Religious Sciences Section
- Section Dean: Hubert Bost
Established in 1886, the Religious Sciences Section is reputed for its original scholarship in the subject of religions, which it examines in a secular and cross-cultural spirit. By emphasizing comparative and interdisciplinary study, it is the only academic body in France to cover this field so extensively, using a wide range of scientific approaches.
The Section’s teaching in the area of research extends into the most diverse cultural and linguistic fields from Antiquity to modern and contemporary times. Strongly committed to philological tradition, it also naturally draws on disciplines or resources as diverse and complementary as history, archeology, iconology, law, philosophy, ethnology, anthropology and sociology, as well as the cinema and new technologies.
- The Section included 54 full professors and 12 assitant professors in 2010 and it welcomes a large number of foreign scholars as guest fellows every year.
- Topics covered may be grouped in nine broad categories:
- Religious ethnology (Africa, Americas, Europe, Australia/Oceania)
- Religions of Asia
- Polytheistic Religions of the Ancient World
- Judaism
- Christianity and its margins
- Islam
- Secularisms and Religions in the Contemporary World
- Esoterisms
- Epistemology and Methods in Religious Sciences
To find out more, see:
- Conference programs in Religious Sciences for the current year
- The Annuaire of the Religious Sciences Section at: http://asr.revues.org
- The website of the European Institute of Religious Sciences (IESR-EPHE) at: http://www.iesr.fr