Violence in Sacred Texts

Fondazione Bruno Kessler in collaboration with the International Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations Association and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs organized a conference in Trento from October 10 to 12 entitled “Exiting Violence: The Role of Religion. From Texts to Theories” to investigate the link between religion and violence and to reflect on the role that sacred texts play in different religious traditions in relation to violence and conflict, not only in theological contexts, but also in relation to the national and international political context, to the public sphere, to the challenges posed by cultural and religious pluralism, taking particular account of the three great monotheistic religions, Buddhism and Hinduism.

The conference involved international experts and scholars, including theologians, philosophers, anthropologists and political scientists. Among them were Pasquale Annicchino, Judd Birdsall, Giancarlo Bosetti, Massimo Campanini, Donatella Dolcini, Manlio Graziano, Irene Jillson, Louis Komjathy, Jude Lal Fernando, Leo Lefebure, Gloria Moran, Gerard Mannion, Luigi Narbone, Ian Reader, Naftali Rothenberg, Vincent Sekhar, Assaf Sharon, Debora Tonelli, Marco Ventura, André Wénin and others.