Circle U. new course:
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religion, Conflict and Reconciliation: Uncovering Taboos
Target audience: PhD students and postdocs
Teaching:
- Online: 22 January, 18 February, 11 March, 1 June.
- On site (in Louvain-la-Neuve): 18 to 22 May 2026
This course invites early career researchers to explore the intricate relations between religion, conflict, and reconciliation through an interdisciplinary lens. Combining online sessions and an intensive in-person week, participants will investigate how faith traditions, taboos, and collective memory shape both division and healing in contemporary societies.
Application deadline: 15 December 2025
Registration form here.
Funding
- No participation fees
- Included: Daily breaks and lunches, excursions
- Not included: Travel, accommodation and evening meals are to be covered by participants.
The course is organized as a blended intensive program (BIP) within Erasmus+, and hence you may apply for a grant at your home university.
Themes
Although it focuses on religion, the questions addressed are much broader and touch on various interdisciplinary themes such as:
- Gender studies (norms, authority, resistance),
- Arts and narratives as ways to mediate trauma,
- Memory and post-conflict justice,
- Sacred spaces and symbols in ecological or political struggles,
- Forms of dissent (feminist, queer, ecological),
- Care ethics and empathy within communities,
- and the role of power, silence, and institutional dynamics in reconciliation.
In that sense, this course could also be of interest to early career researchers in social sciences, political science, cultural studies, gender studies, philosophy, or the arts.