Rome seminars

The Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry's Rome seminar series commenced in September 2015, when ACU's Rome Campus was opened. The series has drawn together international scholars to discuss critical questions in religion and theology from multidisciplinary perspectives.

Providing a collaborative space to craft ideas in conversation with other researchers, the seminars are a practical expression of our ongoing commitment to world-leading research, stimulating international research collaboration, advancing transnational research student education, and communicating innovative research to a public audience.

Research arising from the seminars has been published by high-quality journals and publishers such as Theological Studies, Modern Theology, Cambridge University Press, The University of Chicago Press, Bloomsbury and De Gruyter.

ACU Rome Campus 2025 Research Events (PDF, 87KB)

ACU Rome Campus 2024 Research Events (PDF, 85KB)

ACU Rome Campus 2023 Research Events (PDF, 115 KB)

ACU Rome Campus 2022 Research Activities (PDF, 119 KB)

Rome public lectures

Peter Howard - Professor and Former Director, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University, and Honorary Professor, University of St Andrews

Title: " Before Michelangelo: "Revisioning" Sixtus"s Sistine Chapel as Sensorium”

5pm Monday 21 October 2024

Further information (PDF, 137MB)

Fiona Griffiths - Professor of History and Chair, Department of Religion, Stanford University

Title: "Priests" Wives in Medieval Europe: Excavating a Forgotten History of Women

5pm Thursday 12 October 2023

Further information (PDF, 227 KB)

Sarah Coakley - Professor Emerita, University of Cambridge, Honorary Professorial Fellow, Australian Catholic University

Title: Re-thinking the ressourcement recovery of patristic ''spiritual sensation'': new applications to contemporary Church and culture

5pm Thursday 15 September 2022

Further information (PDF, 227 KB)

Lewis Ayres - Professor of Theology, University of Durham, Professorial Fellow, Australian Catholic University

Title: The Essential Legacy of Post-Chalcedonian Christology: A Hymn to the Emperor Justinian

6pm Thursday 22 September 2022

Further information (PDF, 262, KB)

Nicholas Terpstra - Professor of History, University of Toronto, President of the Renaissance Society of America

Title: Moving or Fixed? Defining (the) Reformation in the First Global Age

6pm Thursday 29 September 2022

Further information (PDF, 249 KB)

Rome public seminar

Unwounded World: A Marian Peace for our Shared Future

5 - 6 October 2022

Further information (PDF, 678 KB)

Conference program (PDF, 217 KB)

Research projects

Religion & Theology: Redeeming Autonomy

Religion & Theology: Theologies of Catholicity

Bible and Early Christian Studies: Flourishing in Early Christianity

Religious Mobilities: Europe and the Medieval and Early Modern World