Disciplines involved

Through an innovative interdisciplinary approach aimed at decompartmentalizing the representative constructions of religions, which are often binary and ideologically oriented (sacred/profane, monotheism/polytheism, religion/magic, liberal/integrist, etc.), the ITI's goal will be to study, in a comparative perspective, the religious systems that have existed or are still alive today in their internal mode of functioning and in their interactions with their societal environment. This interdisciplinary and transversal thematic research, "Religious re-structuring: internal transformations and external interactions", will be based on textual and intertextual studies, on the fabrication of identities and alterities, on the societal boundaries between religions and political power, on ritual practices and their objects materializing belief, as well as on the interactions between religions, sexual practices and gender.

With its already partly interdisciplinary Master's programs (Master's degree in Religions, History and Societies, Master's degree in Muslim Worlds, Master's degree in Interdisciplinary Ancient Worlds, Master's degree in Interreligious Studies and Society, etc.) and doctoral programs, funded research projects and numerous international collaborations and contacts, ITI HiSAAR proposes to support interdisciplinary research activities, to offer thesis and post-doctoral fellowships, and to support the development of new research projects. ) and doctoral studies, funded research projects and numerous international collaborations and contacts, ITI HiSAAR proposes to support transverse interdisciplinary research actions, to offer thesis and post-doctoral fellowships, to create masterclasses of excellence, summer and winter universities, databases, manuals, innovative pedagogical tools, knowledge dissemination devices, as well as to interact with the socio-economic world (social work, prisons, national education, hospitals, local authorities, etc.) and the digital humanities (OCAD, the French Ministry of Culture, the French Ministry of Education, the French Ministry of Culture, the French Ministry of Culture, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the French Ministry of the Interior, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs). ) and digital humanities (OCR, TDM, etc.) through close collaboration with the National and University Library of Strasbourg and UnivOAK.

The ITI HiSAAR will develop a historical-critical, comparative and anthropological approach to the religious phenomenon by relying on the interdisciplinary skills of its members: history, archaeology, philology, anthropology and sociology. Thanks to the scientific wealth of its Strasbourg members, it will be able to consider a vast group of religious systems whose long history is characterized by both doctrinal and spatial interactions (Americas - Europe - Mediterranean - Middle East - South Asia - Southeast Asia - Far East).

This interdisciplinary and comparative approach strengthens the Master's and PhD programs, which until now have been largely disciplinary and included only one or perhaps two religious systems. The expertise in this field, developed by the Institute of Comparative History of Religions of the Faculty of Historical Sciences and its Master's program since the LMD reform, and supported by sociological and anthropological comparatism, will guarantee the epistemological and methodological processes used in the masterclasses and the summer and winter schools.

The methodological approach of the ITI, based on the interdisciplinarity evident in many of the master's courses attached to it, and practiced by its principal actors, is profoundly innovative, because, providing a variety of methodological tools, it allows for an interdisciplinary and integrated analysis of religious facts. The perspective of this ITI, in fact, combines a deep knowledge of the historical and cultural development of the great religions from Antiquity to the present day with the direct reading of texts and therefore the specific linguistic-philological knowledge concerning the founding texts of the religions and the consequent doctrinal production crystallized in the different traditions (textual axis, intertextuality and tradition), with phenomenology and sociology of religions, with ethno-anthropological disciplines and with archaeological research. The seminar training/research activities thus introduce the student to the practice of an intelligent comparison of different religious traditions through the study of major common themes, conducted under the direction of specialists coordinated with each other. The integrated approach will allow for the study of a plurality of historically similar religious traditions, studied through their sources and in the links that connect them to the broader socio-cultural context in which they emerged, matured, and endured or disappeared.