Urban Religion – Four seminars
25-26 March; 9-10 April 2026 | Bologna, via S. Vitale 114
On Tuesday, 25 March 2026, and Wednesday, 26 March, as well as 9 and 10 April, the seminar Urban Religion will take place at the Fondazione per le scienze religiose (via S. Vitale 114, Bologna), from 10 AM to 12 PM.
Every lecture will be conducted by Jörg Rüpke, Professor of Comparative Religion and Vice-Director of the Max-Weber-Kolleg at the University of Erfurt.
The seminar explores the perspective of urban religion, an approach that examines the re-emergence and transformation of religious practices in contemporary global cities and investigates its applicability to the historical study of religion, from the earliest phases of urbanisation to the early modern period.
The aim of the course is to introduce analytical concepts and models that can serve as methodological tools for research, enabling PhD students to adapt them to their own research questions, historical periods, and source materials.
Across four sessions, the seminar will introduce the main theoretical concepts of urban religion, examine the historical relationship between urbanisation and religious change through selected case studies, develop analytical tools for the study of religion in urban contexts, and conclude with presentations and discussion of the participants’ own research projects from the perspective of urban religion.
The working languages of the seminar will be English and Italian: presentations will be delivered in English, while discussion may take place bilingually.
The meetings will include preparatory readings, presentations of concepts and case studies, plenary discussions, and collaborative work on sources and research materials.
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Jörg Rüpke is also a member of the German Wissenschaftsrat and of the Academia Europaea.
A visiting professor at numerous European and American universities, he serves on the editorial boards of Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft, Archiv für Religionsgeschichte, and Historia Religionum.
His research focuses on the history of religions in classical and late antiquity, with particular attention to the relationship between religious practices and political authority in the Roman Republic and Empire.
