Approaches to the relation between normative text and socio-cultural context in the study of religions

Research Project
2009 – 2010

The Project was funded by the Research Fund of Sofia University

More than thirty scholars participated in this project – from the Faculty of Classical and Modern Philology, the Faculty of Philosophy, the Faculty of History, and the Faculty of Theology at Sofia University, as well as researchers from the New Bulgarian University, the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Balkan Studies with a Center of Thracian Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and others. In addition, more than thirty graduate students from various Master’s and PhD programs were involved in the project activities.

The research steps were centered around the establishing of the regular seminar "Religion and Culture", initiated in the 2009 – 2010 academic year. During this seminar, the team member participants presented the results of their studies.

The following events were also organized within this project:

• Summer School "Religion and Culture"
  28 August – 2 September 2009, City of Smolyan
• Concluding Workshop "Religion, Normative Text and Socio-Cultural Context"
  23 April 2010, Sofia

The final product evolving from the entire research was the edited book Christianity, Islam, and Eastern Religions: Normative Text and Sociocultural Context, edited by Simeon Evstatiev, Sofia: East West Publishers, 2011.