Matteo Al Kalak is Full Professor of Early Modern History at the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Studies and Director of the Interdepartmental Research Centre on Digital Humanities (DHMoRe) at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. He is responsible for teaching in the field of history, with a focus on the history of the modern age and the history of Christianity, in a European and global perspective. His research focuses on religious history, understood in its institutional aspects and in the manifestations linked to dissent, reformism and contestation. He is responsible for research projects related to the digitisation of cultural heritage and the new methodological perspectives of the Digital Humanities. He coordinates the European project "ITHACA. Interconnecting Histories and Archives for Migrant Agency: Entangled Narratives Across Europe and the Mediterranean Region".
His studies have focused on a few main themes: in particular, he has investigated the history of Christianity, understood from a social and cultural perspective, with specific reference to the phenomena of dissent, conversion, reformism and the control of moral and collective behaviour.
Since his postgraduate studies at the Scuola Normale in Pisa, he has participated in research groups, in particular on topics related to political and religious history. In connection with his studies on 16th-century heresy and inquisitorial repression, from 2008 to 2010 he was a member of the editorial board of the Dizionario storico dell'Inquisizione edited by Adriano Prosperi.
A substantial part of his studies has also been devoted to the scholarly tradition of the 18th century and its links with religious reformism and jurisdictionalism. In this field, he has developed numerous researches on the figure and work of Lodovico Antonio Muratori and the Este political-cultural tradition.
He was the scientific P.I. of the Digital Humanities project "DHMoreLab. Per un'impresa culturale digitale" (DHMoreLab. For a digital cultural enterprise), and aimed at the creation of two experimental laboratories concerning manuscript texts of the modern age.
He is P.I. of the PRIN2022 Project "Digital Inquisition", dedicated to the digitisation and edition of sources concerning the origins of the Roman Holy Office (1542).
As part of the Prin2017 project "The Nuncio's Secret Archives: Papal Diplomacy and European Multi-denominational Societies Before the Thirty Years War" (P.I. Elena Bonora, University of Parma) he has directed the research unit of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.
He is coordinator of the Horizon2020 project "ITHACA. Interconnecting Histories and Archives for Migrant Agency: Entangled Narratives Across Europe and the Mediterranean Region", which involves 11 international partners and aims at studying migration in a long-term historical perspective (2021-2025).
He is scientific coordinator of the media library project Lodovico: www.lodovico.medialibrary.it dedicated to the digitisation of the cultural heritage of various institutes, in a federative and innovative key.