Conference "Religions and Language - Languages and Religion" 23-24 November 2026

Religions and Languages, Languages and Religion
Discourses and Practices between Communicative Processes and Experiential Contexts in the Ancient and Late Antique Mediterranean

International Conference
Bologna, 23–24 November 2026, Aula Prodi, SGM 2

The conference aims to explore the relationship between religions and languages in the ancient and late antique Mediterranean, bringing into dialogue a philology of discursive practices with a cultural history of religious communication. The initiative fosters dialogue among the history of religions, classical and late antique philology, ancient history, and cultural history, with particular attention to comparative and interdisciplinary approaches.

In the ancient world, religions are constituted, transmitted, and transformed through a plurality of communicative practices: hymns, prayers, myths, commentaries, sermons, treatises, polemics, translations, rewritings, inscriptions, books, and written objects. The conference investigates the historical co-construction of religions and languages in the Greek-Roman, Jewish, and Christian Mediterranean, with attention to forms of discourse, media of communication, contexts of enunciation, and the dynamics of competition and semantic negotiation.

Organisation: Giuseppina Paola Viscardi