Luigi Berzano

Biography

He is national coordinator of the Scientific Council of Religion Section of the Italian Association of Sociology and, since 1992, president of Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR) . He is full professor at the Department of Cultures, Politic and Society of the University of Turin. He collaborates with the Faculty of Theology and Rebaudengo University in Turin. Since 2005, he is member of the Scientific Council of the Journal Studi di Sociologia of the Catholic University of Milan.

His research focuses on religious pluralism and freedom in multicultural societies, particularly in relation to individual and collective religious experiences. In this field, he conducted researches on spiritual movements such as New Age and also on historical religious minorities. In Sociologia dei lifestyles, he developed a new theory relating to the practices and collective behaviour in the religious field.

In 2010, he founded Osservatorio sul Pluralismo Religioso in Turin, which has recorded about 150 religious groups and forms in the metropolis of Turin, dividing them in five categories: groups with Judeo-Christian and Pentecostal Churches origins, groups and movements with eastern origins, groups founded in the West (New Age, esoteric and ufological groups, Damanhur) and Islam. He is coeditor of the Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion (Brill, Leiden-Boston).