The Chairs of the 2023 Annual Conference of the European Academy of Religion are Dr Brendan Wolfe and Prof. Peter Howard.

Dr Wolfe is the Founder and Principal Editor of the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology. He is Honorary Reader in Historical Theology at St Mary’s College of the University of St Andrews and Honorary Fellow of the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University.

An historical theologian and linguist with wide research interests, he is the principal investigator of the Art as Revelation project on the cognitive psychology of religious art, director of the Sacred Landscape research cluster on the history of Christianity in Fife, and author of numerous articles on the Gothic Bible's role in the Christianization of the Germanic peoples of Late Antiquity.

The St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology is a nascent online, free-to-access encyclopaedia of the highest academic standards, treating perspectives internal to the traditions of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism with rigour and clarity. At the European Academy of Religion, contributors to the Encyclopaedia will present their research in a mix of open and closed panels for discussion by the wider academic community.

 

Prof. Howard is the immediate past Director of the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University. He is an historian of Renaissance Italy and of medieval thought with a particular interest in developing new paths for exploring performative aspects of culture, including through major funded projects on the Sistine Chapel. He was founding Director of Monash University’s Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (2012-2019) and Convener of The Prato Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (2010-2019).

Australian Catholic University, which is housed on eight campuses including one in Rome, established the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, to be a world-leader for studies in religion, philosophy, and history. The Institute, which is the heart of an international network of researchers, comprises three collaborative and interdisciplinary research programs: Biblical and Early Christian Studies, Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Religion and Theology. At the European Academy annual conference, the Institute will present the results of some of its collaborative research themes.

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