International Workshop – (Re)Thinking the Role of Religion in Social and Humanitarian Action
Preaching in a Transnational Approach. Middle East (19th–21st Centuries)
18 - 19 June 2026, Centre Marc Bloch, Tillion room, 7th floor, Friedrichstraße 191, 10117 Berlin, and Online. Organized by The ANR PredicMO.
Poster and Program flyer designed by Clément Blin (intern at the ANR PredicMO)
PROGRAM
18th June 2026
Zoom Link / ID of the meeting: 816 1846 8719 / Secret code: 910492
08:45 AM – 9:10 AM – Welcome of Participants
9:10 AM – 9:30 AM – Introduction and Conceptual Framework by Annalaura Turiano (IREMAM, CNRS, amU, ANR PredicMO) and Esther Moeller (Marburg University)
9:30 AM – 11:00 AM – Panel 1 – Spiritual Engagement and Economic Rationales: The Entangled Dynamics of Welfare and Preaching
Chair: Nazan Maksudyan (Centre Marc Bloch)
9:30 AM – 10:15 AM – Gabriel Doyle (Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations and the Istanbul Research Institute), “Not a single penny of my lottery earnings is present inside this mosque”: Islamic Morality and Urban Patronage in 1960s Istanbul.
10:15 AM – 11:00 AM – Tea Pitiurishvili (Tbilisi State University), Seeking the Path: Ne’matullahia Order’s One Branch from Traditional Mysticism to a Socially Engaged Form of Sufism.
11:00 AM – 11:30 AM – Coffee break
11:30 AM – 1:00 PM – Panel 2 – The Moral Politics of Humanitarianism
Chair: Giulia Scalettaris (Centre Marc Bloch)
11:30 AM – 12:15 PM – Carla Tiefenbacher (University of Köln), “May God reward us for our efforts”: Voluntourism, Humanitarian Crises, and How to Preach Catholicism in the Spanish-Moroccan Borderlands.
12:15 PM – 1:00 PM – Estella Carpi (University College London), The Moral Politics of Faith-Inspired Humanitarianism in Lebanon.
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM – Lunch
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM – Panel 3 – Faith-Based Humanitarianism and Soft Power
Chair: Karène Sanchez Summerer (University of Groningen)
2:00 PM – 2:45 PM – Natalia Liviero (Florida International University), Faith-Based Development and Humanitarian Aid in the Middle East: A Case Study of Caritas Jordan and Caritas Lebanon.
2:45 PM – 3:30 PM – William Guerraiche (Abrahamic Family House, Abu Dhabi), The Emirates: The Religious Dimension of Humanitarian Aid.
3:30 PM – 4:00 PM – Coffee break
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM – Panel 4 – Moral Grammars, Religious Norms
Chair: Norig Neveu (IREMAM, CNRS, amU)
4:00 PM – 4:45 PM – Marie Kortam (Beyond Compliance Consortium – University of York & War Child Alliance), Religious Norms, Shari’a, and the Moral Regulation of Harm in Humanitarian Crisis Settings.
4:45 PM – 5:30 PM – Sebastian Willert (Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture), Of Jewish Sanctuary and Scholarship: Preaching as a Catalyst for Academic Humanitarianism in Palestine, 1933–1945.
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM – Final discussion
19th June
Zoom Link / ID of the meeting: 879 2114 0861 / Secret code: 451817
9:00 AM – 10:30 AM – Panel 5 – Patterns of “Preaching Development”
Chair: Annalaura Turiano (IREMAM, CNRS, amU, ANR PredicMO)
9:00 AM – 9:45 AM – Zeaad Yaghi (American University of Beirut), The Rise and Fall of Le Plan Vert: On French-Catholic State Planning and Agricultural Development in Postcolonial Rural Lebanon 1959–1970.
9:45 AM – 10:30 AM – Mara Leichtman (Michigan State University), Preaching Kuwaiti Shi‘i Islamic Humanitarianism in East Africa.
10:30 AM – 11:00 AM – Coffee break
11:00 AM – 1:15 PM – Panel 6 – Discursive Registers: Between Reformism and Moral Rhetorics
Chair: Malak Labib (Centre Marc Bloch, Fellow of the Gerda Henkel Foundation)
11:00 AM – 11:45 AM – Seda Altuğ (University of Boğazıcı), Many Ways of Preaching in French-Syria: Appeals of Dominican Missionaries and Entreaties of Locals (1936–1946).
11:45 AM – 12:30 PM – Foued Ghorbali (Gafsa University), Prêcher en aidant: pratiques socio-humanitaires, autorité religieuse et circulations transnationales en Tunisie contemporaine.
12:30 PM – 1:15 PM – Marie Levant (Ifpo, Forum Basiliense Resident Fellow at the University of Basel), Transnational Catholic Aid to Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon (1948–1958): Moral Norms, Ecclesial Imperatives, and Pastoral Preaching
1:15 PM – 2:00 PM – Lunch
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM – Review of the Second Day and Publication Prospects
Also available on the PredicMO ANR hypotheses blog