Books & ideas

The Limits of Religious Freedom

Ophélie Desmons — 2025-10-16T12:00:00Z

The separation of church and state is a principle that is often difficult to apply. In some cases, a delicate balance must be struck between religious freedom and equality.

The divine light of prisons

Juliette Galonnier — 2025-10-02T07:00:00Z

By following inmates who were not initially religious but who later found God in prison, Thibault Ducloux rethinks our understanding of the social conditions that produce and preserve faith.

The Earth Mother vs. God the Father

Jean-Baptiste Vuillerod — 2025-06-26T06:30:00Z

Christianity is based on an egalitarian indifference to sexual difference, but in practice treats women very unequally. God the father has replaced the pagan idea of the Earth Mother, who celebrates humanity's shared belonging to Gaia.

The Vegetable Garden of Eden

Ariel Suhamy — 2025-01-09T07:30:00Z

The question of original sin no longer concerns us as much as that of diet. But what if it were the same?

Divine Sensations

Kevin Bouillot — 2024-10-29T08:02:31Z

In ancient Greece, religious rites were designed to produce a unique state of receptivity. This book, which focuses on the tools used in sensory encounters with the gods, contributes to the sensory turn that is currently revitalizing historical studies.

A religion without institutions?

Kheloudja Amer — 2024-06-27T07:00:00Z

Pentecostalism, a rapidly growing movement, is a paradoxical religion: it denies its status as a church, leaving individuals in a one-to-one relationship with God, yet in a way that allows dominated groups to acquire a degree of social legitimacy.

The Many Facets of Islam

Steven Duarte — 2024-05-16T06:50:00Z

Both as a religion and as a civilisation, Islam is currently beset by a cacophony and a worrying erosion of plurality by its apologists as well as its detractors. The “clash of ignorances” is much more real than the so-called “clash of civilisations”.

God is in the street

Mathieu Marraud — 2023-11-16T09:07:00Z

What if the eighteenth century in France was an age of Catholic fervor? Through a study of religious processions, Gaël Rideau presents a tableau of urban life that, in the very midst of theEnlightenment, was marked and organized by public expressions of faith.

Organising a Muslim Society

Arthur Asseraf — 2023-09-21T09:00:00Z

The Association of Algerian Ulema played an important role in the process of decolonisation. Its goal: making Algeria into a Muslim society.

Quran & Scholars

Matteo Bächtold — 2020-11-16T08:00:00Z

The three large volumes of Le Coran des historiens (The Historian's Quran) revolutionises the reading of this text, much as the historical-critical exegesis of the Bible did in the 19^th century. It does this by carefully situating the Quran in its historical, political religious and legal context and at the crossroads of the civilisations that engendered it.