PROGRAMME AND ABSTRACTS - Università degli Studi di Messina

Carla Del Zotto, University of Roma “La Sapienza”, Italy
Dalla religione all’identità nazionale: i popoli del Nord
75
Wed 16 th , 15.40, Classroom 11
The paper focuses on Ibn Fadlan’s Risala, a 10 th century report about the Volga region and the
Rūs, trading and plundering warrior groups, who are often referred to in the Arabic sources as
madjûs (‘worshippers of fire’). The Muslim author provides a vivid and detailed description of
a cruel funerary rite and pagan worship carried out by the Rūs. The account reveals the social
supremacy of the Scandinavians over the Slavs, but Ibn Fadlan doesn’t make any ethnic
distinction between the two peoples, describing a unique intermixture of religious elements
from different cultures. Unlike the Old Icelandic Sagas, written between the 12 th and 13 th
centuries, the Risala shows evidence of a wide religious syncretism and of a wavering ethnicity
among the Nordic people of the Viking age. Only afterwards, the conversion to Christianity of
Scandinavians and Slavs, resulting in new kingdoms being founded in the Middle Ages, will
also lead to a sense of national identity.
Francisco Diez de Velasco, University of La Laguna, Canarias, Spain
Wed 16 th , 11.00, Classroom 7
La influencia de Raffaele Pettazzoni en Ángel Álvarez de Miran y en la Historia de las
Religiones en España
Se revisará la relación discipular de Ángel Álvarez de Miranda, catedrático de Historia de las
Religiones en la Universidad de Madrid desde 1954 hasta su muerte en 1957 con Raffaele
Pettazzoni, que fue el director de su tesis italiana (sobre la sacralidad del toro). Los estudios
que bajo la dirección de Pettazzoni emprendió en la Universidad de Roma modelaron sus
formas de hacer historia de las religiones, desde una perspectiva generalista y comparada. Los
avatares de la historia universitaria en España llevaron a que la cátedra terminase
desapareciendo y por tanto que la influencia pettazzoniana, que era muy fuerte en Álvarez de
Miranda, fuese menos destacada posteriormente.
Ugo Dessì, University of Kyoto, Japan
Religious Responses to Globalization in Japan
Steffen Dix, University of Lisboa, Portugal
Tue 15 th , 15.00, Classroom 8
Tue 15 th , 15.20, Classroom 6
Voyages to the East and Religious Superpositions: A Peregrinação (The Travels) by Fernão
Mendes Pinto (1509?-1583)
Fernão Mendes Pinto (1509?-1583) was a Portuguese discoverer and writer who travelled
throughout the East for twenty years. These journeys are documented in his autobiographical