Francesco PIRAINO

Francesco Piraino, PhD

For the full CV please visit https://www.francescopiraino.com/en/  or https://unive.academia.edu/FrancescoPiraino 

Work Experience

• Tenure-track researcher (RTT) in Sociology at the Department of Asian and North African Studies (DSAAM), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (September 2025-onward)

• Director of the Centre of Comparative Studies on Civilizations and Spiritualities at Giorgio Cini Foundation, Venice, Italy (May 2017 – onward) 

Past Work Experiences 

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Bologna (with Harvard University and Université de Lausanne) Project “Religion and Comics: New Forms of Mediation of Religion” ID 101149839 (September 2024 -August 2025)

• Center for the Study of World Religions. Harvard Divinity School. Core Research Associate at the (Setpember 2023 - August 2024)

• Università Ca’ Foscari of Venice. Postdoctoral Fellow - Project SPIN - Dipartimento di Studi sull'Asia e sull'Africa Mediterranea (DSAAM) (November 2020- January 2023)
• Invisible Lines - a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Program  Scientific director of the project Invisible Lines  (September 2020- September 2022).
• IDEMEC (CNRS) Institut d'ethnologie méditerranéenne, européenne et comparative, Aix-en-Provence, France Postdoctoral Fellow in the project “soufisme en France / soufisme de France”. Ministère de l’intérieur, DLPAJ, Bureau central des cultes. (January 2020- September 2020) 
• KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium  Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, Faculty of Social Sciences, Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO)  (September 2017 – September 2019).

Education and Training

• Scuola Normale Superiore in co-tutorship with École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Italy - France (November 2011 - February 2016). 

PhD thesis title: « Le développement du soufisme en Europe : au-delà de l’antinomie tradition modernité ». Doctor Europaeus, Ph.D. in Sociology, graduated with highest honors; supervisors prof. Vincenzo Pace and Danièle Hervieu-Léger.    

• Lund University, Lund, Sweden (September - October 2012 and September - November 2015)           

Visiting PhD student at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies CMES, supervisor prof. Leif Steinberg

• University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark (January - February 2015)

Visiting PhD student, supervisor prof. Mark Sedgwick

• University of Padua, Padua, Italy (September 2006 - October 2010)

Master in Sociology, final mark: 110 cum laude/110

• Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, Italy (September 2002 - July 2006)

Bachelor in Philosophy, final mark 105/110

Publications

Books

1. Francesco Piraino. 2023. Le soufisme en Europe : entre Islam, ésotérisme et New Age.  Paris: Karthala-IRMC.

Translated in English in 2024. Sufism in Europe. Islam, Esotericism, and the New Age. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Edited Books

1. Giuseppe Giordan, Stefania Palmisano e Francesco Piraino (eds) 2025. Dalla spiritualità alle spiritualità. Vent’anni di studi sociologici in Italia (2005-2025). Roma: Carocci.

2. Claude Proeschel, David Koussens, and Francesco Piraino (eds). 2021. Religion, Law and the Politics of Ethical Diversity. Conscientious Objection and Contestation of Civil Norms. London: Routledge.

3. Francesco Piraino, Marco Pasi, and Egil Asprem (eds). 2021. Religious Dimensions of Conspiracy Theories. London: Routledge.

4. Mark Sedgwick and Francesco Piraino (eds). 2021. Esoteric Transfers and Constructions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. London: Palgrave.

5. Francesco Piraino and Mark Sedgwick. 2019. Global Sufism: Reconfiguring Narratives, Boundaries and Identities. London: Hurst. 

Peer-Reviewed Articles

16. Francesco Piraino. Forthcoming in 2025. “Thinking with Bruno Latour: for a renovated sociology of religion, spirituality, and esotericism”,  Implicit Religion

15. Francesco Piraino. Forthcoming in 2025. “Da giornalista a ricercatore spirituale: il percorso di Tiziano Terzani tra giornalismo, politica e spiritualità”, Religioni e Società.

14. Francesco Piraino. 2024. “A Female Imam in Paris: Islam, gender, and secular normativity” Culture and Religion, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2024.2350950

13. Francesco Piraino. 2023. “Spirituality and Comics in Hugo Pratt, Alan Moore, and David B.: Esotericism as “unsettled knowledge”” Mediascapes, 20(2): 52-77.

12. Francesco Piraino. 2022. “‘Islamic Humanism’: Another Form of Universalism in Contemporary Sufism”, Religion, 53(2): 246-268.

11. Francesco Piraino. 2021. “Sufi Festivals as a Social Movement: Spirituality, Aesthetics, and Politics”, Sociologica, 15 (3): 145-168.

10. Francesco Piraino. 2021. “Il movimento euroasiatista in Italia: tra complottismo e controepistemologia” Studi Culturali, 1: 109-130.

9. Francesco Piraino. 2020. “Sufism Meets the New Age Discourse Part 2: An Ethnographic Perspective: the Nasqhbandiyya-Haqqaniyya in Italy” International Journal for the Study of New Religions 11(2): 235-256.

8. Francesco Piraino. 2020. “Sufism Meets the New Age Discourse Part 1: A Theoretical Discussion” International Journal for the Study of New Religions, 11(1): 13-34.

7. Francesco Piraino. 2019. “Esotericisation and De-esotericisation of Sufism in Italy”, Correspondences, vol. 7(1): 239-276.

6. Francesco Piraino. 2019. “Les Politiques du Soufisme en France”, Social Compass, 66(1): 134-146.

5. Francesco Piraino and Laura Zambelli. 2018. “Queer Muslims in South Africa: Engaging Islamic Tradition”. Journal for Islamic Studies, 37: 123-147.

4. Francesco Piraino. 2016. “René Guénon et son héritage dans le soufisme du XXIème siècle”, Religiologiques, n. 31 pp. 155-180. 

3. Francesco Piraino. 2016. “Between Real and Virtual Communities: Sufism in Western societies and the Naqshbandi Haqqani case”, Social Compass, vol. 63(1), pp. 93-108. *Awarded Best Article 2017 by the International Society for the Sociology of Religion (ISSR)

2. Francesco Piraino and Laura Zambelli. 2015. “Mamma Schiavona and Santa Rosalia, popular worship: between religiosity and identity”, Critical Research on Religion, vol. 3(3), pp. 266-281. http://crr.sagepub.com/content/3/3/266.short

1. Francesco Piraino. 2011. “Entrare nel sé divino: un confronto etnografico tra mistica cristiana e mistica musulmana”, Religioni e Società, vol. 71, pp. 97-105.

Peer-Reviewed Chapters in Edited Books

10. Francesco Piraino. 2025. “Ridere degli e con gli dèi. La spiritualità come scherzo serio: psichedelia, Discordianesimo e cultura popolare” in Giuseppe Giordan, Stefania Palmisano e Francesco Piraino (eds) 2025. Dalla spiritualità alle spiritualità. Vent’anni di studi sociologici in Italia (2005-2025). Roma: Carocci.

9. Francesco Piraino and Antonio de Diego González. 2023. “Sufism in Latin Europe” in Marcia Hermansen and Saeed Zarrabi-Zadeh (eds), Sufism in Western Contexts Encyclopaedia of Islamic Mysticism - Handbook of Sufi Studies. Leiden: Brill.

8. Francesco Piraino. 2022. “Da ‘Venezia e l’Oriente’ al ‘Centro Studi di Civiltà e Spiritualità Comparate’ in Pasquale Gagliardi ed Egidio Ivetic, La Fondazione Cini. Settant’anni di storia. Padova: Marsilio, pp. 145-157.

7. Francesco Piraino. 2022. “The Eurasia Network: Riding the Conspiracist Tiger in Contemporary Italy” in Francesco Piraino, Marco Pasi, and Egil Asprem

6. Francesco Piraino. 2021. “The Sufi Shaykh and His Patients: Merging Islam, Psychoanalysis, and Western Esotericism” in Mark Sedgwick and Francesco Piraino. Esoteric Transfers and Constructions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. London: Palgrave.

5. Francesco Piraino and Antonio de Diego González. (forthcoming 2020). “Sufism in Latin Europe” in Marcia Hermansen and Saeed Zarrabi-Zadeh, Encyclopaedia of Islamic Mysticism - Handbook of Sufi Studies. Leiden: Brill.

4. Francesco Piraino. 2019. “Who is the Infidel? Religious boundaries and social change in the Shadhiliyya Darqawiyya Alawiyya” in Francesco Piraino and Mark Sedgwick, Global Sufism: Reconfiguring Narratives, Boundaries and Identities. London: Hurst, pp. 75-92.

3. Francesco Piraino. 2017. “Pilgrimages in European Sufism”, in Richard Natvig and Ingvild Flaskereud (eds), Muslim Pilgrimage in Europe. London – New York: Routledge, pp- 157-169.

2. Francesco Piraino and Laura Zambelli. 2014. “Mamma Schiavona and Santa Rosalina: tra religiosità e identità”, in Pace V., Berzano L. and Castagnaro A. (eds), La religione popolare nella società post-secolare. Padova: Messaggero, pp. 319-332.

1. Francesco Piraino 2014. “European Sufism and its Social and Political Role. The Fluidity of Identities”, in Erkan Toguslu, Ding Yuan and Johan Leman (eds), Developing a sense of Belonging in Diverse Societies: Hui-Muslims in China and Muslims in Europe, Workshop Proceedings, KU Leuven Gulen Chair, pp. 171-185. 

Prizes Awarded

• Honourable Mention 2025 – ISSR/SISR International Society for the Sociology of Religion. For the book Sufism in Europe (EUP 2024) / Soufisme en Europe (Karthala-IRMC 2023)

• Best Article Award 2017 – ISSR/SISR International Society for the Sociology of Religion. For the article Francesco Piraino (2016) “Between Real and Virtual Communities: Sufism in Western societies and the Naqshbandi Haqqani case”, Social Compass, vol. 63(1), pp. 93-108, 900 EUR.