During my career, I have stubbornly resisted the trend towards hyper-specialization, for this reason my Academic Curricula is particularly able to consider the Islamic religion and its history as the main focus, however, my competences in the historical, political and religions fields are more open and able to consider different ages, interdisciplinary aspects in an inclusive and dynamic perspective.
Accordingly, my research rejects the assumption that someone with a training in political science and international history is merely a student of political institutions, norms and international law. From my perspective, first as a student, and then as a research fellow with an increasing knowledge of religious studies and of the Islamic/Arab World in particular, I developed a dual clear attention to the history of the Islamic-Mediterranean world, the Islamic religious studies (Kalam, Falsafa and Eschatology) and the inter-religious Abrahamic dimension on one hand, but without turn aside from preserving a focus on contemporary issues as the “Clash of Civilization”, “Orientalism- Occidentalism”, “Islamic radicalization and de-radicalization” on the other hand.
The content of my research is shaped by a limited number of cognitive and methodological questions:
1. Are Islamic and Abrahamic faiths able to understand each others to better shape a future in a plural ethical and political perspective?
2. Even if ancient as contemporary Muslims authors have been able to explain universal as well as inclusive awareness of their religiosity, why have they being partially ignored in the rise of today’s religious fundamentalism?
3. What is the contribution that European-United States colonialism and post-colonialism imposed in stressing the disappearance of Arab-Middle Eastern plural consciousness in the contemporary age? What is the impact of Orientalist- Occidentalist narratives on it?
Led by these questions, my teaching and research activities have so far grappled with a range of problems linked with the Islamic/Arab understanding of religious Otherness in the Middle Eastern landscape at political, historical and religious level.
