Religion has had been foundational in shaping Italy. Home to the Vatican State, the Italian peninsula is the religious centre for one billion Catholics globally. It is also increasingly home to those of other faiths, especially Islam. Italy's development as a contemporary post-secular and multi-religious society is fraught and fascinating. The recent return of religious discourse from the margins of Western society to a central position is a sign of what German philosopher, J?rgen Habermas, has defined as the post-secular condition. Habermas and others have questioned what most people in the West had, up to a few years ago, taken for granted: the unstoppable forward march of secularization and the subsequent marginalization of religion. Instead, one of the greatest global fault-lines in the contemporary world - the divide between absolutist extremist Islamic faith and liberal, but Christian-inflected, secular values - has religious identity at its core. The first book-length study to examine religion in contemporary Italian cinema and television fiction, Screening Religions in Italy identifies two key issues: how Italian filmmaking constructs the continuing position of religion in the public sphere and why religion persists on Italian screens. It spans genres such as horror, comedy, hagiopics, and TV fiction, and explores both commercial and art-house filmmaking. It treats films and television series that range from Moretti's Habemus Papam to Sorrentino's The Young Pope.

"This is the first book-length study to address the question of religion in contemporary Italian cinema and television. It questions why religion persists on Italian screens and how this reflects and constructs Italy's emerging post-secularity."--

Religion has had been foundational in shaping Italy. Home to the Vatican State, the Italian peninsula is the religious centre for one billion Catholics globally. It is also increasingly home to those of other faiths, especially Islam. Italy’s development as a contemporary post-secular and multi-religious society is fraught and fascinating. The recent resurgence of religious discourse is a sign of what German philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, has defined as the post-secular condition. Habermas and others have questioned what most people in the West had, up to a few years ago, taken for granted: the unstoppable forward march of secularization and the subsequent marginalization of religion. Instead, one of the greatest global fault-lines in the contemporary world – the divide between absolutist, extremist Islamic faith and liberal, but Christian-inflected, secular values – has religious identity at its core. The first book-length study to examine religion in contemporary Italian cinema and television, Screening Religions in Italy spans genres such as horror, comedy, hagiopics, and TV fiction, and explores both commercial and art-house filmmaking. In a discussion of films and television series that range from Moretti’s Habemus Papam to Sorrentino’s The Young Pope, the author identifies two key issues: how Italian filmmaking constructs the continuing position of religion in the public sphere and why religion persists on Italian screens.

The volume investigates the interconnections between the Italian Jewish worlds and wider European and Mediterranean circles, situating the Italian Jewish experience within a transregional and transnational context mindful of the complex set of networks, relations, and loyalties that characterized Jewish diasporic life. Preceded by a methodological introduction by the editors, the chapters address rabbinic connections and ties of communal solidarity in the early modern period, and examine the circulation of Hebrew books and the overlap of national and transnational identities after emancipation. For the twentieth century, this volume additionally explores the Italian side of the Wissenschaft des Judentums; the role of international Jewish agencies in the years of Fascist racial persecution; the interactions between Italian Jewry, JDPs and Zionist envoys after Word War II; and the impact of Zionism in transforming modern Jewish identities.

In A Need for Religion: Insecurity and Religiosity in the Contemporary World Francesco Molteni analyses the decline in religiosity observed in developed countries in relation to the diminished need for reassurance and support that religion provides.

2001 essay collection on the Italian Church's attempt to control and censor 'knowledge' during the counter-Reformation.