We are delighted to share the Call for Papers for the Session “Beyond Transcendence. Understanding Networks of Religious Belonging between Local Urban Parishes and Global Institutions since the Turn of the 20th Century”, which will take place as part of the European Association for Urban History (EAUH) Conference (“City Networks in Europe and Beyond”, Barcelona, 2-5 September 2026).
The deadline to submission a paper is October 22, 2025.
SCOPE
It is well known that the history of the European city has been closely linked to Christianity over the centuries. There is a strong awareness for the impact of parish structures and Christian institutions – usually of a domineering denomination – on the development, transformation and resilience of the urban fabric both socially and architecturally. In recent decades, there has also been an increased understanding of religious diversity, which is lived in parallel to the dominant pattern as a matter of course. While this has stimulated both discourse and research – above all on conflicts of interpretative sovereignty – the perspectives of fields such as religious studies, sociology or architecture and urban planning still largely develop with only few overlaps. However, they all contribute to understand the social and institutional networks within the city and beyond that anchor and are anchored in places of worship and religious belonging.
The panel aims at linking the different approaches to the study of religious bodies and their interaction with the urban and at gaining a comprehensive insight into the different scales applied to connect local communities to their cities, to regional religious infrastructure and global faith systems. We seek to understand how religious bodies and their social networks contribute to the resilience of their social and built environment.
THEMES AND PROFILE OF PAPER CONTRIBUTORS
We invite scholars from various disciplines, including but not limited to urban history and urban planning, sociology, religious and cultural studies and architectural history, to present case studies of cooperation independent of religion or denomination, both intra-confessional, between denominations or between religious bodies and the secular world.
This might include cases of handing down, sharing and/or inheriting spaces of worship or parish buildings (with or without heritage status) and networks of ecumenical cooperation up to inter-faith initiatives or address the challenges of space making for communities consisting of commuting faithful.
Among others, the contributions can touch on questions like which goals or missions the networks are working towards, who the founding and supporting actors are, what makes the network an urban affair or in which way they are religious. The contributions might also address how networks affect the appropriation and utilisation of architecturally defined spaces, for example with regard to symbolic forms or the renunciation of such.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Candidates to present a paper must send the abstract of their proposal with no more than 450 words through the website before October 22, 2025. Each author can submit a maximum of one single-authored proposal, two co-authored proposals, or one-single authored and one co-authored paper.
Notification of acceptance is set for Friday December 5, 2025. Conference and session organisers have the right to request modifications to submitted paper proposals.
Registration to the Conference. All authors of approved proposals (as is also the case with the organizers of the sessions), must register as soon as possible from 19 January 2026 to validate definitively their participation. Bursaries applications will also begin on January 19th. Early bird registrations will last until April 20th.
The authors retain all rights to their contributions, and the Organising Committee cannot be held responsible for any plagiarism. Authors will be asked for permission to share their email address.
MORE INFORMATION
Session organisers:
- Beate Löffler, Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at Dortmund University (Contact: beate.loeffler@tu-dortmund.de)
- Veronika Eufinger, Social Science Institute of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), Hannover
Submissions (no more than 450 words) should be made via the EAUH site:
https://www.eauhbarcelona2026.eu/call-for-papers/
An overview of the individual sessions is available here https://www.eauhbarcelona2026.eu/sessions/# and the specific session here https://www.eauhbarcelona2026.eu/sessions/#session87.
Submission deadline: October 22, 2025
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