WALT LUIGI

Luigi Walt, b. 1975, is Associate Professor of History of Religions at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”. After earning a PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Bologna (2008), he worked as a postdoc researcher and lecturer in Italy (Bologna, Catania, and Udine), Switzerland (Geneva), and Germany (Regensburg). A founding member of the Italian Centre for Advanced Studies on Religions (CISSR), since 2018 he has been a Fellow of the DFG Centre for Advanced Studies “Beyond Canon” at the University of Regensburg. His research interests focus on the history of ancient Mediterranean religions, with particular attention to early Jewish and Christian groups (aspects of social and cultural history; dynamics of production, transmission, and reception of biblical and apocryphal texts), and, more generally, on topics related to the comparative study of religions (anthropology and ethnography of religions; orality and writing in antiquity; ancient and modern theories of religion). Among his publications: Paolo e le parole di Gesù: Frammenti di un insegnamento orale (2013); Texts, Practices, and Groups: Multisciplinary Approaches to the History of Jesus’ Followers in the First Two Centuries (co-ed., 2017); Sceptic and Believer in Ancient Mediterranean Religions (co-ed., 2020); Paolo traduttore: Sulla distinzione tra spirito e lettera (2021); and the first Italian edition of a volume of collected essays by Jonathan Z. Smith, Una questione di classe: Saggi di introduzione alla storia delle religioni (2024).

Academic affiliations: Association pour l'étude de la littérature apocryphe chrétienne (AELAC); Centre for Advanced Studies “Beyond Canon”; Centro Italiano di Studi Superiori sulle Religioni (CISSR); Consulta Universitaria per la Storia delle Religioni (CUSR); European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR); Societas Spinozana; Society of Biblical Literature (SBL); Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (SNTS).

Personal website: https://luigiwalt.net