The EUROSUD students on Dr Myrto Tsakatika’s course, Politics and Society in Southern Europe, were invited to an organised Round Table discussing ‘The Politics of Religion in Southern Europe’ as part of their Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree programme.
The experts involved were Dr Xabier Itcaina (University of Bordeaux), Dr Stratos Patrikios (University of Strathclyde) and Dr Ates Altinordu (Sabanci University), Sabanci University is an Associate Partner of the EUROSUD programme. Discussing topics; the social role of the Catholic Church in Italy, Spain and France; religiosity, political attitudes and the modernisation of the Greek Orthodox Church; political Islam in Turkey from the 1970s until today.
Dr Itçaina, focused on the general argument of his book Catholic mediations in Southern Europe. The invisible politics of religion (Routledge, 2019). The presentation aimed at proposing a comparative analytical framework on religion and politics in Southern Europe, here focused on Catholic countries, to the EUROSUD students. As a whole, the composition of the panel, with three papers on different religions (Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Islam) and countries (Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey) was very insightful and gave the floor to an interesting discussion, which kept the students engaged.
