End of Year Workshop of the research project 'TRANSRELIGIOUS – Changing faiths, switching worlds: Transreligious individuals and imperial regimes of control across Early Modern Eurasia,' funded by the European University Institute (EUI) Widening Europe Programme.
This one-day workshop marks the conclusion of a year of work on TRANSRELIGIOUS, a collaborative research project between the European University Institute (EUI) (Department of History), Florence, and the University of Lisbon (UL) (Ciencias ULisboa and CIUHCT). 'TRANSRELIGIOUS – Changing faiths, switching worlds: Transreligious individuals and imperial regimes of control across Early Modern Eurasia' received funding via the EUI Widening Europe Programme initiative (call 2026) and is led by two principal investigators: Giancarlo Casale (EUI) and Jorge Flores (UL). The team is further composed by two research fellows: Nuno Vila-Santa and Miguel Rodrigues Lourenço.
TRANSRELIGIOUS focuses mainly on trial records generated by the tribunals of Goa and Lisbon of the Holy Office of the Portuguese Inquisition, especially in the second half of the sixteenth century. The project started by studying a host of individuals whose religious difference, or the perception of it, made them transgressors in the eyes of imperial authorities - not only within Portuguese Asia, but also in the neighbouring Islamic empires of the Ottomans, the Safavids, and the Mughals of South Asia. These people crossed several boundaries between Anatolia and India – geographic and imperial limits, on the one hand, belief and social demarcations, on the other. As it progressed, the project acquired a marked Mediterranean and Iberian dimension, which has enriched our understanding of early modern transcultural people and global Islam.
In 'Inquisitorial records and transcultural people,' the research team will present some of its findings and seek to discuss future research avenues with prominent colleagues in the field. Given the nature of the archive at hand, participants may favour the examination of individual lives and put forward case studies, but may also combine such studies with the consideration of other methods, general practices, macro analysis and statistical evaluations.
The workshop is free and open to the public, as we aim to promote the broadest discussion possible.
The EUI Widening Europe Programme initiative, backed by contributions from the European Union and EUI Contracting States, is designed to strengthen internationalisation, competitiveness, and quality in research in widening countries, and thus foster a more cohesive European Higher Education and Research area.