global injustices. As the world grapples with climate change, environmental degradation, and social inequality, ecotheology in all religious traditions have an important role to play in fostering more equitable and sustainable communities. This panel will examine ecotheological principles in creation care, theology of justice, ecumenical collaboration and eco-spiritual practices across Christian traditions and Indigenous spiritualities. The panel aims at the capacity of ecotheology to inspire both personal and collective actions for just community. Participants may investigate how each tradition's sacred texts, rituals, and ethical teachings guide their followers to rethink human interaction with the earth, prioritize creation care, and advocate for vulnerables communities disproportionately affected by eco-injustices. This open panel seeks to bridge religion and science, faith and action, offering concrete strategies for religious communities to lead in the transformation towards a more just and sustainable world. The discussions will offer insights into how ecotheology not only enhances ecological awareness but also promotes social justice, economic equity, and cultural healing in a rapidly changing world. The panel will highlight ecotheology as a catalyst discipline for building sustainable and spiritually enriched communities.

Papers:

Panel description: Across Europe, confessional theology occupies a contested place within public universities. Historically grounded in Wissenschaft, it now operates within arrangements involving state authorities, religious communities, and public funding. This panel invites papers addressing the question: under what institutional, epistemic, and political conditions can Jewish theology plausibly function as a scientific discipline within democratic systems of public knowledge? Public universities shape epistemic legitimacy, transparency, accountability, and academic freedom through governance structures, appointment procedures, curricular authority, and funding within a system of public knowledge. In addition to three invited papers, the panel is open to solicit fresh perspectives. We welcome submissions engaging this question with particular attention to the institutionalization of Jewish theology at the University of Potsdam (2013) as an analytically illuminating case. The panel aims to include graduate students and early-career scholars, alongside established scholars. We welcome papers that address, for example: (1) Conceptual foundations — whether "Jewish theology" is a coherent category, and how it relates to Jewish studies. (2) Institutional and normative questions — whether "Jewish theology" is better situated within a public university or in rabbinical seminaries/independent institutes, and the trade-offs this entails for academic freedom, confessional integrity, professional formation, and public accountability. (3) Comparative case studies — contrasting Potsdam with rabbinical seminaries and Jewish academic institutions elsewhere (in Europe and beyond). (4) Analytically framed studies of Potsdam's crisis since 2022 — focusing on governance, legitimacy, integrity norms, and public trust, rather than adjudicating personal responsibility or institutional failures. Submissions from STS, Jewish studies, philosophy, law, political theory, and history are welcome.

Papers:

Panel description: This proposal offers three closed panels and one open one that reconsider relationships between authority, hierarchy and governance within contemporary theologies of presbyteral ordination in the Catholic Church as it functions in the world and offers a voice of a moral authority in its championing of human dignity. At the same time, the Catholic Church maintains a commitment to essentialising theologies of difference in relation to its understanding of baptismal dignity and ordained authority. Therefore, the Church has provided some of the most trenchant and far-ranging critiques of inequality across the globe, while also carrying the profound legacy of its past implication in colonial projects that generated the vastly unequal global present. How should presbyteral priesthood in the Catholic Church be understood theologically in the light of this complex past and present? The Second Vatican Council reframed Catholic ecclesiology to focus on the shared reality of Baptism, insisting that all Catholics were equally called to holiness and to participate in the prophetic priesthood of Christ - an awareness would soon develop into the various, manifold ministries in which the people of God work out this call to follow Christ as members of his body. That same Council, however, did not offer an account of presbyteral ministry commensurate with this significant reframing. These panels seek to consider how Catholic theologians might offer generative theologies of the priesthood for the 21st century, taking the implications of Vatican II into the era of the Synodal Church. Each panel will consider a key issue from both an inside and outside perspective, considering how priesthood can be understood from within traditional sources of authority, and from outside of them.

Papers:

Panel description: Inequalities within religious institutions and societies are often paralleled or perpetuated through interfaith dialogues where certain groups, themes, priorities, or identities are marginalised, silenced, or under-represented. Think, for example, of the still marginal role of many women at the institutional levels of interfaith dialogues; the failure to include atheists; or the lack of ethnic and class diversity in many interfaith groups. Most glaringly, many interfaith dialogues are dominated by the most liberal representatives of faith and ideological systems, often skewing its focus, representation, aims, and effectiveness. Sometimes, these issues are unaddressed or not even seen as issues. But there are also brave and creative initiatives, trailblazers, public events, and texts that demand deeper inclusivity or seek to address these inequalities. Interfaith dialogues of life initiatives may also focus on working for greater equity, fairness, and justice through societal, cultural, legal, creative, and economic actions. In this panel, organised by Dublin City University's Centre for Interreligious Dialogue, abstracts are invited on the following interrelated topics: • Inequalities unaddressed or maintained through interfaith dialogues, including but not limited to: racial, economic, class, gender, social, and educational identities • Examples of interfaith dialogue initiatives and trailblazers who address societal and other types of inequalities • Sub topics can include (but is not limited to!) the following: a. Women and Interfaith Dialogue b. The Working Class and Interfaith Dialogue c. Disability and Interfaith Dialogue d. Race and Interfaith Dialogue e. Interfaith Dialogue and Youth f. Interfaith Dialogue and Traditional/Evangelical/Conservative Believers g. Interfaith Dialogue and Atheists h. Interfaith Dialgue and Indigenous Faiths

Papers:

Panel description: This panel features papers that are part of a special issue intended for the _Quaderni di storia religiosa medievale_. The issue intends to expand scholars' understanding of the function, purpose, and importance of norms and discipline within the administration of ecclesiastical communities and hierarchies. It also aims to expand scholars' perspective on what is relevant to and included within the concepts of law and normativity in the Christian religion, pushing historians to ponder these concepts as inclusive of but expanded beyond the confines of monastic Rules on the side of religious orders and synodal statutes on the side of dioceses and parishes. The issue encourages studies of these important sources but asks contributors to think about the significance and application of them, particularly in relationship to specific dioceses, parishes, communal religious communities, anchoritic communities, or in specific regions, or within specific orders. The issue also asks scholars to explore mechanisms, rationales, and practices for maintaining order and disciplining erring members or subordinates that might not be expressed in formal written rules but leave evidence in other kinds of historical source material. In short, this panel investigates law and normativity in medieval religion.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel invites contributions that critically examine the dark side of contemporary spirituality, focusing on situations in which religious commitment, spiritual practices, and charismatic authority become sources of harm rather than meaning or ethical guidance. Challenging idealized representations of spirituality, the panel addresses pathological dynamics emerging within religious groups and movements. We explore phenomena such as spiritual abuse, toxic leadership, coercive control, moral manipulation, symbolic violence, and high-demand religious environments, with particular attention to how authority is constructed and legitimized through religious language, ritual practices, and moral narratives. The panel is especially interested in cognitive, discursive, and embodied mechanisms that sustain dependency, guilt, fear, or silence. Contributions may address charismatic and entrepreneurial leadership, the economization of faith, narratives of disillusionment and exit, post-membership identity reconstruction, and processes of healing and resistance after leaving harmful religious contexts. The panel also foregrounds comparative and cross-cultural perspectives, alongside methodological reflections on researching sensitive topics, insider-outsider dynamics, and ethical challenges in the study of religious mediated suffering. Contributions are expected to be empirically grounded, theoretically informed, and interdisciplinary.

Papers:

Panel description: If, following Wittgenstein, we define religions as different forms of life that are normative and obligatory for human practice, the question arises as to how dialogue between them is possible. The liberal form of life in the European Union is characterised by values such as respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. The European liberal way of life requires that freedom of thought, conscience, and religion be protected and established as a forms of life. This also includes the right to change or reject one's religion, as well as the right to express beliefs publicly or privately through worship, teaching, practice, and observance. In this connection, we will analyse the problems that arise in the EU and compare them with those in China and East Asia, consider the similarities and differences, and examine the possibilities for exchanging experiences. If one of the fundamental features of religion is the confrontation with one's own contingency, then, in this context, the question of dialogue among different religious forms of life arises.

Papers:

Panel description: This book consists of an English and a German part. All presentations have also been translated into German, but in case of doubt the English version applies. The PowerPoint slides for the presentations in which the speaker used this medium are shown between the two parts. The contributions in this book originate largely from the two panels organized by the Research for Interfaith and Intercultural Harmony (RIIFH.com) of „Christians in Need" at the 8th annual conference of the European Academy of Religions (EuARe). RIFFH has set itself the goal of using the concrete experiences of the grassroots work of Christians in Need (cin.international) to provide suggestions for improving the success of academic dialog between religions. Academic work can only be of benefit to global society if it is also connected to the concrete living conditions of religious people. A dialog in the ivory tower will not be effective. Therefore, the two panels that RIIFH contributed to the success of the EuARe conference in Vienna from July 8-12, 2025 are a central contribution to the success of interreligious dialog. The unsettled global society, driven by violence and the return of fundamentalism, is facing a paradigm shift. Organizations such as the UN and the OSCE are being put to the test. Dialogue and diplomacy are repeatedly silenced by violence.

Papers:

Panel description: Dorothee Sölle was one of the most influential voices in 20th-century liberation theology. Known for her radical political theology, she fought for a world free from economic and military oppression. Her writings continue to inspire Christians around the globe to challenge structures of injustice and to envision a life rooted in solidarity, hope, and care for the victims of capitalist markets. Sölle herself, however, came from a privileged European background and never denied how deeply she was shaped by the liberal and bourgeois education of her childhood. Her theological work is full of references to classic authorities of modern German theology and philosophy. Not least because of this, her texts convey a strong sense of normativity based on a fixed value system that might today introduce new forms of inequality. For instance, one may ask whether Sölle's appeal to emancipatory ideals creates new boundaries—between higher and lower educated milieus, or between more idealistic and progressive versus more materialistic and conformist ways of life. The title of our panel points to this potential tension. How can traditional ("old-European") patterns of normativity coexist intellectually with a theology for marginalized communities—both in Sölle's work and more broadly? Is Sölle the right theologian today to integrate perspectives from groups who are not used to academic reflection into theology? Where do problematic biases appear in her theology? And how tolerant is her thought? We invite contributions that engage with, but are not limited to, the following themes: • The theological foundations of equality in Sölle's work • Open and hidden patterns of inequality in her thought • Sölle's critique of capitalism, patriarchy, and authoritarianism—its scope and authenticity • Theory and practice of Political Theology (opportunities, ambiguities, and challenges today) • Contemporary relevance of Sölle's feminist and liberation theology

Papers:

Panel description: The human mandate to rule over the earth within the Abrahamic religions has produced ambivalent and often highly problematic outcomes. In the Jewish and Christian creation narratives, this mandate has often been interpreted as an archetypal justification for human superiority and the exploitation of nature and animals. In Islam, the concept of ḫalīfa, which positions humans as God's representatives, can similarly give rise to tension-laden interpretations. Such selective readings of sacred texts continue to shape contemporary human-nature and human-animal relationships in ways fundamentally marked by hierarchy and inequality. Over the past few decades, the call to "subdue" has often been reinterpreted as "taking responsibility", implying a more respectful approach in regards to the non-human (or: more-than-human) world. However, responsibility is also an ambigue concept and its interpretation can perpetuate the inequality between humans and animals in certain respects. For instance, responsibility is frequently invoked as an argument for human superiority. This panel, hosted by the DFG network "Related in the face of God. The Human-Animal Relationship in Interreligious Perspective", explores the addressed ambiguity. It features contributions that revisit, question, or reimagine the notions of dominion, ḫalīfa and responsibility in light of insights from human-animal studies, recent developments in animal ethics, and the growing impact of the Anthropocene discourse. We will discuss questions such as: Are there religious resources for a responsible relationship with non-human animals? Does framing humans as "responsible" risk reinforcing hierarchies? Is it necessary to move away from these traditions, can they be creatively reinterpreted, or is it worthwhile to revisit overlooked texts? In how far does the idea of the human being as the image of God function as a potential source for repentance or rather as a pitfall for the exploitation of our common home?

Papers:

Panel description: This proposed panel will convene an Author Meets Critique session on the recently published book Heaven Has a Wall: Religion, Borders, and the Global United States (University of Chicago Press, 2025) by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd. In this timely and provocative book, Hurd argues that borders function as sacred objects in American public life, sustained by what she calls a bipartisan "border religion." Through concepts such as reverence for national security, a liturgy of immigration, and an eschatological foreign policy, Heaven Has a Wall reframes contemporary debates over US borders by revealing their religious dimensions. Borders, she argues, offer a window onto unexplored political and religious dimensions of the American national project. The interdisciplinary panel will bring together scholars from religious studies, political theory, international relations, and migration studies to critically engage with Hurd's core arguments. Interlocutors will examine how the book reshapes understandings of secularism, sovereignty, civil religion, and U.S. global power, as well as its implications for the study of religion beyond the focus on belief or institutions. The author will respond to the discussants' commentaries, reflecting on the book's interventions, its main stakes, and future directions for research on religion in national and international politics.

Papers:

Panel description: The religious element is an integral part of the current cultural and ethical public debates conducted on the conservative-liberal "front line". One of the spaces that most faithfully capture these discussions is the media. Their research is therefore particularly meaningful when observing various aspects of current conceptual and ideological disputes. Quantitative and qualitative media analyses can focus on texts, institutions, creators and audiences and can use, for example, methods of frame, argumentation, attribution, etc. theories. The findings can then be deepened in individual in-depth interviews and focus groups, or in questionnaire surveys on numerically rich samples. In our section, we welcome a variety of contributions based on media material and contributing to answering some current questions, e.g.: - what are the current argumentative disputes between conservatives and liberals; - how emotions are handled in these discussions; - how language, especially expressive language, is handled; - what are the psycho-social causes of conservative and liberal attitudes; - what contributes to the deepening of polarization; - what role religious faith plays in these disputes; - what is the position of religious argumentation in the public space at present... These questions (implicitly) include the issue of (in)equality, because equality is one of the basic starting points of contemporary progressivism, and conservatism (relying on the Christian religion) argues against its misunderstanding with harmful consequences for the (long-term/eternal) well-being of the individual.

Papers:

Panel description: The purpose of this panel is to bring together recent research findings on the relationship between Catholicism and politics in 20th-century Ibero-America, with the aim of highlighting conjunctures, agencies, and conflicts that allow for a historical understanding of the various dimensions of the link between Catholicism, the public sphere, and the State. The Ibero-American continent offers a particularly fruitful context for analyzing the interplay between religion and politics, due to the role played by ultramontane Catholics in the first half of the century, the emergence of liberation theology that led many Catholics to participate in the revolutionary ferment of the 1960s and 1970s, and the proliferation of dictatorships, which placed the Catholic field at the crossroads of legitimizing regimes or opposing them. Likewise, the transitions to democracy saw national Catholic Churches assume a leading role, especially in disseminating the Catholic concept of reconciliation. The panel seeks to foster dialogue among papers addressing these different stages in order to better understand the role of religion in the Ibero-American public sphere. Accordingly, the following axes of discussion are proposed: 1. Catholicism and Dictatorships 2. Processes of Reconciliation and Political Transitions from a Catholic Perspective 3. Catholic Agents and the Public Sphere: Circulation and Controversies 4. Catholic Intellectuals: Concepts and Contingencies

Papers:

Panel description: Christian atheism designates a paradoxical constellation within the history of Western thought in which central Christian motifs - incarnation, kenosis, death, and resurrection - are reinterpreted without recourse to a transcendent, metaphysical God. The panel aims to explore the historical depth and philosophical transformations of this constellation. Its genealogy reaches back to early Christian sources: patristic reflections on divine kenosis (Phil 2), negative theology in authors such as Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius, as well as radical interpretations of the Deus absconditus. Medieval and early modern developments—ranging from Meister Eckhart to Luther's theology of the cross—further destabilize classical theism by emphasizing divine self-withdrawal, suffering, and finitude. In modern philosophy, these motifs are systematically reworked. Hegel's speculative theology interprets the death of God as an immanent moment of absolute spirit, thereby inaugurating a post-transcendent reading of Christianity. The early Left Hegelians radicalize this move by translating theological contents into anthropological and political categories. Alexandre Kojève's existential reading of Hegel foregrounds finitude, negativity, and historical finality, while contemporary thinkers such as Slavoj Žižek explicitly articulate an "atheistic Christianity" centered on incarnation without divine remainder, emphasizing loss, abandonment, and the ethical consequences of God's death. The open panel invites contributions from philosophy, theology, religious studies, and related disciplines that investigate these trajectories, tensions, and reinterpretations. By situating contemporary debates within a long historical arc, the panel seeks to clarify whether Christian atheism represents a culmination of theological self-critique, a transformation of religious meaning, or a distinctive mode of post-metaphysical thought.

Papers:

Panel description: Work-related migration is one of the key fault lines in contemporary debates on religion and (in)equality. Across Europe, political and public discourses oscillate between the perceived economic necessity of labor migration and concerns about its social consequences. At the same time, work-related migration is a global phenomenon: migration routes connect European contexts with regions across the world, shaped by colonial histories, post-Cold War transformations, and current efforts to address labor shortages. This panel examines work-related migration from two complementary perspectives: first, the role of religious actors as agents, institutions, and stakeholders in labor migration; second, the critical ethical, theological, and philosophical reflections on migration and work found within religious traditions. Historically as well as today, religious actors play a significant role in labor migration. In the field of health care, for example, Christian missionary organizations were involved in providing medical services in destination countries, producing figures that have been both admired and critically debated, such as Mother Teresa or Albert Schweitzer. In contemporary Europe, religious organizations remain major public actors through their involvement in health care infrastructures, including hospitals and nursing homes. As such, they are directly implicated in strategies of recruiting migrant workers and must position themselves within broader political, ethical, and economic frameworks. Beyond institutional involvement, religious traditions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam offer long-standing and ongoing reflections on migration, work, justice, and inequality. These traditions provide normative resources that engage questions of power, vulnerability, responsibility, and postcolonial entanglements, and that can critically inform current debates on work-related migration.

Papers:

Panel description: Following the religious turn in International Relations (IR), several people and organisations have argued for more religious literacy or even cross-cultural religious literacy. But it might be necessary to go a step further. Our current world of international politics is full of religious expressions, incidents, and religion is often instrumentalized and weaponized. On the other hand, on average, four in every five people across the globe hold to some sort of belief system and the religious turn came about because people realised religion matters. Religious literacy helps us understand our religious world, by tapping into the religious drives and motivations of people and political systems. Yet approaching religion as one more sociological factor or as a personal preference often ignores the deeper transcendent assumptions being claimed. How to understand why President Putin of Russia sees himself as a katechon if one doesn't know what this means? What to do when religion is used as political leverage; when religious rhetoric enters conversations and negotiations? When is religion not really being religion? Apart from the knowledge that helps us understand the world, we need ways of discerning how to navigate it. Perhaps we need to move towards "theological literacy", to help uncover deeper assumptions and reintroduce the transcendent into IR. In this panel we explore this concept in more detail and welcome practical examples and cases.

Papers:

Panel description: The rapid technological transformations driven by artificial intelligence (AI), neurotechnology, and transhumanist visions of the future are profoundly reshaping our understanding of personhood, soul, responsibility, and community. These developments challenge traditional Islamic theological frameworks while simultaneously opening up new avenues for rethinking human existence in light of divine creation and ethical responsibility. This panel brings together scholars from theology, ethics, and religious education to explore how Islamic thought can respond to these paradigm shifts. The papers address the intersections between technological enhancement of human body, tech-driven social and political transformations in Muslim communities, moral agency, and Islamic theology;probing questions such as: What does it mean to be human in an age of algorithmic autonomy? How can Islamic ethics engage with technologies of self-optimization and enhancement? What are the socio-political implications of digital age for the Muslim societies? And what role does religious education play in fostering digital and moral literacy in a world increasingly shaped by machines? By integrating systematic-theological reflection with ethical, medical, and pedagogical perspectives, the panel aims to reposition Islamic theology as a vital voice in global debates on transhumanism and the Anthropocene. It seeks to highlight the potential of Islamic responsibility ethics and educational practice as resources for navigating a technologically saturated future and for shaping ethically grounded Muslim engagements with emerging technologies in Europe and beyond.

Papers:

Panel description: The intersection of law, politics, and religion has long shaped the religious landscape of Europe. Law is involved in two ways: the law by which a state regulates religion, and the internal law by which religious communities organize themselves. With regard to the first, it was historically developed in alignment with dominant churches, reflecting the cultural and political hegemony of established religious traditions. However, in the age of migration, these legal systems are increasingly confronted with the challenge of accommodating and embedding new and diverse religious communities. With regard to the second, the question is which legal structures a religious community provides for immigrant members and how they relate to the established communities. The politicization of both religion and migration has further complicated efforts to address these challenges. Political debates surrounding migration often frame religion as a site of cultural conflict, which can hinder the development of well-thought-out legal solutions. The instrumentalization of religion in political discourse risks divisions and undermines the potential for constructive dialogue between religious migrant communities, host societies, and state institutions. This panel brings together interdisciplinary perspectives from legal studies, political science, and theology to critically assess the impact of legal frameworks and religion politics on the state of migrant religious communities. We cover developments in contemporary Europe and include comparative global perspectives from different religious traditions. The panel seeks to explore pathways for fostering legal and social environments that are both inclusive and responsive to the realities of religious diversity. Thereby, the panel aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the interplay between law, politics, and religion in shaping the future of increasinlgy plural and mobile societies.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel approaches marginality as a critical reimagining of Christian existence in light of a Christological horizon. Christianity has long occupied positions of cultural dominance and institutional power, often sustained through political proximity and participation in hegemonic arrangements. Against this background, the panel aims to articulate a Christian public theology that disrupts such alignments with power. We hope to explore public theology from the margins, not as a theology emerging from socially marginalised groups, but as a mode of theological reflection shaped by non-conformity to dominant political and cultural orders, as well as to their symbolic logics. In this sense, marginality functions as a theological epistemology: a way of knowing and speaking that emerges when Christian identity is reoriented away from privilege and toward a cruciform logic marked by vulnerability and critique. Such an epistemological shift challenges dominant modes of public reasoning that rely on claims of neutrality, abstraction and institutional authority, and instead foregrounds how theological knowledge is conditioned by proximity to power. Within this framework, the panel also addresses inequality as a structural and symbolic reality that public theology must interpret and contest. Inequality is sustained not only by economic and political systems, but also by moral narratives, cultural imaginaries and religious legitimations that normalise exclusion. Public theology shaped by a reimagined, Christologically grounded marginality seeks to expose these dynamics while articulating alternative visions of public life that resist sacralised power and hegemonic religion. By bringing these perspectives into conversation, the panel contributes to debates on religion and inequalities by proposing marginality not as a sociological label, but as a critical theological stance through which Christian engagement with the public square may be ethically reconfigured.

Papers:

Panel description: The increasingly urgent concern for our Common Home in the face of the threats and dramatic effects of climate change, the destruction of biodiversity, reckless exploitation and the struggle for increasingly scarce resources such as water, soil, air, etc. is driving current philosophical and theological debates. Christian faith must re-examine its relationship to creation in light of the crises and conditions of the Anthropocene. The social, cultural and political challenges posed by the experience of an increasing threat to creation are the starting point for fundamental theological and ethical reflections on the relationship between God, humanity and the world. Any theological approach to creation is therefore always related to practice and has to do with transformation. In the perspective of an ecological theology, creation is the transforming creative impulse of God inherent in creation, which works in human actions and, in view of the responsibility incumbent on human beings as creatures and images of God, expects them to use their creativity to seek and pursue new paths that make a shared and good life on this one planet possible, bearing in mind the limits of growth and the finiteness of the Earth. However, the development of a profound ecological and hermeneutical transformation in the service of life in abundance for all people and creatures will only succeed through global networking as well as interconfessional, intercultural, and interreligious engagement of theological reflection and faith practice. It concerns not only a liberating practice of sustainability, but also an eco-sensitive and decolonial reorientation of theology itself. In this sense, the panel - hosted by the Young Curatorium of the European Society for Catholic Theology (ESCT) - seeks to discuss theological and interdisciplinary perspectives from Europe and beyond, that take on this task and seek new paths of Christian faith and theology in the spirit of an integral ecology.

Papers:

Panel description: We are currently living in the Anthropocene, a time of polycrisis defined by humanity's collective self-conceit as a technologically advanced species that produces myriad environmental, social and economic injustices. As Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew says, "[t]he root cause…lies in our self-centeredness and in the mistaken order of values, which we inherit and accept without any critical evaluation…" This order of values is rooted in a neoliberal consumeristic vision of prosperity as abundance in which the vices of arrogance, greed, gluttony and indifference, rather than virtues, such as justice, prudence, or compassion, are actively promoted. This neoliberal socioeconomic system forces people worldwide to view both nature and our fellow human beings as bearing merely a utilitarian value to be exploited for pleasure or profit so, even people who engage in this system unwillingly or unknowingly are guilty of what Orthodox theologians call involuntary sin. Therefore, "What is asked of us is not greater technological skill but deeper repentance, metanoia, in the literal sense of the Greek word, which signifies fervent 'change of mind' and radical transformation of lifestyle" (Bartholomew 2009). Such a social transfiguration requires practicing a "communal asceticism" (Bartholomew 1997) that will entail cultivating nēpsis, a state of mindfulness, which can enable a recognition of how our pathological desires (pathoi) for material wealth or social status have been manipulated for profit by powerful elites who exacerbate inequalities and advance the value system at the heart of our polycrisis. Further, it requires a view of flourishing as relational rather than acquisitive and the development of socioeconomic practices rooted in a eucharistic disposition of gratitude for one another and nature so that,"the economy becomes a servant of humanity, not its master" (Bartholomew 1999)

Papers:

Panel description: Over the past several decades, the rise of digital humanities has reshaped the intellectual and technological landscape of the humanities. What began as a relatively specialized set of computational methods—often focused on text encoding and database construction—has developed into a broad interdisciplinary field encompassing digitization, data modeling, computational analysis, visualization, platform design, and public-facing scholarship. Within the study of religion, these developments have had especially significant implications. Religious texts and traditions are deeply rooted in material archives, linguistic complexity, and historically situated interpretive communities, and digital humanities approaches have transformed not only how these materials are studied but also who can access them. Yet increased availability does not automatically produce meaningful access. Digital religious materials are mediated through technical infrastructures—interfaces, metadata, encoding standards, and platform design—that shape how texts can be discovered, interpreted, and compared. These design choices often reflect scholarly priorities that may remain opaque to non-specialists, creating new forms of gatekeeping even as older barriers fall. This panel therefore asks what democratization means in the context of digital religious scholarship. Is it simply a matter of making materials freely available, or does it require deeper forms of participation and interpretive agency? How do digital tools redistribute authority among scholars, institutions, religious communities, and the public? And how might digital humanities projects be designed to promote equity, inclusivity, and sustainability rather than reproducing existing hierarchies in digital form?

Papers:

Panel description: The international project on the vocabulary of the Septuagint that is behind "The Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint" (ed. by Eberhard Bons and Daniela Scialabba, in collaboration with Anna Mambelli; 4 vols., Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020-) is close to the publication of the second volume of the lexicon, with lemmas from "delta" to "iota". This panel aims to bring together scholars that have been working on these lemmas to discuss research outcomes and selected examples of the impact of lexicographical analysis on Septuagint research, exploring both its context of origin and its early reception. The issues explored by the panel include: a) Septuagint lexicography and translation techniques; b) Septuagint vocabulary in relation to the Greek world; c) The contribution of the Septuagint to the history of the Greek language; d) The impact of Septuagint vocabulary on Jewish and early Christian authors.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel examines post-WWII Catholic assistance to former Nazi collaborators excluded from Allied relief, war criminals seeking to evade or mitigate prosecution, and displaced fascists fleeing Europe for fear of repatriation. It brings together two complementary perspectives — one focused on the Vatican's institutional engagement with postwar justice, the other on the lived religious and political negotiations between displaced fascists and their Catholic assistants — in order to address the following question: To what extent did the Church's religious and political objectives overlap with its humanitarian activities and its critique of postwar justice? Drawing on recently released archival sources, the panel shows that these assistance efforts were deeply entangled with Christian reconciliation and forgiveness, re-Christianization, anti-communism and fears of Soviet communism's expansion, the Church's competition with other Christian churches, confessional tensions, ambiguous relationships between the Vatican Secretariat of State and former Axis elites, and the prioritization of institutional reputation over retribution. These findings call into question the very nature of the Vatican's critique of the war crimes trials as forms of "victor's justice" and of the discreet operations to assist fascists on the run, offering new perspectives on Christian charity at the crossroads of material assistance, politics, and religion. By shedding light on the so-called "Vatican ratlines" and on the Vatican's critique of the postwar trials, the papers in this panel explain the Vatican's investment of charitable, diplomatic, religious, and political resources as means toward a moral reconstruction of Europe that marginalized postwar justice and accountability. By doing so, this panel demonstrates the complex entanglements between Catholic responses to the Holocaust, Catholic humanitarianism, and the shaping of postwar justice.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel engages the pioneering monograph of Peter Phan, Christianity and Migration: A Christian Theology of Migration for Our Age (Oxford University Press, 2025), which Shows the intrinsic links between migration and Christianity, reflects on the connection between migration and eschatology, and presents a new theology of God framing God the Father as the Primordial Migrant, God the Son as the Paradigmatic Migrant, and God the Holy Spirit as the Personal Power of Migration. Discussants include experts on migration and on religion and violence.

Papers:

Panel description: Our present age is characterized by a constant competition for our attention — shaped, fragmented, and directed by digital technologies, media environments, and social structures. This panel approaches the question of attention from a theological and religious studies perspectives: What constitutes attention, and to what extent can it be guided, cultivated, or controlled? Which religious practices attract or cultivate attention? How do the attention logics of algorithms reshape religious practices and experiences? What practices of attention can be identified within religious traditions — such as compassion, empathy, and (neighborly) love — and how might they offer alternative models of perceiving and responding to the world? What are the negative dimensions of attention — for example, phenomena such as attention fatigue in health care or exposure — and how do they challenge theological or ethical reflection? Finally, what role does attention play in reinforcing or challenging global inequalities? We welcome both theoretical contributions that examine attention on an abstract or analytical level and practical studies that address it in applied settings, for instance in spiritual counseling or pastoral care. We invite papers from all theological disciplines, ethics, religious studies, and related fields that investigate the relationship between religion and attention in a broad sense.

Papers:

Panel description: Since the nineteenth century and the rise of nationalism, the papacy has played an outsized role both within the international system and the internal workings of the Catholic Church. This was only heightened by post-colonialism as the nation states of the world entered into the world created by the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. Before 1900, a majority of Catholic bishops were named by some combination of local authority and historic custom within their territories. Today, the vast majority of Catholic bishops are named by Rome under the authority of the Pope. In spite of the decentralizing tendencies of episcopal collegiality as it emerged in the Second Vatican Council, the papacy under Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI became only more centralized. The Francis papacy was an effort to undermine the Roman curial bureaucracy and nonetheless was marked by a kind of personal, charismatic leadership confronting the strongmen of the post-liberal world order, especially Donald Trump. After Francis, where does this leave the papacy today? What are the lasting contributions of Francis to the self-understanding of Roman authority by Catholics, lay and leaders alike, around the world and within the Curia itself? Is the Leo papacy a return to the past and the longed-for status quo ante of so many Catholic conservatives? Or is it the consolidation of long-overdue changes stemming from the Council that had been put aside before Francis? What is the emerging role of the papacy in addressing the quasi-religious and messianic features of today's post-liberal and illiberal regimes?

Papers:

Panel description: The term "synodality" jumped onto the contemporary Catholic scene thanks to the use of the term by Pope Francis. As a concept regarding church governance, it has an ancient lineage, one inseparably tied to the exercise of ecclesiastical power. Who listens to whom, and how? What sorts of decisions can be made by whom? Most importantly, what justifies those decisions? Ecclesial policy quickly moves from the merely operational to the doctrinal and back again. Thus, "synodality" inevitably means the development of doctrine, an understanding to which John Henry Newman, proclaimed a doctor of the church on All Saints Day 2025, notably contributed. His legacy, and that of the Vincentian canon oft cited by Francis, is universally accepted within the Catholic Church. Understanding differs, however. The German and Italian synods illustrate this, as does the Latin American continental synod, the Australian Plenary Council, and, of course, the Synod of Bishops and global design behind the Synod on Synodality that culminated in the 2023 and 2024 Roman assemblies. Based on all these experiences, what can be said of synodality? How did the various processes and structures work, or not? What were the internal contradictions? How did the inevitable power struggles play out? What about long-term implications? Will there be any? Why or why not? 

Papers:

Panel description: How do the particular churches—canonically understood as dioceses and their equivalent in the Eastern Churches—relate to the "one, holy, catholic, apostolic" ecclesial reality? This is not only a question from the Council of Nicaea 1700 years ago. It is a burning question today, all the more as other Christian traditions face schism, whether between the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches, the Anglican Communion and GAFCON, or the now-disunited United Methodist Church. It is deeply connected as well to the rise of non-denominational Christians spurred on by new technologies, organizational possibilities, and political-ideological cleavages offering revolutionary new way of resourcing and communicating. The question here is about Global Catholicism, inevitably part and parcel of this larger context. What does Catholicism look like on the ground in its various instantiations? How does it hold together? What centripetal and centrifugal forces are at play in the vast network that is Global Catholicism? Is a common juridical authority, based ultimately on concepts derived from ancient Roman law, sufficient to hold together something that is no longer an imperial construct? What can we learn from stories of specific Catholic churches in specific places? What does an historically grounded geo-ecclesiological lens offer? What might that suggest for the third millennium of the Catholic Church, one characterized not by an overwhelming presence in a limited part of the world but by a moderate to significant presence all over the world? Can lessons regarding catholicity per se speak to politics and political questions at a time of fragmentation and global power vacuums rapidly being filled by players acting on naked self-interest? What about doctrine of war and of peace? If all politics is local, surely all ecclesiology is local as well. 

Papers:

Panel description: This panel examines Catholic Social Teachingas a central normative framework for interpreting equality and inequality, with particular attention to its internal tensions, historical transformations, and institutional embeddedness. Catholic social thought is grounded in the principles of human dignity, solidarity, subsidiarity, and justice, yet it has always developed in close interaction with concrete social realities, power relations, and historically constituted hierarchies. The panel explores how the normative moral reasoning of Catholic Social Teaching engages empirical social analysis. Contributions address the anthropological and moral foundations of equality, the relationship between freedom and hierarchy, the changing interpretations of poverty and structural injustice, and the transformation of war and peace ethics within CST. Special attention is given to the ways in which Catholic normative ideals encounter institutional practices, including education, ecclesial governance, legal regulation, and academic institutions. The panel welcomes historical, legal, political-theoretical, and social-scientific approaches insofar as they place Catholic Social Teaching at the center of analysis and contribute to its critical and methodological reflection. Comparative and interreligious perspectives—especially dialogue with Jewish thought—are also included where they serve to clarify the specific character, possibilities, and limits of CST. Overall, the panel aims to show how Catholic Social Teaching functions both as a critical resource for addressing social inequalities and as a historically situated discourse marked by unresolved tensions between normative ideals and social realities. In doing so, the panel contributes to the broader objectives of EuARe 2026.

Papers:

Panel description: A quanti-qualitative study has been dediocated to the 2025 Jubilee in Rome. The Jubilee of the year 2025 can be considered a "total social event", in Marcel Mauss terms. It has been studied by sociologists working in many universities: Rome, Benevento, Bologna, Caglari, Cassino, Florence, L'Aquila, Lausanne, Naples, Padua, Perugia, Trento, Trieste, Turin, Udine, Urbino; and UniCusano. The definition of "total social event" involves many methods of research, leading to explore and to analyse multiple aspects. The main works concern the quantitative study through questionnaires, the qualitative analysis trough focused interviews, the visual perspective using photos and videos, the digital research about the presence and the impact of new communication technologies, the survey on the role of nurses participating in the Jubilee together with ill and disabled people, the observant participation and other techniques to investigate the participation of prisoners and prison guards in the jubilee celebrations. Main results are the following: 1 - the Jubilee event has been successful; 2 - the international participation has been large and mixed; 3 - it has been a relevant phenomenon of religious tourism, to say a spiritual experience in a socio-cultural and aesthetic context; 4 - to travel and to pray together has been a key-feature of Jubilee pilgrimage; 5 - a spirit of joy has characterized the Jubilee pilgrims, much more than a spirit of penance; 6 - the Jubilee of the year 2025 has been a major event of popular religiosity; 7 - the Italian participation has been meaningful in terms of people coming to Rome; 8 - the official contents of Jubilee program aren't well known (indulgence, penance, pardon for the sins, life revision);

Papers:

Panel description: The geopolitical context increasingly includes the religious dimension among the decisive factors in political choices (D. Johnston - C. Sampson 1994; Cesari 2022) and the proliferation of organizations dedicated to interreligious dialogue within different traditions is further confirmation (Howard 2021; Driessen 2023; Phan-Tran 2024) of its importance, regardless of one's possible affiliation. The conciliar document Nostra Aetate (28 October 1965) led the foundations for interreligious dialogue. For the first time, other faiths are being viewed not through the category of true/false, but with fraternity, seeking to discover what unites the different traditions and what elements might be used for dialogue and coexistence. The significance of this new path immediately reveals a political face: in fact, interreligious dialogue is a tool for freeing faith from political exploitation and to overcome the social-political inequality. The knowledge of religious traditions can therefore be a way to foster public discussion, facilitating inclusion and negotiation, unmasking the prejudices that can lead to social polarization, to overcome the social-political inequality and contributing to a social cohesion that transcends affiliations (Cesari 2022; Phan-Tran 2024). At the intersection of geopolitics and interreligious dialogue, this panel explores the connection among the hermeneutics of sacred texts, political power, and eschatological visions. Specifically, it aims to highlight the questions that emerge from the interaction among the interpretation of sacred texts — which contributes to the construction of religious imaginaries — the horizon of meaning, including its ultimate destination, and political legitimacy. The goal is to acquire tools to address the complexity of this interaction, with a particular focus on inequality In this panel, organized by Georgetown University Rome Office, scholars present their reflections from different disciplinary fields.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel engages the recent monograph of Piotr Zygulski, Eschatological Unity: Findings from a Catholic-Shiʿi Experience (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), which explores the potential for eschatology to serve as a common ground for both Catholicism and Shīʿa Islam. The volume discusses the role of eschatological unity as a unifying theme in theological discourse, suggesting it as a key to examine aspects of unity within Catholic eschatology and the Shīʿī belief in the Imām Mahdī. Both discussants are scholars of Islamic studies and interfaith dialogue, including specific expertise in eschatology and mysticism.

Papers:

Panel description: The "Theologies and Practices of Religious Pluralism" project, coordinated by RESET Dialogue, set itself the task to study how religious and cultural pluralism at the local, national and global levels is challenging all religious traditions in their exclusivist "truth claims". The aim of the project's clusters was to analyze and compare how different religions respond to and come to terms with "the truth of the other." Clusters inside the project dealt with Judaism, Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodox Christianity. In this panel, the convenors of each cluster will draw on findings from their group to reflect on the question of how religious traditions practically deal with tensions that arise between the principle of individual equality and norms of community. The individual-vs.-collective binary informs many controversies inside religious traditions, and also impacts the relations between religious traditions. In response to the Annual Conference's central theme "Religion and (in)equalities", the speakers will address forms of inequality produced by religious traditions, mechanisms of mitigating inequality, and the limits and incompatibilities of theologies of equality and inequality, touching issues such as race, gender, wealth and freedom of expression.

Papers:

Panel description: Two major Christian traditions are known for having the religious experience of the Holy Spirit as the core of their spirituality. Yet, they are not ecumenically engaged as the One Church of the Holy Trinity. Recently, however, it has been suggested by Stephen J. Land and Dony K. Donev that the centrality given to the experience of the Spirit in both St. Simeon the New Theologian's Orthodox tradition and in Pentecostalism are similar. Writings of other Byzantine fathers have also been seen as close to the Pentecostal experience. Not only that, but it has been asserted that, regarding its spirituality, Pentecostalism is more Orthodox and Eastern than Catholic and Western. This panel aims to take these claims into question by opening a space where Christians from both traditions can establish an ecumenical dialogue, charism, and theology, or theologies. From the beginning, two things are fundamental to the development of this ecumenical relationship: First, Christian unity only can be achieved through the process of accepting diversity and by means of, in Ramon Panikkar words, dialogical dialogue. Second, as Wojciech Gajewski notes, "the Pentecostal movement is an exceptionally diverse, multimillion-member, and highly dynamic phenomenon." Therefore, our primary aim is to build Christian Unity, respecting the diversity and uniqueness of each tradition. For this, we will include papers exploring the religious experience of God, ontology, pneumatology, mysticism, liturgy, worship, and sacramentality.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel will explore the multifaceted ways in which religion both challenges and reproduces social inequalities in contemporary societies. Religion has historically been implicated in structures of power, privilege, and exclusion, yet it also functions as a space of resistance, solidarity, and social transformation. The panel invites contributions that critically examine how religious ideas, institutions, leadership structures, rituals, and community practices intersect with social stratification based on class, gender, race, ethnicity, caste, disability, age, and migration status. We welcome papers addressing theoretical, empirical, historical, and comparative perspectives. Possible themes include: religious legitimation of wealth and poverty; faith-based responses to instability, Christian genocide and social injustice; prosperity gospel and neoliberal economies; religion and welfare provision; religious NGOs and humanitarianism; the role of religious actors in promoting or resisting social mobility; intersections of religion with capitalism, labor, and informal economies; and how marginal religious groups experience inequality differently from dominant traditions. Special attention will be paid to voices from the Global South and minority communities, as well as to contributions that foreground decolonial, feminist, queer, or critical race approaches to the study of religion and inequality. The panel aims to foster interdisciplinary discussion among scholars of religion, sociology, anthropology, political science, education, and related fields. By examining how religion operates within unequal social orders, the panel seeks to illuminate both the reproduction of injustice and the possibilities for more equitable futures.

Papers:

Panel description: Over recent decades, the understanding and study of mixed couples, families, and unions in Europe has gained even more increasing attention, not only in the social sciences, but also in contemporary politics (Cerchiaro and Odasso 2021). Despite this growing interest, there remains a gap in comprehensive scholarship that addresses the nuanced experiences of mixedness and mixed relationships—those formed by individuals of differing racial, ethnic, or religious backgrounds—in a postcolonial European context (Collet 2017). This panel seeks to fill this gap by offering detailed accounts of how those in mixed unions navigate and reshape their relations, identities, and social expectations in contemporary Europe. Using "mixedness" as a multidimensional, contingent, context-dependent, relational, and historically (re)formed concept, this panel moves beyond traditional and binary understandings of "interracial" or "interfaith" couples, examining how "mixedness" is lived and experienced within postcolonial, and social frameworks, and how individuals in mixed relations occupy complex social positions based on different forms and grammars of difference (Collet and Santelli 2016). The panel addresses a range of themes, including the impact of history and colonial legacies on present-day experiences of mixedness, the role of antisemitism and islamophobia, and configurations of race, religion, secularity, ethnicity, and gender. It additionally brings forward the ways in which individuals in mixed relations navigate societal prejudices and norms, construct perceptions on and formations of mixedness, as well as strategies for dealing with differences. By bringing together empirical studies from the Netherlands and Belgium, and research from diverse disciplines such as anthropology, history, religious studies, and gender studies, this panel provides much-needed multifaceted perspectives and conversations on the challenges and opportunities faced by mixedness and mixed relationships.

Papers:

Panel description: The Digital Turn in Religious Studies is a shift that is nurtured by the never ending duality that presents scholars as mere technology consumers or as actors in the production of technology that are able to face the challenge of complexity (ages, cultures, languages, type of sources, type of supports, semantics) that emerges from the scientific field. The panel, promoted by RESILIENCE, the European research infrastructure for religious studies, is framed to be an open forum for all scholars who make use of advanced technologies in the study of religions. Local, national and international projects are welcome to present their research and development outputs and outcomes, to reflect on the role played by the research community in the current digital turn and to address one question: can the complexity of our field of study be a driver for technology developments that are applicable in other scientific and commercial domains?

Papers:

Panel description: This panel invites papers examining how Jesus and the origins of Christianity were conceptualized within Deism, the Enlightenment, and related seventeenth- and eighteenth-century intellectual currents, as well as the reactions and forms of reception these interpretations provoked. From early deist attempts to reconstruct Christianity as a religion of reason and natural morality to Enlightenment portrayals of Jesus as philosopher, reformer, or moral exemplar, the period witnessed a profound rethinking of both his figure and the early Christian tradition. The panel also welcomes contributions addressing the role of early modern skepticism and the Radical Enlightenment, whose more disruptive critiques challenged traditional views of revelation, miracles, scriptural authority, and the historical Jesus. The panel seeks to map the circulation and typology of writings that addressed Jesus and early Christianity within these movements, as well as the written and institutional responses they provoked from Catholic authorities, such as condemnations by the Index of Forbidden Books or interventions of the Holy Office. By tracing both the intellectual transformation and the historical reception of these interpretations, the panel explores how early modern thought negotiated the boundaries between faith and reason, belief and critique, history and myth, thereby shaping modern understandings of religion in the age of reason. The panel also aims to investigate the modes of reception and the various forms of reaction these themes elicited over time, how they were received within subsequent historiography, when key shifts occurred, and what motivations underpinned them, as well as the different ways in which such writings or topics were contested, appropriated, or reframed.

Papers:

Panel description: The historiography on Christianity has developed a solid tradition of studies on women. This approach has addressed issues such as women's roles in leadership, teaching, prophecy, and ritual, the formation of gender through theological and scriptural exegesis, and the ways female figures have been remembered, reinterpreted, or erased. Yet, as Joan W. Scott observed in 2010, many historians remain hesitant to engage fully with critical approaches to gender and sexuality, often treating "women" as a self-evident and homogeneous category rather than as a historically constructed one. Moving beyond sexual and gender binarism as the dominant interpretative framework in historical studies, this panel approaches the "feminine" as a socio-cultural construct open to critical historical inquiry. It problematizes the category, examining its origins and strategic functions in religious knowledge production, ecclesiastical authority, and communal identities. Being defined as "women" is not a neutral act. It presupposes the elaboration of attributional and citational criteria concerning what constitutes a woman and what does "female" mean; criteria that are historically situated and subject to variation. The panel asks how Christian traditions reshaped and resemanticized notions of femaleness and how these concepts were negotiated within broader cultural frameworks. Its aim is to foster an interdisciplinary, and critical discussion on what has been the role of Christianity in shaping a female gender/sex paradigm that in some ways is still ours. In doing so, it seeks to bridge women's studies, reconstructing women's roles in Christian contexts, and gender/sex studies. The feminine is thus understood not as a fixed or pre-discursive essence, but rather as a connotative, dialogically constructed one that interacts with other categories such as sanctity, martyrdom, and divinity as articulated by diverse Christian traditions across different temporal and spatial contexts.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel brings together interdisciplinary studies that illuminate the global impact of Daisaku Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai movement across the fields of interreligious dialogue, civic activism, and peacebuilding. The first paper examines Ikeda's crucial role in Buddhist-Catholic relations, situating his decades of engagement with the Holy See within the trajectory opened by "Nostra Aetate" and reaffirmed at the Vatican's 2025 anniversary event, where Soka Gakkai participated. The second contribution analyzes the newly established Fondazione Be the Hope and the exhibition Cambio io, cambia il mondo, interpreting them as contemporary expressions of Ikeda-inspired civic engagement amid the current crisis of global climate activism. A third paper explores Ikeda's sustained dialogue with Muslim intellectuals such as Majid Tehranian and Nur Yalman, as well as recent Soka Gakkai initiatives in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, highlighting the evolution from interreligious encounter to cooperative cultural and academic projects. The final study investigates Buddhist peacebuilding at the Toda Peace Institute in Tokyo, drawing on qualitative fieldwork to show how Buddhist ethical frameworks are translated into policy-relevant discourses on peace, human security, and global governance. Together, these papers demonstrate how Ikeda's humanistic Buddhism continues to shape transnational networks of dialogue and civic action, offering a robust framework for reimagining the public role of religion in an era of global uncertainty.

Papers:

Panel description: This session brings together six interdisciplinary papers that examine the contemporary resurgence of anti-cult discourse and the revival of "brainwashing" narratives across diverse cultural, legal, and political contexts. The first paper maps this global revival, tracing how transnational anti-cult networks have fueled renewed anxieties in countries as varied as Australia, Argentina, Japan, the United Kingdom, and South Korea. The second paper analyzes the Victoria (Australia) Inquiry on "cults," showing how the extension of "coercive control" to religious movements repackages discredited theories under a new legal vocabulary. A third contribution explores sacred eroticism and the mechanisms through which anti-cult rhetoric delegitimizes esoteric erotic spiritual practices, often enabling disproportionate state intervention. The fourth paper examines the French agency MIVILUDES, highlighting how its reliance on the legally codified notion of "psychological subjugation" exposes structural weaknesses in France's anti-cult model. The fifth paper offers an emic and psychological analysis of POYRA (Path of YahRa), showing how media campaigns construct stigmatizing representations that threaten religious liberty in the Czech Republic. The final paper presents the testimony of a Church of Almighty God refugee, documenting both persecution in China and the transnational extension of repression into democratic countries. Collectively, the session demonstrates how anti-cult discourse continues to shape public policy, media narratives, and legal frameworks, with a bizarre return of "brainwashing" theories scholars discredited long ago, raising urgent questions about pluralism, state power, and the protection of freedom of belief in contemporary societies.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel welcomes contributions in the field of biblical reception research that engage with scriptural passages perceived as troubling or "unfair" by contemporary Western European readers. It seeks to explore how issues of inequality—pertaining to gender, ethnicity, social status, or family relations—have been received, reinterpreted, or redeemed across the centuries. Participants are invited to draw on insights from ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary exegetical traditions, tracing how challenging texts may yield fresh resources for reflection today. Presentations of recent publications in the field are also encouraged.

Papers:

Panel description: At the outset of God as the Mystery of the World, Eberhard Jüngel declares that "narrative has its own place and time" according to faith's distinctive "structure of perception." From this claim unfolds a hermeneutical vision in which theology begins not from metaphysical first principles but from the concrete, storied expressions through which God is encountered, confessed, and interpreted. Approaching theology from narrative in this way resists the dominance of totalizing metaphysical systems while opening new possibilities for theological order and critique. This panel explores the role of narrative in hermeneutical theology as a mode of theological reasoning that operates beyond, against, or alongside classical metaphysical frameworks. Rather than treating narrative as merely illustrative, the panel investigates how narrative itself generates theological intelligibility, shaping accounts of truth, meaning, and normativity. In doing so, it examines how theology can remain critically ordered without recourse to comprehensive metaphysical architectures, and how narrative construals of faith negotiate plurality and difference within theological discourse. The panel is conceived as an open forum and invites paper proposals from a wide range of theological, philosophical, and interdisciplinary perspectives. Papers may address, but are not limited to, the following topics: • Narrative as a mode of theological rationality • Theology beyond metaphysical first principles • Narrative, history, and temporality in theological interpretation • Language, metaphor, and storytelling in theology • Theological order, plurality, and normativity without system • Narrative, power, and difference in theological traditions By bringing diverse voices and methods into dialogue, the panel aims to clarify the promise and limits of narrative as a post-metaphysical theological strategy and to foster constructive exchange across disciplinary and confessional boundaries.

Papers:

Panel description: During the pontificate of Pope Francis (°1936-2025; 2013-2025), synodality quickly emerged as a central theme and it prominently figures in his legacy. Now that his pontificate has ended, the real challenge lies in the further implementation of the 2021-2024 synod of bishops. This implementation deserves further attention because of the extent of the process and the number of important topics associated with it. As this process will take until at least 2028, it will be one of the most extensive reform processes since the Second Vatican Council. Such a process of reform, of 'synodalization' of the Church, however, raises many questions. The Final Document, e.g., calls for a "culture of transparency, accountability and evaluation". However, what this exactly entails is unclear. Moreover, these concepts can be approached in different ways depending on the theological sub-discipline from which questions are raised. In this panel, we do not focus on one specific sub-discipline, however, we do place at the center the overarching question: how can we determine, measure, or assess the synodalization of the Church? By which criteria can we see whether the Church, locally, continentally, or universally, has become or is becoming more synodal, more transparent, accountable, and evaluative? Or, to approach the question of synodalization from another angle: which practices or habits need to be reformed or reconfigured to showcase the further synodalization of the Church? This panel therefore invites submissions that (i) help to address the question of how to evaluate and understand the synodalization of the Church, (ii) attempt to either learn from concrete synodal practices in the Church or to evaluate the Church from a more systematic understanding synodality, and/or (iii) offer interdisciplinary or ecumenical approaches that contribute to an evaluation or further implementation of synodality in the Catholic Church.

Papers:

Panel description: This session explores the evolving landscape of new spiritual movements in Taiwan and the challenges they face in securing full protection of freedom of religion or belief. Through six case‑based and theoretically informed papers, the panel traces how diverse movements—ranging from the New Testament Church's Mount Zion community to Tai Ji Men—have navigated state institutions, public perceptions, and shifting legal frameworks. The opening paper situates the Mount Zion saga within a comparative perspective, showing how early tensions between the New Testament Church and Taiwanese authorities foreshadowed later conflicts involving other minority spiritual groups. Subsequent contributions examine Tai Ji Men from multiple angles: the spiritual and emotional significance of the Miaoli sacred land; the use of taxation as a tool of indirect discrimination; the relationship between equality, trust, and freedom of belief; the cultural meaning of the master-disciple tradition; and the broader implications of the case for institutional integrity and sustainable governance. Together, these papers illuminate recurring patterns—misinterpretation of spiritual practices, administrative overreach, and the fragility of institutional trust—while highlighting the resilience of Taiwan's spiritual communities. By bringing historical, legal, cultural, and interdisciplinary perspectives into dialogue, the session offers a comprehensive assessment of how Taiwan's democratic system grapples with the rights of new spiritual movements and what these cases reveal about the future of religious liberty on the island.

Papers:

Panel description: The contemporary landscape of inequality, which is marked by polarization, alienation, and conflict, can be understood as a liminal space increasingly governed by a therapeutic logic. This panel introduces the concept of a therapeutic liminal space to examine how modern societies seek to reconcile or reintegrate inequality through frameworks of identity, recognition, and validation. Drawing on philosophy, theology, and social theory, the panel explores how demands for recognition function both as a source of dignity and as a catalyst for rivalry, resentment, and division. Francis Fukuyama's Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment (2019) provides a key point of departure, framing recognition as a "master concept" that reveals both a fundamental anthropological capacity and a latent source of conflict. If recognition is itself a form of power, does it facilitate or hinder constructive dialogue in contexts of inequality, alienation, and political polarization? How might identity be reconfigured to sustain mutual recognition within therapeutic and dialogical settings, rather than reinforcing competitive or exclusionary dynamics? The panel also examines the technological and institutional conditions under which certain identities and worldviews are rendered visible and validated, while others are marginalized or suppressed. Finally, it asks whether the pursuit of full equality reshapes the ethical burdens, obligations, and possibilities of dialogue under persistent conditions of inequality. The discussion engages thinkers including Hans Blumenberg, Michel Foucault, René Girard, Edmund Husserl, Jürgen Habermas, Søren Kierkegaard, Catherine Cornille, Francis Fukuyama, Charles Taylor, and Martin Heidegger.

Papers:

Panel description: For the complete call for papers, including detailed section descriptions, guiding questions, and context, please see: https://scriptureandtheology.org/panels/2026-rome/. Without consulting the full text, proposals cannot be properly prepared. The Scripture and Theology Forum invites proposals for its 2026 program at the European Academy of Religion in Rome. The full call outlines five sections: 1. Interactions Between Biblical Studies and Theology: Methodological exchanges, mutual dependencies, and best-practice models (see full call for specific questions and publication details). 2. A History of Scripture and Theology: Three parts on premodern integration, Enlightenment-era separation, and contemporary consequences/retrievals (including precise chronological and thematic scope in the full call). 3. Scripture and Theology - Open Call: Topics and methods are specified in the full call, including examples of acceptable proposals. 4. David Ford on the Gospel of John: Closed session, participation criteria and publication plans described only in the full call. 5. Scripture, Theology, and the Advent of AI: The full call lists required foci, sample themes, and expectations for short papers. Submission requirements (abstract length, biographical note, deadlines, and word counts for potential publication) are given in detail in the full call. We welcome contributions from various fields, countries and denominations, and look forward to meet you in Rome!

Papers:

Panel description: Food is never just sustenance. It is a material practice through which religious communities establish, maintain, and contest social hierarchies. From ancient Christianity debates to colonial impositions of "Christian" diets, religious food practices have served as powerful instruments for both naturalizing inequality and imagining more egalitarian communities. This interdisciplinary panel examines how religions have shaped and been shaped by food-related forms of social differentiation across diverse historical and geographical contexts. This panel examines the relationship between religious food practices and inequality across three key areas. First, it examines the early Christian communities' use of food to negotiate social hierarchies, with ascetic diets creating spiritual distinctions. Second, it analyses modern theological views on gender and food, highlighting how dietary codes control and challenge gender inequalities. Third, it explores colonial Christianity's use of food to establish ethnic hierarchies in the Americas, subordinating indigenous foodways and imposing European norms. Throughout, the panel addresses critical questions: Who eats what, with whom, when, and how much? How do religious food practices simultaneously express ideals of equality (the "open table") while creating exclusionary boundaries? How have subaltern communities resisted food-based hierarchies through syncretism and alternative commensality? What continuities exist between ancient medical-theological discourses on diet and modern intersections of religion, nutrition, and social justice? By bringing together historical, theological, and anthropological perspectives, this panel demonstrates how the study of religious foodways illuminates broader patterns of how religions have variously reinforced and challenged specific forms of inequality: a question at the heart of understanding religion's role in contemporary society.

Papers:

Panel description: As Aristotle said, inequality can cause conflict. Conflict can also create inequalities. Socio-economic inequalities between and within states and nations provide a potentially volatile socio-political context where peace is threatened. Religions can also be treated unequally within legal jurisdictions, creating friction and tensions that threaten peace. This panel invites papers that explore the contribution of religious ideas and practices that can help to build peace in this unequal world. We are particularly interested in papers that face European and global realities seriously and offer religious perspectives that promote peace, justice, and equality. Possible subjects include, but are not limited to: theological perspectives on peace and inequality, faith-inspired nonviolent resistance and direct action, peace in worship (eg liturgy, prayers, songs, rituals, sacraments), the relationship between peace and justice, peace in the Hebrew scriptures, Quran, or Christian Bible or other sacred texts, Just war or just peace theory and its critics, war, peace, and the environment, coexistence in religiously pluralistic societies, religion, peace and intersectionality (eg race, gender, sexuality, class, age), forgiveness, repentance, reconciliation, Catholic Social Teaching on peace, faiths in conflict and interfaith peace initiatives.

Papers:

Panel description: Questions of equality and inequality have always been crucial to the moral life of communities, shaping how societies understand care, justice, and responsibility. Within the Christian tradition, theological and ethical reflection has profoundly influenced attitudes towards helping, healing, and defining the role of health care practitioners. From the early Church's ministry to the sick, to contemporary debates on global health and biotechnology, Christian values continue to inform and at time challenge prevailing assumptions in bioethics and medical ethics. The relationship between religion and bioethics therefore remains both endured and contested, and merits renewed discussion in light of this year's conference theme, Religions and (In)Equalities. This panel seeks to explore how Christian bioethics can illuminate and respond to issues of equality and inequality in healthcare and medicine. How can theology contribute to and shape the discourse on distributive justice in a world of limited medical resources, and on structural inequalities that affect access to care and health outcomes? What forms of moral responsibility arise for healthcare professionals, religious institutions, and communities of faith? Finally, what role does spiritual care play within healthcare? We invite contributions from dogmatic, ethical, historical, and exegetical perspectives that analyse how Christian bioethical thought engages questions of justice, equality, and inequality. Papers may address influential theological figures from the church fathers to contemporary theologians, or they may take a thematic approach to issues such as global health disparities, gender and disability, or the ethics of emerging biotechnologies. By bringing diverse perspectives together, the panel aims to clarify how Christian ethical resources can both expose and help redress inequalities in healthcare today.

Papers:

Panel description: This book is the first study to consider findings from sociology, legal anthropology, ethnology, legal pluralism, comparative law and theology in order to gain a better understanding of the diverse cultures of global Catholicism and the cross-cultural challenges arising from Roman Catholic canon law within the local churches. The author, renowned for her work at the intersection of socio-legal studies and canon law, examines the latter as a distinctive example of a European religious legal system that cuts across the myriad legal cultures of the local churches. In light of findings on legal transfer and legal colonialism, and by examining canon law within the emerging field of social and cultural studies approaches to law, her book sheds light on how canon law is imposed upon and received by the local churches around the world. It analyses the challenges and problems arising from the law's transcultural claims within these churches. Based on these observations, the study discusses the critical stance of canon law within contemporary Catholicism and the current debates on a synodal reform of the church and its law. The book adopts different perspectives: As a sociological study, it describes the contemporary Eurocentrism of global canon law and the conflicts arising from it. As a theological study, it presents ecclesiological reasons for challenging the hegemony of global legislation. As a study of canon law, it suggests ways in which legislation could permit greater diversity while maintaining the unity of the universal church. By analysing canon law as a specific example of a religious legal order with cross-cultural ambitions and global claims, the book also contributes to the study of transnational law in general by illustrating the typical problems that accompany transnational legal regimes in both secular legal systems and religious groups. Full details available at: https://link.springer.com/book/9783032148117

Papers:

Panel description: Comparative law and religion, which has been trending for the last few years, is a thoroughly interdisciplinary enterprise. It requires a careful integration of insights from comparative law, comparative religious studies, and comparative theology, combined with a wide range of methodological approaches, engaging with positivist, realist, critical, and hermeneutical perspectives. Studying law and religion within a single context is already a demanding task. Studying two or more contexts, whether crossing time, space, culture, or tradition, brings a whole different level of complexity. This proposed panel aims to reflect on the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of adopting a comparative approach to the study of law and religion, by focusing on how we can move beyond the hermeneutical narrowness. We are particularly interested in exploring how to develop nuanced and robust comparisons across time, space, cultures, and traditions, while also critically examining how to avoid superficial or misleading comparisons that do not withstand closer scrutiny. Thus, we especially encourage papers that address one or more of the following themes: 1. The historical and cultural entanglements and normativity inherent in the notion of "law," including realist, critical, and hermeneutical takes on the topic; 1. The historical and cultural entanglements and normativity inherent in the notion of "religion," including the perspectives of critical religion and (post)secular critique; 3. The (post-)colonial dimensions of both concepts and strategies for avoiding their pitfalls in comparative analysis; 4. Methodological frameworks for studying interactions between law and religion across time, space, cultures, and traditions; 5. Comparative case studies that include explicit theoretical and/or methodological reflection.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel follows the seminar "Religious Influencers", organised within Work Package 4.2 (Axis 1) of the Religis project (https://www.misha.fr/recherche/religis/). In the age of digital platforms, algorithms do not merely disseminate religious content; they produce hierarchies of visibility that redefine religious authority, legitimacy, and public recognition. This panel starts from the assumption that digital infrastructures operate as dispositifs of religious governmentality, generating forms of (in)equalities that are largely invisible yet structural. By regulating access to attention, algorithms shape what can be perceived as "(il)legitimate" religion. They contribute to defining who is entitled to speak in the name of "good religion"—moderate, acceptable, and compatible with dominant norms of the digital public sphere—and, conversely, who comes to embody "bad religion", selectively over-exposed as a figure of threat, radicalism, or irreducible otherness. Some minority voices are thus marginalised through invisibilisation, while others are strategically over-visibility as symbolic foils, objects of controversy, or targets of stigmatisation. These dynamics generate not only inequalities of visibility, but also epistemic and political inequalities, by redefining the boundaries of legitimate religious speech and the frameworks within which religion becomes audible, tolerable, or condemnable. The panel invites empirical and theoretical contributions analysing digital platforms as new sites of power, classification, and religious visibility. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, it examines the contemporary conditions under which religious authority is produced, circulated, and contested within the algorithmic economy of attention.

Papers:

Panel description: The opening of the Vatican archives for the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1958) has inaugurated a "global turn" in the study of the modern Papacy. Moving beyond traditional debates surrounding the Second World War, this panel explores the Holy See's deployment of "soft diplomacy" as a tool to navigate a rapidly fragmenting international landscape. It seeks to re-evaluate the Holy See's agency as an international actor during the transition towards a bipolar world. This session aims to trace the Papacy's strategic responses to shifting global scenarios, ranging from the fragile equilibrium in East Asia and the onset of the Cold War in the USSR, to the complexities of the nascent State of Israel and political upheavals in South America. The panel invites submissions exploring: -The intersection between newly released archival materials and public sources (speeches, journals, etc.). -The Holy See's engagement with peace conferences and international treaties. -The long-term evolution and modernisation of Vatican diplomacy. -Pius XII's personal agency and leadership in diplomatic strategy. Proposals focusing on the USSR, the Korean War and India are particularly encouraged.

Papers:

Panel description: Urban societies worldwide are being reshaped by cultural and religious pluralization driven by migration and broader social change, prompting municipal governments, faith communities, and other stakeholders to play an increasingly active role in governing religious diversity. This urban governance involves a wide range of policy interventions and regulatory mechanisms. However, the relationship between interreligious dialogue and freedom of and from religion remains underexplored, particularly where dialogue functions not only as an object of governance or a mode of interreligious communication, but as a social practice that contributes to the establishment of norms for more equal and inclusive urban public spaces. This panel brings together five contributions that discuss how the governance of religious diversity is grounded in various Italian cities, and how freedom of/from religion is socially constructed in urban societies. Marco Bontempi analyzes sacred art museums as dialogical spaces where religious identities are enacted through performative interaction. Olga Breskaya and Giuseppe Giordan explore the meanings of religious freedom as an outcome of the interaction among multiple social actors who continuously define and reshape it through interreligious dialogue. Maddalena Colombo and Giulia Mezzetti examine the management of interreligious dialogue in Brescia, emphasizing tensions between participation and neutrality in a highly diverse urban setting. Matteo Di Placido and Stefania Palmisano conceptualize the interreligious field as a semi-autonomous space structured by institutional logics, ideological projects, and struggles over resources. Marco Guglielmi and Stefano Sbalchiero show how religious freedom and interreligious dialogue are framed in the Italian press, highlighting the role of media narratives in shaping public understandings of religious freedom and interreligious dialogue.

Papers:

Panel description: The aim of this panel is to investigate inequalities in the ancient world through biblical texts and their wider cultural, legal, and historical contexts. Biblical discourses on men and women, slaves and free, rich and poor, Israel and the nations, righteousness and unrighteousness both reflect the social asymmetries of the societies in which these texts emerged and, in their subsequent reception, contribute at times to practices of critique and redress and at other times to the reinforcement of unequal logics. While biblical texts constitute the primary point of departure, the panel explicitly welcomes comparative and contextual approaches that situate them alongside evidence from the broader Greco-Roman and Ancient Near Eastern worlds. Contributions may therefore examine legal norms, social practices, and moral discourses—such as those governing gender, sexuality, family, and status— in order to illuminate shared assumptions, tensions, and divergences in ancient constructions of inequality. Bringing together Biblical Studies, Classics, and Ancient History within an interdisciplinary framework, the panel seeks to analyze how multiple and overlapping forms of inequality—based on gender, economy, class, ethnicity, legal status, and disability—were articulated, negotiated, and contested in ancient texts and institutions. Special attention is given to the interaction between law, narrative, and ethics, as well as to the role of reception in shaping enduring models of social hierarchy and moral responsibility.

Papers:

Panel description: Interreligious teaching and learning formats have become a highly differentiated and theoretically well-reflected component of religious education in pluralistic societies. Religious education (cooperation) models aim to enable students to engage with religious plurality in a reflective way, without leveling denominational or theological differences or displaying epistemic insensitivity. These learning settings raise specific questions: Who is considered a legitimate knowledge actor in interreligious education, and what forms of knowledge are recognized? The panel takes these questions as its starting point and analyzes interreligious teaching and learning processes from the perspective of epistemic inequalities (Fricker 2007): Interreligious learning is understood as an enabling space in which processes of recognition, interpretation, and legitimation of knowledge, as well as aspects of vulnerability and respectful interaction, come into effect. Where possible, the panel draws on discourse-theoretical and postcolonial othering analyses, arguing that epistemic justice is not only a normative but also an epistemic virtue of interreligious learning. The panel focuses, among other things, on the experiences and perceptions of students and teachers with epistemic attributions, othering dynamics, and competing claims to truth/significance. The panel combines systematic theological perspectives (including theology of religions, hermeneutics of difference, comparative theology) with empirical practice in religious education. In this way, the panel contributes to the current discussion on religion and (in)equalities and profiles interreligious education as a central locus of epistemic negotiation processes. Literature: Fricker, Miranda 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

Papers:

Panel description: Currently, there is talk of climate change and its consequences in terms of a global mega-crisis, which makes ecological transformation processes urgently necessary. However, as environmental awareness research shows, such ecological transformations are not possible without social changes, in order to ultimately lead to changes in attitudes and behavior. The starting point is, therefore, the interconnectedness of religion as a social system and its interaction with contextual ecological systems. With the help of an alternative model of interreligious teacher training with a focus on environmental ethics, impulses can be given on a European horizon in a global context.

Papers:

Panel description: The notion of the common good is back in public and academic discussion. Extensively used in classic political philosophy (Aristotle, Cicero) followed by the Catholic social traditions, Niklas Luhmann some time ago denounced it as "Old-European". And indeed, the social philosophy of Enlightenment in its liberal as well as in its Marxist versions discarded the notion of the common good. At present, the term is back and has become a flagship for authors who want to return to a pre-modern political philosophy, like Patrick J. Deneen who pleads for a common good conservatism, to which he devotes a whole chapter in his book Regime Chance (2023). To overcome the shortcomings of liberal (political) philosophy, he as well as others propose a 180 degree turn away from individualism which they (falsely) associate with individual rights. These positions are of increasing political importance since they are taken up and even radicalized by nationalist and nativist politics which are in ascent in the West and beyond, the more since they are linked to earlier versions of nationalism using the slogan Common good before individual good (Gemeinwohl geht vor Eigenwohl was a widespread slogan in Hitler Germany). Though abusus non tollit usum, and the principle of common good being much older than its twentieth century usage, the urgent question that remains is how the individual good (of which human rights are an important component) and the common good, e. g. the good of all, are interrelated and how they are to be balanced in the contemporary political order. This requires the acknowledgment of a weak spot of political liberalism, which regards the common good as the simple sum of individual goods without a value of its own. The panel is to discuss this from historical, social ethical and sociological perspectives. How do various philosophical-normative and religious perspectives integrate the common good in social philosophical discourse?

Papers:

Panel description: This panel is dedicated to the discussion of the volume A Sociology of Religious Freedom by Olga Breskaya, Giuseppe Giordan, and James T. Richardson. The book offers a sociological analysis of freedom of and freedom from religion as a key concept for understanding the place of religious and spiritual identities, beliefs, and practices in the contemporary world. Moving beyond purely legal or normative approaches, the volume emphasizes the added value of sociology in explaining why and how religious freedom acquires multiple meanings in society. The authors show that religious freedom is not a fixed or self-evident principle, but rather a socially constructed and contested concept whose content varies across cultural, political, and historical contexts. The book addresses three major questions central to the development of a sociology of religious freedom. First, it asks how religious freedom can be defined as a multidimensional concept, taking into account its complex and often controversial nature. Second, it investigates the recurrent sociological conditions and dominant social perceptions that foster or hinder understandings of religious freedom in different political, legal, and socio-religious environments. Third, it explores the mechanisms through which religious freedom is socially implemented, examining how it becomes embedded in everyday practices, organizational routines, and institutional cultures, thus contributing to its recognition as a fundamental value within human rights frameworks. The volume suggests that any sociological definition of religious freedom must integrate historical, philosophical, legal, religious, and political dimensions specific to a given society. By uncovering the interplay between structural conditions and individual or group perceptions, sociology highlights the normative and value-laden character of religious freedom, as well as its broader societal functions.

Papers:

Panel description: Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping modern societies, yet this transformation generates profound inequalities. Social inequalities such as poverty, discrimination, and exclusion are being amplified and reconfigured through algorithmic systems that determine access to employment, housing, healthcare, and justice. Just as industrialisation created new class divisions while promising prosperity, AI now presents similar paradoxes—offering efficiency and innovation while simultaneously encoding bias, concentrating power, and deepening existing inequalities. While philosophy and sociology dominate AI ethics discourse, theology and religious traditions remain largely absent from these conversations. What is urgently needed is an articulation of the distinctive contribution religion and theology can make to addressing AI-generated inequalities. This panel examines AI-generated inequalities—algorithmic bias, economic displacement, surveillance, and concentrated power—through the lens of religious and theological responses. Our speakers explore what theology and religious traditions can contribute to understanding and addressing these inequalities. Rather than focusing narrowly on religious inequalities, we ask how religion and theology can speak to the broader social inequalities that AI creates, offering distinctive ethical frameworks, prophetic critique, and visions of justice that secular AI ethics may lack. What resources do religious traditions offer for critiquing and transforming AI systems that perpetuate inequality? Can theological concepts of human dignity, the sacred, justice, and the common good inform more equitable AI development? Has religion's marginalisation in AI discourse deprived society of crucial moral resources? The panel will discuss these and similar questions.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel brings together scholars of Islamic theology, ethics, and social thought to explore how constructive Muslim theologies can respond meaningfully to some of the most pressing global challenges of the twenty-first century. At a time marked by overlapping crises—social fragmentation and loneliness, climate degradation, rapid advances in artificial intelligence, mass displacement and migration, and the dominance of consumerist and materialist paradigms—Muslim theological traditions are being called upon not merely to react defensively, but to articulate forward-looking, ethically grounded, and socially engaged visions of human flourishing. The panel situates Islamic theology as a living, interpretive enterprise capable of generating normative guidance, moral imagination, and public discourse that speaks to global concerns beyond confessional boundaries. By "constructive Muslim theologies," the panel refers to theological approaches that critically engage classical Islamic sources (the Qur'an, Hadith, jurisprudence, and philosophical theology) while also incorporating insights from contemporary humanities, social sciences, and lived Muslim experiences. Such approaches do not treat theology as static doctrine, but as an ongoing process of meaning-making that responds to historical contingency, power relations, and evolving moral questions. Overall, this panel aims to demonstrate that Muslim theology is not confined to intra-religious discourse, but is a dynamic and critical participant in global ethical conversations. By addressing loneliness, climate change, AI, migration, and consumerism through constructive theological lenses, the panel highlights the relevance of Islamic thought for contemporary challenges facing humanity as a whole. It invites interdisciplinary dialogue, encourages collaboration between scholars and practitioners, and contributes to the reimagining of theology as a public, ethical, and transformative endeavor in an interconnected world.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel presents key findings from an international survey conducted by the research group Footprints: Young People. Expectations, Ideals and Beliefs, coordinated by the Pontifical University of Santa Croce (Rome). The study involved more than 9,000 young people from nine countries across four continents: the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Kenya, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, and the Philippines. Researchers from Albany Estate University, Universidad Panamericana, St Mary's University, Universidad de Navarra, Universidad Católica de Argentina, Pontificia Università Salesiana, CLE-Unicamp (Center for Logic, Epistemology and the History of Science), and the University of Asia and the Pacific collaborated in the project. The survey explores young people's relationship with work, focusing on its social and civic dimensions, their preparation for the labor market through education, and the role played by religiosity, personal convictions, and values in shaping professional choices. Particular attention is given to young people's lived experiences, expectations for the future, and the everyday decisions that influence both their current lives and their projected career paths. By combining a broad international perspective with sensitivity to cultural and social contexts, the research seeks to understand how young people make sense of work not only as economic activity, but also as a meaningful dimension of personal identity and social contribution. The panel will present the global results of the study, followed by focused analyses of the European countries involved, specifically the United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain, highlighting convergences, contrasts, and emerging trends within the European context.

Papers:

Panel description: Biographies of the Prophet Muhammad often focus on his historical context in seventh-century Arabia. Yet understanding the Prophet solely through the lens of ancient history fails to capture the significance and meaning of this individual, whose teachings have shaped the world and continue to guide nearly one-quarter of the global population today. With this book, Salih Sayilgan provides a loving portrait of the Prophet as he has lived in the hearts of Muslims across the centuries: as a religious light and spiritual guide. Drawing on a diverse body of Islamic literature on the Prophet, Sayilgan offers a vista onto the expansive and variegated legacy of this vitally significant religious figure. Examining how Muslims have remembered and reimagined the Prophet's spirit in different ways as expressions of their love for God and His messenger, this book highlights the central place of the Prophet Muhammad in the religious lives of Muslim believers.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel explores the complex relationship between religious identity, nationalism, and state power within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, offering alternatives rooted in theologies and principles of nonviolence. It examines how nationalist ideologies have influenced these traditions, often through messianic and apocalyptic frameworks, and considers specific manifestations such as religious Zionism (Jewish and Christian), Sunni and Shia Islamism, and other forms of religious nationalism that have justified violence, territorial claims, and state identity. The discussion investigates alternative theological and political interpretations that promote nonviolent resistance, just peace, and transformative engagement. It explores how understandings of land, divine promises, and sacred geography might be reinterpreted to reduce conflict and foster coexistence rather than displacement and discrimination. Additionally, it considers the potential of dialogue to disrupt cycles of violence and serve genuine peacebuilding, moving beyond superficial "faith-washing." Beyond religious frameworks, the panel includes Marxist and leftist critiques of nationalism and the nation-state, analyzing how concepts of universalism, emancipation, and international solidarity challenge both religious and secular nationalist ideologies, intersecting with broader commitments to peace. It emphasizes how individuals and communities worldwide can foster international solidarity and ethical responsibility through dialogue and cooperation, working toward nonviolent solutions to contemporary conflicts. The panel is organized by the Interreligious Initiative for Nonviolence Theology (IINT) and Dialop (Dialogue between Socialists/Marxists and Christians).

Papers:

Panel description: This panel explores how contemporary Catholic thought and practice engage with challenges of global social justice in the twenty-first century. Drawing on sociological research, Catholic social ethics, and interreligious dialogue, the panel examines how Catholic actors interpret and operationalize commitments to human dignity, solidarity, peace, and the common good in contexts marked by migration, inequality, conflict, and cultural pluralism. By bringing together academic analysis and ecclesial experience, the panel offers a nuanced Catholic perspective on global social justice that is both theologically grounded and empirically informed.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel builds on the rich body of theological and interdisciplinary scholarship that has critically examined minority perspectives in relation to religion and inequality. It aims to further explore how such perspectives interrogate the production, legitimation, and contestation of social, legal, and gendered inequalities within religious and theological fields. Departing from dominant, "major" theological frameworks that often align with sovereignty, normativity, and institutional power, the panel foregrounds theological practices that emerge from marginal locations, including feminist, queer, postcolonial, decolonial, and other subaltern religious articulations. Drawing on Bourdieu's analysis of symbolic power as well as scholarship on religion, gender, biopolitics, performativity, and agency, the panel understands theology as a political, embodied, and knowledge-producing practice shaped by unequal regimes of visibility, recognition, and authority. At the same time, it remains attentive to emerging theoretical approaches that question fixed identity frameworks and explore "minor" modes of religious and theological articulation as critical, relational, and transformative practices. We invite papers that examine how religious traditions, institutions, and discourses both reproduce and resist inequalities related to gender, sexuality, race, class, citizenship, embodiment, and religious diversity. Contributions may address: invisible or normalized inequalities within religious and theological fields; the effects of implicit or invisible religion in social, political, and legal contexts; the politics of theological recognition and exclusion; symbolic power within religious knowledge production; religion as a site of both symbolic violence and emancipatory imagination; and reconfigurations of equality beyond universalist, liberal, or identity-centered paradigms.

Papers:

Panel description: In recent years, global religious history has established itself as a thought-provoking paradigm for examining global entanglements and discourses within religious history. Known for considering the contributions of local communities in challenging Western academic discourse and knowledge systems, it aims at rewriting global discourses. However, its expansion into the fields of ecology and religion is still in its infancy. New publications point to epistemic injustices and exclusions produced by inequalities inscribed in discourse. They tend to overcome concepts such as traditional ecological knowledge or essentializations that postulate an unquestioned closeness of Indigenous groups to nature. Instead, local concepts should be used to overcome dichotomies and inequalities and promote ideas that advance multi-perspective and planetary views, giving voice to a multitude of beings. This panel will explore questions relating to the ontological turn, decolonial epistemologies, and indigenous knowledge systems with reference to ecological and economic issues. We welcome papers that explore the topic from a historical, systematic, or empirical perspective. We particularly welcome papers that bridge the gap between anthropological and social science theories and religious studies. We are interested in questions relating to different conceptions of ecology and economy, diverse cosmologies, and theories of the non-human beyond Western epistemes and approaches. In this way, we address the issue of inequality in two ways: firstly, in the context of local and global ecological entanglements, and secondly, from a decolonial perspective that questions the role religions play in the production and overcoming of dichotomies surrounding "nature," "culture," "economy," and "ecology."

Papers:

Panel description: The panel explores the role of Catholic women in changing ideas and practices of womanhood in China from the late Qing to the mid-twentieth century. At the turn of the century, Chinese women's lives were largely shaped by patriarchal family structures, Confucian norms, and social and legal inequalities, with marriage and domesticity as central expectations. At the same time, war, political upheaval, and reform movements intensified debates on women's education, morality, and social participation. Catholic missionary, as members of female religious congregations, operated within male-dominated church hierarchies, yet differed sharply from most Chinese women in being unmarried, institutionally supported, professionally trained, and mobile. Through schools, hospitals, orphanages, and charitable work, they exercised forms of authority and autonomy that challenged prevailing gender norms, while remaining embedded in unequal religious and transnational power relations. The panel examines Catholic institutions as spaces where alternative models of womanhood were constructed and negotiated. These institutions both reproduced social and gender hierarchies and offered limited but significant opportunities for agency, including access to education, skills, public service, and life paths beyond marriage. Using perspectives from gender history and the study of religious feminization, the panel treats women's agency as relational and situational, shaped by everyday negotiations between missionary women and local Catholic women. Comparative and connected approaches are welcome, including studies of Protestant missions, Buddhist nuns, indigenous religious initiatives, or transnational networks, contributing to broader debates on religion, gender, and inequality in modern China and East Asia.

Papers:

Panel description: Black goddesses in many cultures have historically emerged as figures venerated by groups excluded from mainstream society. In some of the earliest recorded traditions, for example, the Hindu goddess Kali was worshipped by thieves and social outcasts. Similar patterns can be observed across diverse cultures worldwide. In contemporary contexts, the rise of Santa Muerte has likewise been closely associated with marginalised populations, including socially suppressed groups and criminalised communities. Although cults devoted to such goddesses sometimes gain more institutional or socially accepted forms, the Black Goddess continues to function as an empowering symbolic figure for oppressed and disenfranchised groups. In the modern era, cross-cultural exchanges have further expanded the reach of this archetype. Black goddesses such as Kali have been adopted in Western contexts, where they often serve new emancipatory functions. For instance, Kali has become an empowering archetype for older women confronting age-based discrimination. By invoking her as a figure of strength and transgressive power, these women assert claims to equality and social visibility within cultures dominated by ideals of youthfulness. This panel seeks to examine the Black Goddess archetype across cultures, focusing on its role in promoting empowerment, equality, and recognition for oppressed and minority groups within different societies. We invite scholars to contribute to this discourse by submitting original research papers or case studies addressing various dimensions of this intricate subject. We seek in-depth, scholarly papers from diverse theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary perspectives.

Papers:

Panel description: This multimodal exhibition documents the growth of Romanian Orthodox infrastructure since the fall of socialism, tracing three decades of cathedral construction. It combines ethnographic research, photography, and audiovisual media to illuminate the hectic church-building industry flourishing in postsocialist Romania as it represents a double movement: on the one hand, it exemplifies the renewed visibility of religious life after socialism, on the other hand, it stands for a troublesome employment of public money, the radical transformation of the urban built environment of cities and towns, and a powerful repositioning of the Church in the public arena. Since 1990, the expansion of religious infrastructure in Romania has reached impressive numbers: the 18 state-recognised religious groups have erected over ten thousand places of worship, practically one per day. The Orthodox Church has built over 4.000, including 36 imposing cathedrals. The most prominent of them all is the new national cathedral, which today towers over the famous People's House built by Ceauşescu. Its main dome, with the mosaic of the Pantocrator, is meant to exemplify the victory of the rule of god over the godless socialist past. Not just a critical analysis of the comeback of religion after decades of state atheism, this project also explores the transformation of contemporary Romanian Orthodox architecture, which increasingly favours monumental scale and grandeur, sometimes at the expense of a clogged urban fabric and natural environment. If other post-Soviet and post-socialist capitals like Moscow, Tbilisi, and Belgrade have also added new Orthodox cathedrals to their skyline, the pace of the Romanian church-building industry seems unprecedented: 30Y30C aims to document all 36 cathedrals built or under construction over the last 36 years, revealing an important cultural and political process shaping Romania's identity in the 21st century.

Papers:

Panel description: The notion that belief admits of degrees is widely held among philosophers and psychologists. Yet, this notion remains contested among philosophers of religion and theologians, despite recent scholarship framing faith as a credence: a variable intensity of belief that operates on a spectrum rather than as a binary switch. More broadly, the social sciences have long challenged the simplicity of "belief," occasionally questioning the utility of the category itself. This panel investigates these emerging perspectives. We will discuss various theories of belief in philosophy and the social sciences that challenge the classical notion of belief, assessing their fecundity and plausibility through the lens of literary analysis. Bringing together philosophers of religion and literary specialists, it will explore how narrative fiction model the complexity of religious psychology. By treating literary characters as case studies and examining contemporary writing practices that blur the boundaries between belief and unbelief (such as those of E. Carrère and J. Cercas, among others), this panel evaluates the anthropological plausibility of non-binary accounts of belief. It is also an attempt to explore the nexus between philosophy, theology and literature in religious epistemology. Tha panel will be sponsored by the Research Center Écritures (University of Lorraine), the Institut Universitaire de France and the scientific Journal ThéoRèmes.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel introduces "Epistolae John Calvin", an international project launched by the Stichting Calvin's Reforming Correspondence (calvin-digital.nl) - in collaboration with with the Theologische Universiteit Utrecht, FSCIRE, the Huygens Instituut (KNAW), and Éditions Droz (Geneva) - to deliver a new critical edition of the surviving letters of John Calvin (1509-1564). Approximately 3,200 letters to and from Calvin are extant, in Latin and in French. The project's core aim is to publish, annotate, and historically embed this corpus in hybrid form: as a sequence of printed volumes in the Ioannis Calvini Opera Omnia denuo recognita (Droz) - resuming and extending the editorial work that advanced with the publications by Cornelis Augustijn and Frans van Stam - as well as a digital environment designed to support further research. By revisiting the correspondence with contemporary critical standards and by integrating sources and findings that have emerged since the foundational nineteenth-century editorial enterprises (notably the Corpus Reformatorum), "Epistolae John Calvin" treats the reformer's epistolary as a dense documentary interface shedding light on pastoral practice, political theology, ecclesiastical conflict, and transregional information flows (from Geneva to France, the Swiss Confederation, and beyond). This panel invites contributions from Calvin scholars, Reformation historians, and historians of sixteenth-century Christianity engaging with epistles as sources for social and intellectual history, and the role of communication networks in the learned "republic of letters" in the sixteenth century. It will also welcome digital humanities papers, tackling specific topics such as editorial challenges (variants, attribution, transmission), the methodological questions raised by hybrid editions, and the opportunities and risks of moving from monumental print editions to hybrid and data-rich critical infrastructures.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel investigates the semantic transformations and translation strategies associated with the concepts of "witnessing" and "martyrdom" from a diachronic perspective. Starting from the foundational texts of the Biblical and Quranic traditions, the panel examines how specific semantic fields have been rendered, reinterpreted, and at times reshaped in translations and receptions across different historical moments. Particular attention is paid to translational choices as sites of negotiation between philology, theology, and historical contexts, revealing how acts of translation both reflect and produce doctrinal, cultural, and ideological shifts. Spanning from antiquity to modern languages and cultures, the panel highlights processes of semantic slippage, expansion, and re-semanticisation within the lexicon of martyrdom. By foregrounding the interaction between textual tradition, audience, and purpose, it aims to show how translation does not merely transfer meanings, but actively participates in the construction, stabilization, and transformation of religious concepts over time, shaping the ways in which they are understood, mobilised, and reactivated in different religious and intellectual perspectives.

Papers:

Panel description: This open panel invites papers on a concrete, ecumenically charged question: which works—texts, corpora, and "schools" of Christian thought and practice—should be preserved and transmitted to future generations of ecumenists, and by what criteria? The title invokes an end-of-the-world horizon in order to make a present difficulty harder to evade: the transmission of ecumenical theological knowledge is under strain, and the places and habits that once sustained it can no longer be taken for granted. Under threats of destruction, churches often struggle to speak and act together. Part of the difficulty is institutional. Academic theology faces shrinking infrastructures, changing student publics, contested authority, and fragmented formation. At the same time, theology is increasingly displaced into a widened ecosystem—private educational institutes, think tanks, ecclesial initiatives, media platforms, and influencer-driven publics—often with different incentives and measures of credibility. In this setting, ecumenism is especially vulnerable: in many contexts, the generation now assuming leadership is less instinctively committed to ecumenism, less trained to read across confessions, and less formed by the "slow" virtues of dialogue. This panel asks what it would mean to assemble an Ecumenical Filocalia for the twenty-first century: not a nostalgic canon, and not a default "Western classics" syllabus, but a deliberately ecumenical selection—Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Pentecostal and charismatic—with a global horizon beyond Europe and North America. We welcome proposals on cross-confessional classics with real reception; key texts and debates in modern ecumenical theology; authors and corpora from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and diasporas; documentary, historiographical, and biographical works shaping ecumenical memory; and monastic and ascetical literature (ancient and modern) as part of the ecumenical archive.

Papers:

Panel description: The panel introduces the recently published Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics in Europe, through the voices of its contributors and editors. The handbook brings together and bridges different perspectives and disciplines in examination of intersections between politics and religion, including contributions from political science, religious studies, anthropology, legal studies - to name a few. A central aim is to ask what, exactly, is distinctively European about the entanglements between religion and politics under scrutiny. The handbook is structured in three sections. The first section, Theoretical Underpinnings and Methodological Perspectives, aims at offering an overview of the main analytical frameworks that are adopted in contemporary analyses of religion and politics in Europe. Altogether, they suggest decentering and deconstructing the dominant narratives, while also questioning theoretical traditions; advocate for nuanced analyses over binary understandings, emphasizing hybridity, ambivalence, and contextual complexity; and explore the factors and the processes contributing to shape religiosity and the place of religions in contemporary societies. Section 2 is devoted to Actors, Policies, and Institutions. The chapters included in this section focus on religious and political actors in the European space and their interconnections, paying attention to religions beyond the institutional settings; on legal and political institutions and their impact on the intersections of politics and religion in Europe, paying attention to how religions contribute to shaping political and public institutions and how legal and political institutions contribute to shaping religions and religiosity; and, finally, on policies regulating religions or shaping the contexts in which religion and politics intersect. Section 3 is designed to introduce emerging themes and approaches by focusing on contemporary debates, ranging from religion and AI to the pandemic.

Papers:

Panel description: Recent years have witnessed growing scholarly and public attention to ideological movements influential in Silicon Valley and global technology circles, particularly regarding striking parallels between transhumanism, cosmism, and related ideologies with traditional religious themes. Observers frequently note that these movements—sometimes collectively designated by the acronym TESCREAL—function as quasi-religious systems within the predominantly secular culture of tech communities, appropriating narratives, symbols, and ideas from established religious traditions. Notable examples include apocalyptic and eschatological narratives in discourse surrounding AI and the so-called Singularity, as well as expectations of human immortality through bio-enhancement or mind-uploading. What often remains absent from this discourse, however, are methodologically rigorous approaches to studying the religious dimensions of transhumanism and cosmism that move beyond superficial analogies. This panel addresses this lacuna by exploring theoretically and methodologically grounded frameworks for studying and reflecting on these movements' religious characteristics. We primarily consider historical studies of the influence of religion on the development of transhumanism and cosmism or other historical links between these traditions, with a focus on Christianity and Islam. We welcome other papers that broadly fit this direction, yet we also welcome empirical research documenting the presence and function of religious elements within contemporary transhumanist and cosmist discourse. Individual papers will present research that fits these approaches, followed by a general panel discussion on methodological issues, general implications and future research directions on the relationship between transhumanism, cosmism and religion.

Papers:

Panel description: In times of uncertainty, faith becomes increasingly significant for those seeking support, compassion, and hope for the future. Recent studies on religious responses to crises have primarily focused on faith-based activism in the context of humanitarian efforts, peacebuilding initiatives, conflict management, and social services. However, the predominant emphasis on traditional religious institutions and authorities offers a top-down perspective on crisis responses, overlooking the experience of individual believers who rely on faith as a source of social support and emotional well-being. This panel aims to broaden the scope of research beyond institutional frameworks, giving greater visibility to those whose agency remains underrepresented in academic discourse - women of faith. The term 'women of faith' refers to female believers or practitioners representing diverse religious traditions, beliefs, and spiritual practices. The panel explores how women of faith respond to the challenges posed by collective existential crises, such as military conflicts, wars, natural disasters, and epidemics. We invite scholars from Religious Studies, Anthropology, Digital Religion, and Gender Studies to consider the following questions: 1) How do women of faith respond to the experience of a crisis, and how might these experiences reshape their religious identity, gender roles, sense of a community, or faith-based practice? 2) How do women of faith use digital and other spaces to foster support, solidarity, and resistance within religious communities and beyond in non-religious contexts? 3) In what ways do women of faith influence civic activism in crisis-affected societies?

Papers:

Panel description: Jewish Bible interpretation has been positively recognized but also marginalized in Christian exegesis since Late Antiquity, in the Renaissance Period and also in modern times. Simultaneously, there has been an ongoing debate in Jewish tradition about contact with and separation from Christianity when interpreting the Hebrew Bible. Furthered by the fact that both religions share the Hebrew Bible, Jewish and Christian perspectives on biblical interpretation have been interlinked with question of equality and hierarchy. This is especially true for Christian uses of Jewish exegesis for translations of Hebrew Bible texts. This panel will explore this topic by adressing two questions: (1) To what extend were Jewish interlocuters and traditional Jewish bible translations seen as equal sources to use for Christian exegesis? (2) In what form was Jewish exegesis produced in a context dominated by Christian hierarchies? By drawing from historical examples such as e.g. Johannes Reuchlin, Martin Luther and German Field Rabbi's Exegesis in World War I, the panel will seek to reconstruct how traditions form the respective other religion were seen as an (in)equal but necessary partners in own exegetical endeavors.

Papers:

Panel description: Religion plays a significant role in a broad range of social movements, including many that are not explicitly faith-based. However, research on collective action has frequently either overlooked the role of religion or focused mainly on its associations with conservative or extremist politics, thereby neglecting its influence on other forms of activism. This panel seeks to address this gap by examining the role of religion in contemporary social movements that pursue liberal, progressive or egalitarian ends. We invite submissions of case studies from diverse geographical contexts, as well as theoretical insights from various disciplines. Our objective is to advance understanding of the intersections between religion, political, and protest, and to foster both theoretical and empirical discussions regarding the relationship between religion and social change. The panel welcomes a variety of contributions, including but not limited to: - Empirical case studies, based on qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods research, examining the role of religion within specific contemporary social movements. - Comparative analyses, focusing on cross-national, regional, or transnational contexts and highlighting similarities and differences in the interaction between religion and collective action. - Theoretical contributions, aimed at developing, refining, or critically engaging with existing conceptual frameworks on religion, politics, and social movements. - Interdisciplinary approaches, drawing from sociology, political science, anthropology, religious studies, social movement studies, or related fields. - Methodological reflections, addressing challenges, innovations, or ethical issues in the empirical study of religion in social movements. - Work-in-progress or exploratory papers, provided they demonstrate clear theoretical relevance and/or empirical significance for the panel's themes.

Papers:

Panel description: The Author Meets the Critics panel, coordinated by the Ethos Observatory, is devoted to a discussion of Valentina Gentile's book Freedom With Religions. Rethinking Civility through Political Inclusivism in Liberal Democracies (Routledge, 2026). The book offers a re-reading of political liberalism aimed at addressing the deep forms of religious pluralism that characterise contemporary democracies, steering a middle course between orthodox defences and radical critiques of this project. At the core of the argument lies the concept of political inclusivism, a normative framework that remains faithful to the principles of public reason while expanding their interpretation in light of the lived experiences of religious citizens. On this basis, the book introduces the notion of a culture of civility, understood as a socially embedded complement to the duty of civility and as a bridge between public justification and the ethical life of civil society. Through these conceptual innovations, the book advances a more inclusive vision of the ethos of liberal democracies. The panel will be introduced and chaired by Sebastiano Maffettone (Ethos Luiss). The book will be discussed by Aakash Singh Rathore (Ashoka University & Jindal Global University), Mohammed Hashas (University of Rome Tor Vergata), Carla Bagnoli (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia & National Academy of the Lincei), Debora Spini (New York University in Florence), and Tom Bailey (John Cabot University, tbc). The author will respond to the discussants' comments.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel seeks to gather contributions exploring how the sacred scriptures have been employed in the tradition of the three Abrahamic religions, to construct the figure of the enemy in contexts marked by crisis, rupture, catastrophe, or collapse. The aim is to examine how exegetical and scripturally informed narratives in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam transform external or internal adversaries into meaningful agents within broader theological interpretations of history. Particular attention will be given to the link between enemy representation and divine punishment: crises are often reframed as consequences of communal transgression, with the enemy functioning as an instrument—willing or unwitting—of divine judgment, a dynamic that simultaneously explains catastrophe and admonishes the community toward repentance, reform, or renewed cohesion. Contributions may explore a wide range of historical phenomena and sources, such as: the reactivation of scriptural motifs after a military defeat or a political collapse in narrative and exegetical texts; the redefinition of adversaries during periods of sectarian conflict in theological textual controversies or in political discourses; the role of eschatological expectations and elaborations in shaping perceptions of threat; or the deployment of enemy imagery in response to migration, economic disruption, pandemics, or environmental crises through sermons, theological treatises and commentaries. The panel also encourages attention to the material and social dimensions of scriptural interpretation, including how textual transmission, communal leadership, performative settings, or institutional contexts shape the construction of the enemy in moments of upheaval.

Papers:

Panel description: For many scholars of religion, the conference's overarching topic "religions and (in)equalities" immediately evokes the idea of hierarchy, first because religious hierarchies - human, spiritual, or divine - are well known in history and anthropology, and second because the very word "hierarchy" is etymologically connected to the sphere of the sacred. And yet inequality and hierarchy are two very different things, although they are obviously semantically and conceptually connected: inequality is assessed quantitatively, whereas hierarchy is inherently qualitative. Indeed, the two ideas might even be considered opposites, for inequality evokes imbalance, whereas hierarchy evokes order. This panel invites papers to address hierarchy in different religious traditions, theoretical approaches, and geographical and historical contexts, offering a comparative conceptual exploration of it as a key analytical concept in the study of religions, examining its transformations from classical to contemporary thought. The papers will investigate how hierarchy has been conceptualised, exalted, contested, and reconfigured religiously as well as through reflections on religion, sometimes in utterly original and creative ways. The ideal temporal alpha and omega of the panel have been identified in Plato and Marshall Sahlins. In fact, Plato's reflection is perhaps the first in history to systematically tackle the (metaphysical) principle of ordered difference (although he did not use the Greek word "hierarchy"), providing an early and influential framework for thinking about hierarchy as a principle linking cosmology, ethics, and political organisation. Similarly, but very recently, after decades of reflection on human societies and cultural orders, Marshall Sahlins came to the conclusion, contrariwise to his disciple David Graeber, that hierarchy (or rather the principle and the mythopoetic imagination thereof) is in human societies inevitable, or rather inescapable.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel is devoted to examining social inequalities in the Abrahamic religions, with particular attention to the relationship between the religious legitimation of existing hierarchies and their contestation or problematization. In other words, it seeks to explore how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam justified social inequalities, in which contexts they relativized or symbolically suspended them, and when and why they became objects of critique. We aim to address these questions through an analysis of both the foundational texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and other early sources within each tradition (such as rabbinic literature, patristic writings, or early Islamic texts) that developed, reinterpreted, or concretized religious - often socio‑legal - norms in changing historical and social circumstances. We are also interested in how communal practices generated cohesion and identity while simultaneously demarcating boundaries by regulating access to material, institutional, symbolic, ritual, or social resources. "Communal practices" are understood broadly as institutional, ritual, and socio‑legal forms of communal life - kehilla, ecclesia, and umma. The panel is interdisciplinary: we invite scholars of religion, anthropologists of religion, social historians, biblical scholars, specialists in Islamic and Near Eastern studies, cultural studies scholars, and all others whose research focuses on Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.

Papers:

Panel description: The panel aims to investigate non-dualism as a cross-cutting paradigm between physics and metaphysics capable of fostering fruitful dialogue across disciplines and religions that are often perceived as distant. By rejecting ontological separations such as subject versus object or consciousness versus matter, non-dualism opens an immanent field of potentiality understood as a continuous process of self-manifestation. Phenomenal reality is not conceived as something external to this field but as its expression or modality, a dynamic play of internal self-differentiation unfolding through ongoing processes of contraction, folding, or topological inversion. A first goal of the panel is to examine the presence of non-dual intuitions within metaphysical traditions that are usually considered far apart, and to open a dialogue among frameworks that view reality as a unitary process from which multiplicity emerges through immanent differentiation. Examples may range across religious traditions, highlighting how non-dual intuitions ground practices of comparison and interreligious dialogue, question hierarchical models of reality, and contribute to ethical and social frameworks aimed at reducing symbolic, epistemic, and social inequalities. A second aim is to explore how these metaphysical systems may offer fruitful interpretive models for contemporary sciences. The panel encourages contributions that identify robust resonances with quantum mechanics, morphogenesis and autopoiesis, enactive approaches to cognition, theories of self-consciousness, semiotics, set theory, mereology, sound engineering, or biochemistry. Researchers working in religious, philosophical, linguistic, and scientific fields are invited to propose avenues of dialogue showing how a non-dual perspective can provide an interdisciplinary epistemological ground, a unified lens capable of illuminating complex phenomena by allowing multiplicity to be understood through unity.

Papers:

Panel description: Sacred performances in the Modern Age (1300-1600) show how religious practices contributed, in different and often ambivalent ways, to the construction and management of social (in)equalities. In Europe, sacred performances served both as a tool for mitigating marginalisation and as a device for producing and consolidating social roles and codes. The panel aims to analyze, but is not restricted to, confraternities' sacred representations; civic and liturgical spectacles promoted by urban and ecclesiastical authorities; penitential processions and charitable rituals; missionary and conversional performances; school and college theatre, notably within Jesuit educational contexts; courtly and dynastic religious ceremonies; and devotional practices structured around images, relics, and ritualised bodily performances. In these different settings, the performative dimension of the sacred operated as a means of mobilising communities, shaping identities and behaviors, fostering new theological approaches, and articulating social roles and hierarchies. In this context, the performative dimension of the sacred played a dual role: on the one hand, it promoted practices of assistance, inclusion and cooperation, contributing to the mitigation of social marginalisation; on the other hand, it reproduced and consolidated hierarchical structures, social codes and prescriptive roles through the mediation of religious and educational institutions. The panel aims to bring together diverse perspectives and methodologies to understand how the performances of the sacred contributed, in complex and often ambivalent ways, to the removal and reproduction of (in)equalities in early modern Europe. The panel welcomes contributions from Christian studies, History, Literature, Philosophy, Art History, and Performing Arts.

Papers:

Panel description: Since the turn of the millennium, migration to Europe has significantly increased. Individuals have come to this continent often fleeing conflict and political instability as well as seeking improved social and economic wellbeing. For migrants, engagement in religious practice is a key resource in the post-migration period. Religious activities and infrastructure offer practical and spiritual support, as well as being a source of social belonging for newly arriving migrants. These factors often help individuals navigate structural inequalities, for example, facilitating access to social services. Yet, they may also reproduce inequality, for example when religious authority is used to regulate behaviour within these groups and/or to foster prejudice and discrimination against other groups. At the same time, these dynamics unfold within European contexts shaped by varied secularisation trajectories, which influence how religious practices are perceived and negotiated in everyday life. This panel examines encounters between migrant religious communities and other religious and secular groups within these shifting contexts. Such encounters often involve material transformations: repurposed religious buildings, adapted ritual forms and new uses of public space, which might extend to the digital realm. They also generate embodied and sensorial experiences and modes of expression that engage sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Analysing these encounters from perspectives that are intersectional/multidimensional can help gain significant insights into how changes in gender-, age-, and social-status-related dynamics happen in religious communities who experience migration processes. We invite papers exploring how, through these entanglements, religious traditions are reinterpreted and transformed and, in turn, contribute to shaping contemporary and future European societies.

Papers: