The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Europe: Book Launch

Event Recording. Source: Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs

The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Europe was launched online by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs on January 27th 2022. The Handbook was co-authored by Grace Davie, Professor Emeritues in Sociology at the University of Exeter, UK, and Lucian Leustean, Reader in Politics and International Relations at Aston University, UK. The first part of the collection offers a detailed overview of religious ideas, structures, and institutions in the making of Europe. It then moves on to examines the role of religion in fostering identity, survival, and tolerance in the empires and nation-states of Europe from Antiquity until today; the interplay between religion, politics and ideologies in the twentieth century; the dialogue between religious communities and European institutions in the construction of the European Union; and the engagement of Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, and Eastern religions with the idea of Europe. Finally, it closes with an overview of European nation states, focusing on history, demography, legal perspectives, political authorities, societal changes, and current trends.

Featured at the book launch was a presentation by both co-editors of the book, who wrote the introduction to the collection “Religion and Europe: Methods, Theories, and Approaches”. Professor Jocelyne Cesari, Berkley Center Senior Fellow and Professor of Religion and Politics at the University of Birmingham, UK, who contributed a chapter on “Islam and Europe” offered a response to the collection. Finally, the discussion was moderated by Judd Birdsall, a Senior Research Fellow at the Berkley Center and project director of the Transatlantic Policy Network on Religion and Diplomacy.

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