Science Communication for Religious Studies: Creating a New Researcher Profile by Laying the Foundation of a Laboratory. A Film Documentary Project Located in Central and Eastern Europe

CROSS is a project of an experienced historian of “Research Freedom” in Religious Studies. 7-years ago, he entered the forum of discussions in Central and Eastern Europe, which reveals itself as particularly vibrant today.

Now, he seeks to launch a major project located at the University of Olomouc in Czech Republic, next to a leader of this debate.

CROSS is also a project of an historian who, after 3 decades of research, feels the limits of academic barriers, and wants to move over the borders of the scholarly studies. The acronym means “Communication for ReligiOus StudieS”. CROSS aims to reach out, to improve public understanding of Religious Studies by the way of a documentary film.

The project is located at the University that hosts the major Science Documentary Festival in Europe.

After a period of training in Film Studies and Media Studies, a collection of interviews of 30 scholars in 10 countries in Central and Eastern Europe will be recorded in order to let the free voice of Religious Studies scholars be heard.

CROSS will use personal story-telling on the topic “Freedom of thought and expression” which shall serve as life lessons, not academic lessons.

It will explore how personal, not strictly scientific experiences, even of public concern in everyday life, can become stories to which people can relate to and through which connections can be established and awareness raised.

The project will involve students in training-workshops for processing the documentary, and for laying the basis of a laboratory for future research. CROSS addresses the first principle of the European Charter for Researchers: “Research Freedom”.

It is an interdisciplinary project for a new research profile “Communication for Religious Studies”: a new way to communicate research, an innovative guidance, and the first-ever documentary on Religious Studies.