Religions Webinar | Religion, Law and Territory Past and Present: Challenges and Transformations in Comparative Perspective
the chair
3rd Religions Webinar
Religion, Law and Territory Past and Present: Challenges and Transformations in Comparative Perspective
This webinar is conceived as an opportunity to present the scientific framework of the Special Issue, to open a dialogue with scholars working on related topics, and to illustrate some of the research perspectives that the issue aims to bring together. The central idea behind this initiative is that the relationship between religion, law and territory represents a crucial dimension of both historical and contemporary legal and social organisation. Religious traditions, institutions and communities have always interacted with territorial governance, shaping norms, identities, spaces, institutions and forms of coexistence. At the same time, legal systems have regulated the presence and activities of religious actors within specific territorial contexts, producing different models of cooperation, control, separation or accommodation.
Today, this relationship is undergoing significant transformations. Processes such as migration, religious pluralism, urbanisation, digitalisation and the reconfiguration of political and legal boundaries are reshaping the ways in which religion is embedded in space and regulated by law. Cities, regions, transnational spaces and digital environments have become key contexts in which religious diversity and legal regulation intersect. Issues such as places of worship, religious symbols in public spaces, minority religious rights, faith-based welfare, religious communities in multicultural urban environments, and the role of local and supranational authorities are at the centre of important legal, political and social debates.
The Special Issue is open to contributions addressing, among other themes, the historical relationship between religious institutions and territorial governance; the legal regulation of places of worship; religious pluralism and urban governance; the territorial dimensions of freedom of religion or belief; comparative approaches to religion in public spaces; migration and the territorial reconfiguration of religious communities; local and regional governance of religious diversity; supranational and international legal frameworks; and the transformation of religious territoriality in digital spaces.
Date: 10 June 2026
Time: 9:30 am (CEST) | 3:30 pm (CST Asia)
Webinar ID: 875 8574 4860
Webinar Secretariat: journal.webinar@mdpi.com
Meet Our Speakers
Dr. Maria Lucenti
Department of Educational Sciences, University of Genoa, Italy;
Maria Lucenti is Assistant Professor of History of Education at the University of Genoa. Her work is characterized by a transnational and interdisciplinary approach, with particular attention to the ways curricula, educational media, and narratives contribute to the construction of collective imaginaries and representations of religious and cultural diversity. She serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of a peer-reviewed book series in the history of education and has received competitive international research funding from institutions including the European Union, the German Research Foundation (DFG), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Max Weber Foundation. She has also been awarded the Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer – Chair 2026–2027 by the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board (FFSB) of the U.S. Department of State.
Dr. Elisabetta Colagrossi
Department of Antiquities, Philosophy and History (DAFIST), University of Genoa, Italy;
Elisabetta Colagrossi is Associate Professor of History of Religions and Philosophy of Interreligious Dialogue at the University of Genoa. She is also Deputy Director of the Interdepartmental Research Centre on Migratory Religious Phenomena and Territorial Transformations at the same university. Her research is grounded in the history of religions, with openings toward philosophical hermeneutics and the philosophy of religion, with particular attention to the dynamics of religious violence within monotheisms, to pluralism and the limits of translatability between traditions, and to forms of intercultural and interreligious engagement. Among her areas of interest is the evolution of religious pluralism in contemporary India, approached through a critical reconstruction of its historical background. She is the author of Jan Assmann. Questioning the Monotheisms (Morcelliana), and has edited the Italian translations of Assmann’s The Discomfort of Monotheisms, Religio Duplex, and Total Religion.
Dr. Mara Morelli
Department of Educational Sciences, University of Genoa, Italy;
Mara Morelli worked as a freelance conference interpreter since 1991 until 2003. She holds a PhD. in Translation and Interpreting from the University of Granada. She is currently carrying out research in both domains of interpreting and mediation, in particular with an on-field project on multilingual communication, interpreting and mediation in healthcare, social settings and prisons. She coordinated the Erasmus+ project Cooperatively Transmediate aCT (2019-2022) and she is currently coordinating the Erasmus+ project Supporting the Penitentiary System Advancement through Reflection and Knowledge about linguistic and cultural diversity (SPARK, 2025-2028).
Ms. Alessia Baghino
Department of Political and International Studies, University of Genoa, Italy, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Chile;
Alessia Baghino is a PhD candidate in Law at Universidad Alberto Hurtado in Chile. She is currently undertaking a joint doctoral programme with the University of Genoa, at the Department of Political and International Sciences.
Her research focuses on the religious freedom of Indigenous peoples, legal philosophy, and canon and ecclesiastical law. She is currently an academic collaborator in the field of IUS/11 – Canon Law and Ecclesiastical Law.
"Religion, Law and Territory Past and Present: Challenges and Transformations in Comparative Perspective"
Guest Editor: Dr. Daniela Taratino
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2026