About SHARP Lab
The SHARP Lab (Sharing Religious Places, hereinafter SRP) is a network of scholars interested in inter-religious interaction, devoting special attention to its spatial dynamics. It is by definition a trans-disciplinary network, as it brings together historians of religions, geographers, art historians, architects, sociologists, Islamicists, theologians and anthropologists among others. Inspired by an holistic approach towards SRPs, the members of ShaRP LAB meet online once a month, each time approaching the topic of religious sharing from a different angle, in emic, economic, ethnographic and methodological terms in the field of digital humanities.
SRP have highlighted different regimes of coexistence, as holy sites are claimed, used and spatialized by two or more religious groups at once. Sharing should thus be understood as a form of interaction that may vary of time, as SRP can witness peaceful cohabitation and syncretic ritual practices but also turn into an object of contention and lead to conflict and heated confrontations. We thus aim to avoid any aprioristic conception of inter-religious interaction as leaning towards unavoidable conflict or harmonious coexistence, respectively.
We mean “sharing” in a broad sense, as it is not limited to places that spontaneously ended up being attended by several religious groups but also includes sites built ad hoc for fostering inter-religious dialogue (such as inter-faith chapels and rooms). Likewise, the geographical scope of ShaRP LAB is not confined to those areas where shared sites have been already abundantly reported and studied, like the Mediterranean and the Balkans, neither it is meant to focus exclusively on world religions: with the progressive pluralization of the religious panorama, new spiritualities contribute to religious place-making, yet their role in the study of religious diversity.
Who we are
Miriam Abu Salem, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”
is a researcher at the University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” where she teaches Comparative law of religions. She is also Adjunct Professor of Islamic Law at the University of Calabria. Her research primarily focuses on women and religions, food and religious freedom and interfaith dialogue.
Luca Bossi, University of Turin
is a sociologist of religions and migrations. He is research fellow at the University of Turin, DCPS – Dipartimento di Culture, Politica e Società, and an affiliated researcher at the University of Lausanne, ISSR – Institut de Sciences Sociales des Religions. His research focuses on the sociology of religion, culture and migration; religious diversity in urban and public spaces; secularism, pluralism and religious transmission; minorities and freedom of belief.
Gianfranco Bria, University La Sapienza
is Marie Skłodowska Curie Global Fellow and Professor of Islamic Studies at Roma Tre University; he is also Adjunct Professor of Islamic Law at Sapienza University of Rome and Associate Researcher of the Centre d’études turques, ottomanes, balkaniques et centrasiatiques at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. His research concerns everyday Islamic life (practices, bodies, and beliefs) in the Balkans, and the history of Sufi thought and practices - particularly Bektashi – in Southeastern Europe since the late Ottoman period. He is scientific member of the research project on “Muhammad in the mirror of his community in early and modern Islam” (ANR-DFG, three-years project) and of the project “Red Golden Legend” (ANR- three-years project) .
Daniele Campobenedetto, Polytechnic of Turin
is an architect and assistant professor in Architectural and Urban Design at the Department of Architecture and Design of Politecnico di Torino. His research primarily focuses on urban transformation and urban design in European cities, with a specific interest in architectural typologies and urban rules. He actively contributes to the interdisciplinary research center "Future Urban Legacy Lab" as a Research Fellow.
Ioan Cozma, Pontifical Oriental Institute – Gregorian University
is an independent researcher and invited professor of Byzantine Canon Law at the Faculty of Eastern Canon Law of the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome. His research primarily focuses on Byzantine law, comparative religious law, monasticism, interreligious dialogue, and religious places.
Eleonora D’Alessandro, independent researcher
holds a MA in Byzantine Art History (2015) and Religious Studies (2019) from La Sapienza University of Rome, and a Master in World Heritage and Cultural Projects for Development at the Polytechnic of Turin and the University of Turin in collaboration with UNESCO. Her research explores the interplay between culture, architecture, religious practices and communities. She collaborates with several cultural institutions such as the MAXXI - National Museum of Contemporary Arts in Rome and Fondazione Santagata for the Economics of Culture.
Angelica Federici, FBK
is a research fellow at Fondazione Bruno Kessler, in Trento. Her research interests are: Virtual Reality, Religious Art and Architecture; Virtual restoration of liturgical furnishings, art and architecture.
Maria Chiara Giorda, University of Roma Tre
is a full professor of History of Religions at the Department of Humanities at Roma Tre University. Her research interests are: History of Monasticism, Geography of Religions, Shared Religious Places, and Religious Diversity in Public Spaces. She is the coordinator of the Scientific Committee of the Benvenuti in Italia Foundation and, since 2015, has participated in and coordinated national and international research groups.
Giulia Massenz, Polytechnic of Turin
is an architect and a PhD Candidate in Urban and Regional Development at the Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning (DIST) of the Polytechnic of Turin and the University of Turin. Her interests lie at the crossroad between minorities rights, urbanity, secularity, and religions with a particular focus on the interplay between the legal sphere and the spatial realm.
Silvia Omenetto, University La Sapienza
is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie post-doctoral Global fellow at the Department of Storia, Antropologia, Religioni, Arte e Spettacolo, Sapienza University of Rome. Her research primarily focuses on the materiality of religions in urban space, architectures for worship and death, gurdwaras in the Sikh diaspora, and the use of digital humanities (in particular, GIS - Geographic Information System - technology) in the spatial analysis of religions.
Luca Patrizi, University of Turin
teaches History of Islam at the Department of Historical Studies, University of Turin, Italy. He has been a research fellow at the Universities of Geneva, Sorbonne-Paris, Bonn and Exeter. His interests focus on the theological and ethical issues of Islam and on the doctrines and practices of Islamic esotericism.
Carmelo Russo, University La Sapienza
is researcher in Cultural Anthopology at the SARAS Department of Sapienza University of Rome. His research concerns relations between migrations, religions and urban spaces, religious minorities, neopaganism and contemporary spiritualities. He has conducted fieldwork in Italy and Tunisia.
Giuseppe Tateo, University of Bucharest
is postdoctoral Fellow at the ICUB University of Bucharest and research fellow at Fondazione Bruno Kessler (Trento, Italy). After earning his PhD from the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, he was postdoctoral fellow in Bucharest, Riga and Prague. Giuseppe’s current project investigates church-building activities in postsocialist Europe in comparative perspective.