Events

This seminar addresses the question of the body after death as the Arab-Muslim tradition describes it first in the Koran and Haddith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), and then in the abundant literature of what is called adâb al-Kabr (the salutary terrors from the grave).

Inspired by the comparison of Christ’s message to a “light yoke” (Mt 11: 28-30), this talk surveys the trajectory of Christian hedonism of the Renaissance/modern period, with special reference to Lorenzo Valla and its impact on contemporary thought.

Drawing inspiration from the Latin American scholarship on decoloniality, this contribution has a twofold objective. On the one hand, it intends to shed light on the role of language, in a broad sense, as a means of colonial perpetuation in the horizontal world of the digital sphere; on the other, it aims to present some theoretical-methodological perspectives, in a semiotic key, capable of de-territorializing research in this field, by paying particular attention to the exploration of technological frontiers. Such reflection cannot avoid an introduction having as its object the dialogue between decoloniality and religious studies.

The study aims showing how differences between communities translate into “otherism”, radicalism, and political polarisation. Choosing Sri Lanka as an example, it will study Sinhala identity narration, allowing this majoritarian group to act as under constant threat by the “other” (firstly Tamils, now Muslims).

Technological innovation and body enhancement seem to challenge the process of polarization that has been traditionally associated with corporeality, favouring forms of hybridization that entail relevant consequences in terms of signification, as well as regards the ethical dimension. The seminar deals with such issues by combining a thorough literature review with the analysis of relevant case studies.

The research group of the Bruno Kessler Foundation's Center for Religious Sciences (ISR-FBK) presents to the public the results of the investigation of the intersectional approach in Italy, conducted within the European project INGRiD (Intersecting Grounds of Discrimination in Italy).

Valeria Fabretti: The talk refers to intersectionality as a conceptual tool to better investigate religiously motivated hate speech and its social effects. Bernd Kortmann: The overall spirit of this talk is to showcase concepts, theories, methods and approaches which linguistics provides for detecting and classifying hate speech and related types of speech, with a special focus on religion-related hate speech.

STELLA MORRA: "Beyond the Public and the Private. Family, Church and Society in the Space of the Common" ANDREA GRILLO: "A Theological Doctrine of Sexuality and Life Forms in the Open Society. Women's Authorities and the Rights of Homosexual Persons as Commonplaces of Depolarization"

"Center" and "peripheries" are the coordinates through which we can describe the power relations between nations and between continents, in the religious, political and economic spheres. Decolonial theology is an attempt to change these power relations and the interpretation of tradition.

In this webinar, Sara Agnelli (University of Florida) and Monica Consolandi (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University & FBK-ISR) will present the role of medical humanities in bridging the divide between the humanities and the natural sciences, also through the discussion of the study protocol COMMUNI.CARE.

Workshop will be attended: Marco Guerini - Counter Narrative Generation with AI: An Antidote to Hate and Polarization. Riccardo Gallotti - Quantifying and Modeling Online Polarization and the Spreading of Disinformation Stefanie Ullmann - Radicalisation, (De)Polarisation and the Role of Artificial Intelligence

After presenting a range of conceptions of disagreement and belief polarization from social psychology and philosophical epistemology, the talk will critically discuss the question of whether, and to what extent, those conceptions are useful for understanding phenomena of religious disagreement.