Introduction: Mapping Religious and Ethical Faultlines: Semiotics, Awe, Altitude, and Algorithm

This introduction to Annali di studi religiosi (vol. 26, 2025) outlines the epistemic and thematic architecture of the issue, which explores the shifting boundaries of religious and ethical inquiry in a time of cultural, affective, and technological reconfiguration. Structured around four constellations—semiotics of religion, awe, mountains, and AI ethics—the volume examines how meaning, emotion, and normativity are renegotiated across contemporary faultlines. The essays traverse the semiotic production of the sacred, the affective intensity of awe as a vector of paradigm change, the symbolic and ecological dimensions of the mountain as a site of transcendence, and the moral challenges posed by algorithmic intelligence. Through these interconnected perspectives, the collection situates semiotics as a critical method for interpreting the thresholds where religious, philosophical, and technological paradigms tremble and transform.