Participation of PISAI in the 2021 Annual Meeting of the AAR

Two members of the PISAI academic community gave presentations at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR).

Prof. Jason Welle, Director of Studies at PISAI, participated in the Religious Reflections on Friendship Seminar, which dedicated a panel to the question of interreligious friendship. Welle’s paper, “Amici Tutti? : Pope Francis and the Rhetoric of Interreligious Friendship”, explored the distinction between friendship and fraternity and Pope Francis’s promotion of interfaith relations.
Anna Canton, a doctoral student in co-tutela with PISAI and the Sapienza University of Rome, gave a presentation for the International Qur’anic Studies Association (IQSA), which meets concomitantly with the AAR. Her paper, “Is the Eschatological Window Closing? The Hour between Sūrat al-Kahf 32–44 and the Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:16–21)”, took a comparative approach to the imminent coming of the Last Judgment in the parables of these sacred texts.

The AAR is the largest professional organization of religion scholars in the world, regularly drawing ten thousand professors, graduate students, and independent researchers to its annual meeting, held this year from 20-23 November in San Antonio, Texas. Due to the pandemic, in-person attendance at the conference this year was reduced to about half, with robust participation in the virtual sessions; both Welle and Canton gave their papers remotely.