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Our research

Working with partner institutions in Europe, our research focuses on post-sixteenth-century Christianity in the West and how it has impacted political theology over time.

Our main activity is a project co-organised by Birbeck, the Institut Romand de Systématique et d'Éthique (IRSE) at the Faculty of Theology of University of Geneva, and the Centre for Religious Studies of Bruno Kessler Foundation (FBK-ISR) of Trento. This project is titled 'Coniugium quoddam Dei et hominis est religio' (loosely, 'The marriage of a man and a religion') and its main output is a series of festivals held in various locations in Italy, focusing on the work of the sixteenth-century Italian friar, cosmological theorist and philosopher Giordano Bruno. So far the project has held the following festivals: Truth and Dissimulation (2014); Power, Honour, Love (2014); The Law and the Vicissitude (2015); Absolutism, Sovereignty and Toleration (2015); and Will, Power and Being (2018).

Research collaboration 

We have developed academic networks with the following institutions in Europe:

  • Università degli Studi, Trento, Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia; Centro per le Scienze Religiose alla Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento (Italy). 
  • Université de Genève, Faculté de théologie protestante, Institut Romand de Systématique et d’Ethique, Genève (Switzerland). Find out more about the 2015 conference (information in French).
  • Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (Germany) and Leucorea, Stiftung Öffentlichen Rechts, Wittenberg (Germany).

The unifying feature of all three partner universities is their close relation to post-sixteenth-century Christianity in the West. Wittenberg and Geneva are the birthplaces of the Lutheran and Calvinist Reform movements, respectively, and Trento is the birthplace of modern, reformed (or 'counter-reformed') continental Catholicism.
CRIPT was founded following a period of intense research in political theology by these institutions. Working in collaboration, we aim to develop this research further. 

Publications

  • (2015) Schütz, A and Traversino, M (textes réunis par),'Sit pro ratione voluntas'. L’âge moderne de la norme et la métaphysique de la volonté, Paris: Cerf.
  • (2015) Traversino, M (ed.), Verità e dissimulazione. L'infinito di Giordano Bruno tra caccia filosofica e riforma religiosa, Naples: Editrice Domenicana Italiana.
  • (2013) Schütz, A and Traversino, M (eds/a cura di) The Theology of Potentia Dei and the History of European Normativity / Alle origini dell'idea di normativismo. Il problema della Potentia Dei tra teologia e diritto pubblico europeo, 2 vols, 'Divus Thomas' 115/2 (2012), 116/3