Events

Through an interdisciplinary lens, we will explore the processes that lead meaning to take on this enchanted quality, examining the mechanisms by which certain symbols, narratives, or objects come to evoke wonder, reverence, or a sense of the sacred.

By considering how the concept of vocation has not disappeared but fundamentally changed, I aim to reveal a crucial dimension of humanity’s enduring susceptibility to the enchantment of the world.

The talk argues that a secular understanding of enchantment, as proposed by John McDowell, can be reconciled with theistic beliefs, opening the possibility of a divinely enchanted world. It concludes that enchantment can be experienced as an intrinsic quality of reality, even without a divine creator.

After Robert Orsi and Isabella Guanzini, it is Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati’s (LMU Munich) turn to deliver the annual Davide Zordan Lecture. Her talk will focus on the key topic for any student of religion: what is the place of religion in our society?

In an interdisciplinary dialogue, the topic of medically assisted suicide will be discussed, in light of the reflection conducted within the Scientific Council of the Courtyard of the Gentiles, reported in the document “Dialogue on Medically Assisted Suicide” (2024).

Artificial intelligence (AI) is not just a “key technology”, but a world-changing and world-creating collective phenomenon. Against this background, the question is posed as to why and how techno-promises are increasingly replacing religious experiences and what consequences are associated with this.

This is a contribution to the reflection on the ambivalent relation of urban dwellers to nature, torn between enchantment and valuation under the current circumstances of climate change. Taking trees as an illustration, it shows how eco-spiritual views and practices currently value them as good and ethical, while also making them object of economic valuations for institutions and structural regulations. In this ambivalent context notions of transcendence, and sacrality develop.

Conference co-organised by the Sensors & Devices Centre and the Centre for Religious Sciences (FBK) together with the Faculty of Law of the University of Trento, with the aim of concretely exploring the interdisciplinary space between science and humanities.

Understanding mysticism as a multidimensional and multifaith phenomenon is not an easy task. What explanatory paradigms do scholars use today?

The contemplative life, as well as aptitudes of wonder, of awe and the exercise of imagination, seem to return to the centre of attention and in the ethical-philosophical debate. How are these dimensions understood and thematised within our increasingly technological and digital societies?

The WHO has declared the global health emergency due to Covid-19 over, but it has not come to an end: this is why it is interesting to discuss it in a philosophical perspective, in particular by adopting an archaeogenalogical approach, as proposed by Michel Foucault.

Il seminario si concentrerà su una contestualizzazione e problematizzatine del concetto di “incanto” (e derivati) nelle teorie storiche, sociologiche, e antropologiche dall’inizio del ‘900 a oggi. Particolare attenzione sarà dedicata agli usi di tale concetto e alle pratiche sociali cui esso si riferisce nei contesti post-socialisti dell’Europa Centro-Orientale.