Centre of Interreligious Studies

Religious diversity is a component of our reality: it is a richness and a reason for conflicts. Integralisms and fundamentalisms are a defensive response to these conflicts: reflection and confrontation are the alternatives promoted by the Centre of Interreligious Studies.

 

The Centre of Interreligious Studies has a triple objective: education, dissemination and research. Born in the bosom of a meritocratic college which has as primary mission the higher education of its students, the Centre offers every year a course about the History of Abrahamic Religions, aimed at European History Master’s Degree students of the University of Pavia. The course is divided into two parts. A first introductory part, historiographical and methodological, aims to illustrate the basic lines of an innovative discipline and at the same rooted in humanism, which looks at the history and theologies of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as a single, multiform story originated in the heart of the Mediterranean. A second part of the course, monographical, is dedicated to a different and limited study theme (for example, the concept of reform, the transmission of revelation, the role of images), thus allowing students to specialize in an aspect of interreligious confrontation, through the reading of sources and discussion.
In parallel to the lessons, the Centre organizes every year a cycle of lectures dedicated to figures and problems common to the three Abrahamic religions, divided into five evening events open to citizens. Both the course and the cycle of annual lectures include partecipation, as well as by scholars from the Centre, of Judaists, historians of Christianity and churches, Arabists and Islamologists, theologians and art historians from various European universities and research centers. The Centre supports the promotion of lectures and scientific conferences with an editorial program which it develops according to two objectives, responding to different types of readers. First, it promotes the publication of short and critically informed essays that open up new perspectives for reflection and study on the Abrahamic religions. By the other side, it collects and publishes every year, in the form of scientific articles for specialized journals, a selection of the research results of the experts who take part in the lectures and in the cycle of conferences organized in Pavia.
To strengthen its role as a scientific observatory on the history and contemporary implications of relations between Abrahamic religions, the Centre for Interreligious Studies will also initiate cooperation with the University of Pavia and with some European research centers, in order to coordinate international study events (conferences, workshops, summer schools), to identify lines of research and common projects.

 

SCIENTIFIC COUNCIL

Alberto Lolli, Rector of Almo Collegio Borromeo Pavia

Daniela Rando, University of Pavia

Annibale Zambarbieri, University of Pavia

Thomas Frank, University of Pavia

Francesco Mores, LMU Munich

Davide Scotto, University of Basel

Gloria Samuela Pagani, University of Salento

Fabio Besostri, Theological Faculty of Northern Italy

Massimo Raveri, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

Jörg Lauster, LMU Munich

Lejla Demiri, University of Tübingen

Matthias Morgenstern, University of Tübingen

 

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Alberto Lolli, Rector of Almo Collegio Borromeo Pavia

Daniela Rando, University of Pavia

Annibale Zambarbieri, University of Pavia

Thomas Frank, University of Pavia

Francesco Mores, LMU Munich

Davide Scotto, University of Basel

Gloria Samuela Pagani, University of Salento

Fabio Besostri, Theological Faculty of Northern Italy