Posted on Thursday, September 24, 2009
Dr. Bryan Rennie, Westminster College professor and chair of the Department of Religion, History, Philosophy and Classics, delivered a paper at the ninth annual conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR) Sept. 14-17 at Messina University in Italy.
The meeting was also a special conference of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR).
Rennie's paper, "Pettazoni from the Anglophone Perspective," was part of a panel to honor Raffaele Pettazoni, founder of the study of the history of religions in Italy and second president of the IAHR, 50 years after his death. The panel featured selected contributions by eminent scholars from all parts of the world where Pettazoni's work is still read, including Italy, Turkey, France, Russia, Romania, Spain, Germany, and Japan, with Rennie representing the English-speaking countries.
Rennie's presentation assessed the reception of Pettazoni's work in the Anglo-American academy. The paper pointed out that this reception, when that work was first published in English in the late 1950s, was initially very positive and appreciative. According to Rennie, as time has passed, the work has been forgotten, increasingly unread and misunderstood, and is now sometimes criticized on entirely inaccurate grounds.
"I was rather nervous to speak in Italy about an Italian scholar who is of enormous importance to the Italian academic community," Rennie said. "However, the topic of the paper allowed me to address something previously untouched and to make some small, but original, contribution."
According to Rennie, his research benefited from the financial support of Westminster's Ruth Watto scholarship and the assistance of Westminster's McGill Library staff in tracking down obscure texts.
Rennie, who holds the Vira I. Heinz Chair in Religion, has been with Westminster since 1992. He earned an undergraduate degree, a master's and Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He has authored four books and numerous articles on Mircea Eliade.
Contact Rennie at (724) 946-7151 or e-mail brennie@westminster.edu for additional information.
