Panel Chair and Presenter, First Annual Conference, European Academy of Religion, Bologna, 5-8 March, 2018

‘The European Academy of Religion (EuARe) is a research initiative launched under the high patronage of the European Parliament which offers an exchange platform to academies and scientific societies; associations; research centers and institutions; university labs, clusters, and departments; journals, publishers, media and scholars coming from Europe and the surrounding regions’ (see https://www.europeanacademyofreligion.org/missionstatement).

With over 900 participants, the new research initiative was off to an impressive start this week. Some of the highlights for me included:

Panel on ’The Future of Freedom of Religion: International Perspectives’, chaired by Ana Maria Celis (Chile, President of the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies), with Mark Hill (Cardiff University), Elizabeth Clark (Brigham Young University, Provo), Asher Maoz (Peres Academic Center, Tel Aviv) and Juan Navarro Floria (Pontificia Universidad Católica, Buenos Aires) presenting.

Panel on ’Commonwealth as Crossroads: Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) in the Commonwealth of Nations’, with Fabio Petito (University of Sussex), Erin Wilson (University of Groningen), Monica Toft (Tufts University), Ahmed Garba (Bauchi State University, Nigeria) and M. Christian Green (Commonwealth Initiative for Freedom of Religion or Belief)  as speakers.

Panel on ‘Religious Universities and Professional Education: Positive Influence or Prejudicial Effect?’, chaired by Jessica Giles (The Open University), with Elizabeth Clark (Brigham Young University) and Michael P. Moreland (Villanova University) presenting

I am furthermore grateful for the extraordinarily valuable feedback received after the presentation of my paper on ‘Comparative Constitutional Law and Natural Law’ during my own panel ‘Courts and Religion. Approaches and Perspectives’: