Over the past twenty years, profound transformations have affected the global landscape and, with it, the academic study of religions. In light of these changes, it is timely to revisit earlier attempts to conceptualize the field from a global perspective. In the early 2000s, Gregory D. Alles embarked on a collaborative project mapping the study of religions as a global enterprise, resulting in the edited volume Religious Studies: A Global View (2008). In the introduction, Alles noted that while a global community of scholars of religion was emerging, an asymmetry of knowledge persisted, whereby results, methods, and theories did not circulate equally across the world. The volume offered an overview of the study of religions in its global diversity while reflecting on the commonalities that allow us to speak of a distinctive field. With this double panel, the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) revisits and updates selected findings of the book.
Chairs, representing the IAHR: Satoko Fujiwara, University of Tokyo and Andrea Rota, University of Oslo
Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands:
Will Sweetman, University of Otago, Dunedin
Latin America:
Valentina Pereira Arena, Universidad Católica del Uruguay, Montevideo and María Pilar García Bossio, Universidad Católica Argentina, Buenos Aires
Eastern and Central Europe:
David Václavík, Masaryk Univerzity, Brno
Western Europe:
Maria Chiara Giorda, University of Roma Tre, Rome