03/07/2026 15:00
- 19:30
HALL: Pola - A107
Contact:
Ruozzi F.
Chair:
Ruozzi F.
Within religious traditions, violence in spaces of prayer may be interpreted as a paradigmatic form of moral and communal rupture, drawing on foundational narratives of fratricide when directed at worshippers and of sacrilege when targeting sacred space. From a scholarly perspective, however, contemporary efforts to study such violent attacks face a methodological paradox: despite their global persistence, they remain fragmented across existing datasets, undertheorized in violence studies, and unevenly documented. Scholars thus face a twofold challenge: documenting attacks that are inconsistently classified across sources, while also developing analytical frameworks capable of accounting for both shared patterns of violence and dynamics specific to the religious contexts where these events occurred.
This panel, built around the emerging research carried out by a group of historians in Bologna, Italy, on the documentation and analysis of attacks against worshippers in religious spaces, is conceived as an open forum for scholars investigating violence against worshippers and sacred sites across different religious traditions, regions, and methodological approaches. Contributions are welcomed from researchers studying the origins of this phenomenon or specific cases, developing documentation practices, analyzing patterns of attack, or examining institutional and community responses to such violence. The panel will include presentations drawing on Plorabunt, a newly developed global dataset documenting attacks on places of worship, alongside contributions based on archival research, historical and philological-exegetical analysis.
The panel addresses a central question: to what extent can the systematic study of violence against places of worship—grounded in improved documentation, cross-regional comparison, and scientific dialogue—both deepen scholarly understanding and respond to the urgent concerns of religious communities facing recurrent threats?
