Conference on political religions to honor historian Payne

The Mosse Program and the Department of History at UW–Madison are co-sponsors of a major international conference on comparative political religions that will assess the various themes and characteristics of political religion since the French Revolution.

The conference honors the long and distinguished career of UW–Madison history professor Stanley Payne, and is the first conference held in North American on the topic of comparative political religion.

The conference, titled “Comparative Political Religions in the Modern Era: A Conference in Honor of Stanley G. Payne,” will be held Friday-Sunday, May 7-9.

All conference sessions will take place in Room 201 of The Fluno Center for Executive Education, 601 University Ave.

The conference will explore methods by which the concept of political religion can be used as an analytical tool that offers new insights into contemporary history as well as into the concept of modernity itself.

The conference will investigate the following topics in four panels: concepts and theories of political religion; European political religion; political religions beyond Europe; and contemporary political and politicized religions.

The conference begins at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, May 7, with a keynote address by Emilio Gentile, a noted historian of fascism who teaches at the University of Rome La Sapienza. He will speak on “Civil Religion and Political Religion: The Origins, Evolution, and Historiography of the Sacralization of Politics.”

For more information, contact the Mosse Program-Department of History, (608) 263-1835 or jtortori@wisc.edu.