At PTC since January 2024.

Melanie Barbato is a senior lecturer in History of Christianity at the Pacific Theological College. She has a specialization in religious communication, particularly in ecumenism and interreligious relations. Her training is in Religious Studies, Theology and Indology, both in historical and contemporary perspective. She has worked on the communication strategies of religious diplomacy, interreligious art, and creative formats for comparative theology. Her doctoral thesis was published by Brill/Leiden in the series Currents of Encounter as Jain Approaches to Plurality: Identity as Dialogue (2017).

Before joining PTC, she was a DFG-funded research associate at the University of Münster, Germany, with a project on the involvement of the Vatican and the World Council of Churches in Hindu-Christian relations. She is an associate editor with CrossCurrents (UNC Press) and coordinates the Network of Hinduism in Dialogue (Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies).

2024    Beyond Boundaries: Essays on Theology, Dialogue and Religion in Honour of Perry Schmidt-Leukel, edited by Melanie Barbato, Mathias Schneider and Fabian Völker, Waxmann Verlag, Münster.

2022    Interreligious Dialogue and Diplomacy, special issue, CrossCurrents 72:3.

2020    The Critical Religion Reader, edited by Melanie Barbato, Cameron Montgomery and Rajalakshmi Nadadur Kannan, Dreamshare Press, Pembroke.

2024a  “Introduction”, Melanie Barbato, Mathias Schneider and Fabian Volker, in Beyond Boundaries. Essays on Theology, Dialogue and Religion in Honour of Perry Schmidt-Leukel, edited by Melanie Barbato, Mathias Schneider and Fabian Volker, Waxmann Verlag.

2024b  “Clusters of Identity in Interreligious Dialogue”, in Beyond Boundaries. Essays on Theology, Dialogue and Religion in Honour of Perry Schmidt-Leukel, edited by Melanie Barbato, Mathias Schneider and Fabian Volker, Waxmann Verlag.

2024c  “One sees oneself in the eye of another: A reflection on the creative processes behind Gegenuber, a composition on interreligious themes”, together with Hans-   Jurgen Gerung, Journal of Interreligious Studies 41.

2023a “Religious Greeting Messages as a Genre of Institutional Communication”, Routledge Handbook of Language and Religion, edited by Stephen Pihlaja and Helen Ringrow, Routledge.

2023b  “Being Jain – South Indian Art Meets Climate Ethics at the Rietberg Museum, Zurich”, CrossCurrents, CrossCurrents 73:2.

2022a  “Editorial Introduction: Interreligious Dialogue and Diplomacy”, CrossCurrents 72:3, 173-176.

2022b  “Bahubali and St. Francis: Approaches to Nonviolence and Ecology“, in Nagabharana, Felicitation Volume to Professor Hampa Nagarajaiah, edited by Pedarapu Chenna Reddy, Bluerose Publishers, Delhi.

2020a “‘Dear Hindu Friends’: official Diwali greetings as a medium for diplomatic dialogue”, Religion, 50:3, 353-371.

2020b „Mobilisierung jenseits des Kirchenvolks. Der Papst und der interreligiose Dialog“ (Mobilisation beyond the congregation: the pope and interreligious dialogue), in Macht und Mobilisierung: Der politische Aufstieg des Papsttums seit dem Ausgang des 19. Jahrhunderts, edited by Mariano Barbato and Stefan Heid, Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 256-270.

2020c “’I Put No Stock in Consensus’: The Young Pope and the Progressive/Conservative Cleavage in Filmic Narrations of Papal Power”, in The Pope, the Public, and International Relations. Culture and Religion in International Relations, edited by Mariano Barbato, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 63-77.

2020d  “Introduction: What is Critical Religion and Why Does It Matter?”, together with Cameron Montgomery and Rajalakshmi Nadadur Kannan, in The Critical Religion Reader, edited together with Cameron Montgomery und Rajalakshmi Nadadur Kannan, Dreamshare Press, Pembroke, 14-25.

2019a  “Interreligious Art in the Light of Hindu and Buddhist Thought”, CrossCurrents, 68/3, March 2019, 336-351.

2019b  “Different Interpretations of Anekantavada”, Jaina Studies: Newsletter of the Centre of Jaina Studies, March 2019, Issue 14, 30-31.

2019c “Anekantavada and Dialogic Identity Construction”, Religions, 2019, 10, 642.

2024    Anantanand Rambachan, Pathways to Hindu-Christian Dialogue, The Ecumenical Review, 75:5, 581-583.

2022   Christian Hackbarth-Johnson and Ulrich Winkler (Hg.), Homo interreligiosus: Zur biographischen Verortung interreligioser Prozesse bei Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010). Beitrage einer internationalen Fachtagung zu seinem 100. Geburtstag, Theologische Revue, vol. 118 (2022): June.

2021    Sugata Ray, 2019, Climate Change and the Art of Devotion: Geoaesthetics in the Land of Krishna, 1550-1850, CrossCurrents, Vol. 71, No. 1.

2021   Alan Brill, Rabbi on the Ganges: A Jewish-Hindu Encounter, Romanian Journal of Indian Studies, 2021, Vol. 1 No. 1.

2022    “Words that make a difference: An interview on diplomacy, poetry and interreligious dialogue with Philip McDonagh”, The Commons – April Online, December 12.

2021    “Understanding Hindu-Christian Relations: The World Council of Churches’ Approach”, Blog of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, J. Reuben    Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, February 28.