Giovanni VIAN

Giovanni Vian (Venice, 1963) graduated at Ca' Foscari University of Venice (1988), PhD in Religious History at the University of Bologna (1995), completed further studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris). Post-doctoral fellowship (1996-1998) and research fellow (1998-2001) at the University of Padua, since 2001 he has been Associate Professor of the History of Christianity and Churches at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, where he has been Full Professor since 2015. As a visiting professor, he teaches History of the Ecumenical Movement at the Istituto di Studi Ecumenici “San Bernardino” (Venice), affiliated with the Pontifical Athenaeum Antonianum.

In his research activity he studies the dynamics of the history of Christianity from 1800 to today. In particular, he has devoted studies to the modernist crisis and the anti-modernist reaction, to aspects and figures of the history of the contemporary papacy, to key moments in the history of the Catholic Church and the Waldensian Church in Italy, and to the events of the Christian Churches in Venice.

He is the author of about 150 scientific publications, including 7 monographs, 1 sources edition, 13 volume editors, over 40 articles in specialized journals. He has organised numerous national and international conferences and seminars; he has participated by invitation in about eighty conferences and seminars in Italy and abroad. He is a member of the scientific committees of the series "Italia sacra. Nuova serie" (ISIME) and "Chiese d'Italia" (Viella), of the Scientific board of the journal «Storia e problemi contemporanei» and of the Editorial board of the journal «Studia Patavina». He is general editor (with C. Arnold and V. Ciciliot) of JoMaCC - Journal of Modern and Contemporary Christianity.

He participated in the projects of the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, HAR2013-48000-P (2014-2017) and HAR2017-88490-P (2018-2020), he was scientific co-director of two Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft projects DFG 216736344 (2013-2016) e DFG 392561361 (2018-2020), scientific director of research units in a MIUR - COFIN 2008 project, supervisor of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship, Horizon 2020, Call: H2020-MSCA-IF-2014. He was principal investigator of a MUR-PRIN 2020 project - Prot. 2020TCFPK2: "Cultural Labs of Faith. The Production of Christian Popular Culture in Italy from the Unification to the Economic Miracle".

He obtained a research fellowship from Graduiertenkolleg «Theologie als Wissenschaft» at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (August 2012).

In A.Y. 2023-2024 he held the course History of the Ecumenical Movement at the 'San Bernardino' Institute of Ecumenical Studies Venice (Pontifical University Antonianum).

Institutional roles:

a) Ca' Foscari University of Venice:

• vice-coordinator of the Teaching Committee of the PhD in "European Social History from the Middle Ages to the Contemporary Age" (2007-2014)
• member of the Board of the Scuola Superiore di Studi Storici, Geografici, Antropologici of the University of Padua, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, University of Verona (2011-2014)
• vice-director and research delegate of the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies (01/10/2012-30/09/2014)
• president of the University Quality Assurance Unit  (05/12/2014-09/11/2016)
• delegate for Quality Assurance of the Department of Humanities (2019-2020)
• director of the Department of Humanities (05/10/2020-30/09/2023)
• member of the Academic Senate (22/02/2022-30/09/2023)
• member of the Advisory Board del DREST - Italian Doctoral School of Religious Studies since 2022
• co-promotor and member of Centro interdipartimentale di Studi Storici sul cristianesimo - CISC (Ca' Foscari University of Venice) since 2015, director of the CISC since 2023

b) others institutional roles:

• member of the Board of the International Research Network Christian Churches, Culture and Society in Contemporary Europe (2011-2021)
• member of the Teaching Committee of the PhD in «Culture e società dell'Europa contemporanea» of the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (2016-2018)
• member of the ASN (National Scientific Qualification) Commission 2021-2023 for the Scientific Area 11/A4
• member (2008) of the Consulta Universitaria per la Storia del Cristianesimo e delle Chiese CUSCC (president of the CUSCC 28/06/2018-10/05/2024)
• member of the Scientific Committee of the Istituto per la storia dell'Azione cattolica e del movimento cattolico in Italia Paolo VI since 2012
• associate member of the Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités (GSRL) of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique / École Pratique des Hautes Études since 2014
• member of the Scientific committee of the Fondazione Papa Giovanni XXIII of Bergamo since 2016
• member of the Board of Directors of the “Desiderio Pirovano Prize” (Associazione per il Progresso degli Studi sulla Storia della Chiesa) since 2022
• member of the Scientific committee of the Fondazione MAC - Memorie Audiovisive del Cattolicesimo since 2023
• member of the Scientific committee of the John Paul I Vatican Foundation since 2023