A Laboratory for Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue?

Can missionary collections become laboratories for intercultural and interreligious dialogue?

An international, transdisciplinary conference seeks to answer this question by bringing together experts from Religious Studies, Catholic Theology, Protestant Theology, Cultural and Social Anthropology, Global History, Art History, History of Science, Regional Studies of Africa, Oceania, South East Asia and South America as well as Critical Museum and Heritage studies. It aims to analyze mission history and its material heritage in museums against the backdrop of a changing understanding of mission and decolonial criticism of museums. It also addresses the role of artistic creation in engaging with historical and contemporary religious contact and conflict and aims to rethink the history of collections as history of knowledge. These transdisciplinary discussions will ultimately lead to a future-oriented debate about the scientific and global-societal potential of missionary collections.