Alban Books is the exclusive UK/European distributor for Eerdmans Publishing Company in the USA. Preorder your copies of the two new titles in the Interventions series - Metaphysics: The Creation of Hierarchy by Adrian Pabst and Words of Christby Michel Henry  - at 20% discount, post free. Simply visit www.albanbooks.com, add the titles to your basket and then enter offer code IV0112 at the checkout.

This offer extends to any other title featured on our website.

Words of Christ can be found here and Metaphysics here.

 Like us on Facebook      Follow us on Twitter

Dear Colleagues,

Please see the attached poster for the next Keble Theology Workshop, scheduled for Tuesday 7^th February. This will feature a discussion and debate on the subject, ‘Can the West Live With Islam?’ Our two high-profile speakers are Prof. Nigel Biggar, Oxford University’s Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology, and Dr Tim Winter, Cambridge University’s Sheikh Zayed Lecturer in Islamic Studies.

We hope once again that this will prove highly attractive to students interested in a wide range of theological disciplines – from Oxford and well beyond. All are welcome.

Our aim with these workshops remains to set out theology’s “shop window” in order especially to attract present and potential graduate students to the discipline, and to show that engagement with theology’s subject matter is both exciting and important for today’s world.

I would be grateful if you could circulate and/or display this to any of your students interested in exploring the possibility of doctoral work in an area of biblical or theological studies. 

While we are not in a position to subsidize transport or accommodation costs for the participants, we hope some students may be able to receive assistance from their home departments. Nevertheless, anyone deterred solely by the cost of attending should please feel free to contact me.  We may also be in a position to assist in suggesting affordable accommodation.

Early booking is advisable as space is limited. As before, all that is needed to register is a brief email to kebletheology@gmail.com for each person attending; that is enormously helpful to keep track of numbers.

With thanks and all good wishes,

Markus Bockmuehl

2012-02 Biggar-Winter (Islam) Keble workshop poster

A conference organised by the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Bergen, Norway; funded by the Bergen Research Foundation through the ‘Modernism and Christianity’ research project.

The modernist imperative ‘Make it new!’ posits a break with traditional artistic forms, but also with the entire mould of a civilization felt to be in a state of terminal decay (‘an old bitch, gone in the teeth’, as a second dictum by Ezra Pound has it). Modernism was steeped in the language of apocalyptic crisis, generating multiple (and contradictory) millennial visions of artistic, cultural, religious and political transformation. This conference will examine the continuing impact of Christianity upon the modernist thinking of Apocalypse in Western culture, covering the period of early-to-high modernism (c. 1880-1945), with glances towards the immediate aftermath of World War II and the Bomb. ‘Modernism’ is not here confined to the arts, and contributions are invited from scholars across the humanities and social sciences.

Conference organisers:
Dr Erik Tonning
Dr Matthew Feldman

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:
Professor Paul S. Fiddes (University of Oxford)
Professor John Milbank (University of Nottingham)
Professor Hans Ottomeyer (Former Director of the German Historical Museum)
Professor Marjorie Perloff (Stanford University)

INVITED SPEAKERS:
Professor C. J. Ackerley (University of Otago)
Professor Mary Bryden (University of Reading)
Professor Gregory Maertz (St. John’s University, NY)
Dr Malise Ruthven (Independent writer)
Professor Shane Weller (University of Kent)

For a full CFP, see:

http://www.uib.no/filearchive/modernismconferencecfp.pdf

Conference venue: Hotel Solstrand (outside Bergen, Norway)
Conference fee (early bird rate): NOK 3700: This covers two nights at the hotel with full board, plus a
direct conference bus (at c. 11 am) to the hotel from Flesland airport (18th), with a return on Friday afternoon (20th, at 4 pm). There is also a postgraduate rate of NOK 3200 available.

PLEASE NOTE: Registration at this rate is limited to 75 delegates. Once this number of delegates has been reached (first come first served), additional registrations will cost NOK 4400. All delegates registering after 1 May 2012 will also be charged at this higher rate. Early registration is thus strongly recommended.

Please submit your abstract by 1 April 2012 at the latest.

To register: Please send your title, abstract (100-200 words) and
biographical information to erik.tonning@if.uib.no for consideration.

Download Conference Poster here.

BSA Meeting Room, Imperial Wharf, London
15 December 2011, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Religion is not a neutral subject. As with other significant constituents of identity, such as sexuality, gender, ethnicity, or class, the subject of ‘religion’ as a topic for study is not straightforward. And yet, we study it, deconstruct it, analyse, and measure it, recognising as we do that definitions are bound to be contested, fluid, and sometimes slippery. What are the particular challenges and choices this presents in different disciplines, in different places and times? And what are the ethical, political and methodological implications of this?

To find out more about how participants from a variety of disciplines and contexts have engaged with the choices and challenges of teaching and studying religion, join us on December 15 at the BSA Meeting Room in London, for a BSA Socrel symposium, chaired by Abby Day (Department of Religious Studies, University of Kent and Department of Anthropology, University of Sussex) and Anna Strhan (Department of Religious Studies, University of Kent). We are grateful to the Higher Education Academy, for funding. It won’t be your usual ‘stand-and-deliver’ event. Our presenters have worked hard to condense their work into short summaries that will be distributed to all participants in advance of the day. All participants will be expected to read the summaries and come prepared for a full day of engaging in vibrant exchanges across disciplines, countries, methods and other conventional boundaries.

Total delegate numbers are restricted to 30. Registration for the symposium is now available on the BSA website, at http://bsas.esithosting.co.uk/public/event/eventBooking.aspx?id=EVT10172

Information on the venue location and transport links, is available at http://www.britsoc.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/62CE3722-EE65-4B30-8058-90E8ACEFB636/0/BSA_Imperial_Wharf_directions041209.pdf

For any further information, please contact Abby Day (a.day@sussex.ac.uk) and Anna Strhan (as702@kent.ac.uk). The full programme for the day will be published on the BSA Socrel website: http://www.socrel.org.uk/

Keynote lecture by Adam Dinham, Director of Goldsmiths Faith and Civil Society Unit and Programme Director for the ‘Religious Literacy Leadership in Higher Education’ programme

The Center for Cultural and Pastoral Research, a recently founded subsidiary of the American session of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, launched its new online review Humanum on 15^th November 2011, the Feast of St Albert the Great.

This free quarterly journal is one of several expressions of the Center’s effort to bring sustained anthropological and theological reflection to the pressing cultural issues of our time, particularly as these affect children and the most vulnerable members of society, including the aged and infirm.

Humanum will engage contemporary themes—childhood, bioethics, education, work, issues concerning ecology, medicine, health, and so on—through major articles and also reviews of important and influential books.

The theme of the first issue is The Child—the first and purest expression of what it is to be human. After that, we begin a four-issue cycle on “Recovering Origins,” looking at the ways in which the origin of the child in marriage may be compromised by divorce, artificial reproduction, same-sex unions, and delinquent fatherhood. In each case we want to offer a Christian reflection on human experience.

Humanum is offered as a free service to researchers and students in the social sciences, medicine, and theology, as well as to pastoral and health-care workers, catechists, parents, teachers, and anyone concerned with the renewal of a culture of life in our time.

For further information, contact:

Stratford Caldecott, Editor <EditorHumanum@gmail.com>

Margaret H. McCarthy, Director, CCPR (www.centerforculturalandpastoralresearch.org)

“An amazing work of bridge-building that demonstrates convincingly that both Ultra-Darwinists and hard-core Creationists are “intellectually vacuous” in their respectively strident points of view. This sweeping interdisciplinary study is a must read for thinking people of faith who would like to understand the evolutionary process as not opposed to a theological vision of humanity, but as mutually enriching.”

See the press release here.

From 7pm on Wednesday 22nd June in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, PROFESSOR JOHN MILBANK will be in dialogue with LORD (Maurice) GLASMAN under the title ‘How Faith can Restore Community’. This will be an exciting encounter and an unparalleled occasion for two of the main thinkers and actors in the movement of the new ‘politics of paradox’ to illuminate its theological foundations.

Logistical information: For those arriving to the conference, it has been suggested to us that a taxi is the best way to get to the city from the airport (approx. 20 euros). We recommend splitting the taxi fare with others if possible.

For those staying in the Campanile hotel, the walk to the Qubus hotel venue is a 20-25 min walk, and directions are enclosed in the programme. There is also a tram (numbers 7, 13, 24 – 4 stops). Timetables can be found here: http://www.mpk.krakow.pl/en.

—-

Update:

After sending out the conference programme on Sunday, a handful of delegates wrote in to correct a few things, namely some conflicts in flight schedules, but also some spelling errors in names and titles.

Please see the updated conference by clicking on the programme cover on the right or by clicking here [Note: this is a 12.6 mb PDF file]. The programme has now been sent off to the printers in Kraków. Many thanks for all the corrections!

And, of utmost importance, here are the addresses of the two hotels:

Hotel Qubus
Nadwislanska 6
30-527 Kraków
Poland

Hotel Campanile Cracovie / Kraków
UL SW Tomasza 34
31-023 Kraków
Poland

—-

Update #2:

Please note that regarding the previous notice about the taxi fare, that Polish prices are in zloty’s, and not in Euros, even though payment for the conference itself was in Euros. So before arriving, please exchange your currency to the zloty.

IN SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

to be held in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

February 28 – March 4, 2012

CONFERENCE VENUE

(1) Opening and First-day activities will take place at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi.

(2) All other scientific activities will be held in the IT Building (male and female sides) at the United Arab Emirates University.

CONFERENCE LANGUAGES

Arabic and English are the official conference languages.

Translations from and to both languages will be provided.

Theme and Objectives:

Time is a fundamental concept that eludes rigorous definition and description and proves elusive when studied by scientists. The more we understand the realities of time, the more it becomes obscure and unrealizable. Modern theories in physics and cosmology dramatically alter our views of time, but instead of clarifying the classical views of time, modern theories add complexity to the notion of time through the questions and paradoxes arising from the introduction of concepts such as time travel, negative time and curved time.

For philosophers, newer conceptions of time are challenging classical notions of metaphysics (such as identity of objects over time and action theory), epistemology (time-dependent truths and necessity) as well as ethics (moral responsibility, motivation and consequentialist theories).

For modern researchers in theology, many of the traditional dogmas have been revisited and their conventional interpretations have been altered.

The main objective of our conference is to review the development of the concept and problem of time and time measurement in science, philosophy and theology. The Conference will also explore the meaning of time in other human activities, such as psychology, linguistics, business and information technology. Supplementing the main talks, we will have critical roundtable discussions of a variety of views. Key thinkers will be invited to present their state of the art knowledge and pioneering approaches to time. All full papers presented at the conference will be peer reviewed and published in a leading peer-reviewed press or journal.

For more information, please go to the website:

http://wwww.uaeu.ac.ae/conferences/time/

June 29th – July 1st 2012 Liverpool Hope University, UK
An international conference of the Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion

Keynote Speakers: Ray Brassier, Levi Bryant, Iain Hamilton Grant and Catherine Malabou

‘The contemporary end of metaphysics is an end which, being sceptical, could only be a religious end of metaphysics.’ Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude. An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (London: Continuum, 2008)

Meillassoux identifies the ‘turn to religion’ in contemporary continental philosophy with a failure of thinking. The Kantian refusal to think the absolute leads to scepticism about reality in itself. Ironically, this lends itself to ‘fideism’, the decision to project religious meaning on to the unknowable beyond. According to Meillassoux, a philosophy obsessed with mystery becomes the accomplice of irrational faith. The solution is to find ways of once more thinking the absolute in its reality, severed from its dependence upon a knowing subject, or upon language and social norms. At the same time, new possibilities for thinking religion (exemplified by Meillassoux’s own Divine Inexistence) are emerging.

This conference invites proposals which critically consider this speculative turn in philosophy and its implications for thinking about religion. To what ’end’ is speculation leading? Does it simply announce the closure of religion and its subordination to a philosophy of the absolute, nature or the ‘All’? Can it open new lines for a philosophy of religion which is not wedded to the Kantian horizon? Is speculation itself open to Kierkegaardian critique as yet another move to position and reduce ethical and religious claims, sacrificing the future on the altar of abstract possibility? Does renewed attention to the canon of speculative idealism offer a way beyond the impasse between relativism and dogmatism?

The organisers welcome proposals which examine the roots and extensity of recent speculative thinking, and which critically consider its impact - direct and indirect – on philosophy of religion. Relevant thinkers and themes might include Quentin Meillassoux on God and the absolute, Alain Badiou’s ontology, Catherine Malabou on Hegel and plasticity, Francois Laruelle’s ‘future Christ’, Iain Hamilton Grant on Schelling’s Naturphilosophie and the thinking of the All, Ray Brassier’s nihilism. However, we are particularly looking for contributions which creatively use or depart from the speculative turn to offer original insights into the nature and content of the field.

Abstracts of 300 words for 20 minute papers to shakess@hope.ac.uk or haynesp@hope.ac.uk by end of February 2012.

http://www.hope.ac.uk/acpr/call-for-papers.html

A One-day Workshop at the University of Chester on 1^st June

http://www.chester.ac.uk/cfpp/events

Speakers

Pamela Sue Anderson (University of Oxford)

Beverley Clack (Oxford Brookes University)

Elaine Graham (University of Chester)

Katharine Moody (University of Lancaster)

John Reader (William Temple Foundation)

Steven Shakespeare (Liverpool Hope University)

Anthony Paul Smith (University of Nottingham)

Graeme Smith (Chichester University)

Anna Strhan (University of Kent)

We are pleased to announce a one-day workshop exploring the intersection between recent trends in continental philosophy of religion and realist versions of public theology. The workshop will take place on 1^st June under the auspices of the Centre for Faiths and Public Policy at the University of Chester and in association with the Department of Philosophy at the University of Liverpool and the William Temple Foundation. Further details about the day can be found here: http://www.chester.ac.uk/cfpp/events.

This workshop is an interrogation of the implications – whether political, theological or practical – of the turn to the Real in recent thought. From the perspective of public and practical theology, this involves bolstering the realist strands of the discipline (Manchester Realism and the William Temple Foundation) with the resources of philosophy, constructing a philosophical toolkit for realist public theologians. John Reader and Christopher Baker’s Entering the New Theological Space, for example, has already started drawing on post-Derridean philosophies as theoretical background to their theological enterprises, moving beyond the sociological and pragmatic basis that public theologians have traditionally found sufficient; there is a growing realisation, however, that a new generation of philosophers – the philosophers of the speculative turn – may well be more fruitful for deepening and broadening public theology’s self-understanding. Therefore and from the perspective of philosophy of religion, this interrogation of the Real involves thinking through the consequences of continental philosophy of religion’s recent flirtations with a more realist brand of speculation. The philosophies of Alain Badiou, Slavoj Zizek, Graham Harman, Iain Hamilton Grant and Quentin Meillassoux are beginning to be felt throughout the humanities, and the papers in this workshop, following the lead established in Smith and Whistler’sAfter the Postsecular and the Postmodern, will begin to think through the broader impact of this new tendency, especially as it impacts on philosophy of religion. In other words, the guiding question for the day is: what has the speculative turn in continental philosophy of religion to do with religious practice? This workshop brings together public theologians and philosophers of religion to inhabit the intersection between philosophical theory and religious phenomena.

The day-long workshop will explore the above themes through a series of eight 20 minute papers with extensive time for responses and discussion. A summary of the day will be posted on the websites of contributing institutions. The papers will be works in progress, provisional explorations of an intersection that is crying out to be examined in more detail. As such, this workshop is envisioned as the first in a series of events in the North-West devoted to the interchange between philosophy of religion and public and practical theology, in which we hope to give all interested parties the opportunity to share their ideas. Moreover, this initial exploratory workshop has the overall aim of examining the feasibility of a fully-fledged research network (involving substantial publications), and so we would encourage anyone with an interest in this area to attend the first workshop in order to participate in the shaping of a future network bid.

The Department of Theology and Religious Studies is delighted to announce this conference, which is timed as part of Winchester Cathedral’s celebration of the 400th Anniversary of the Authorised Version.

The conference will look at questions of the Bible’s living authority, the challenges of holding onto Scripture as an authoritative text, the role of the Bible in shaping Christian life, and the place of Scripture in public debates.

This residential conference will take place 11-13 July 2011 in the beautiful historic setting of Winchester.

Confirmed speakers:

• Professor David Fergusson (University of Edinburgh)
• Professor Ellen Davis (Duke Divinity School)
• Professor Richard Bell (University of Nottingham)
• Professor Ben Quash (Kings College London)
• Zoë Bennett (Anglia Ruskin)
• Professor Gavin D’Costa (University of Bristol)
• Professor Andrew Bradstock (University of Otago)
• Dr Neil Messer (University of Winchester)
• Dr Angus Paddison (University of Winchester)

Conference conveners:

• Dr Neil Messer
• Dr Angus Paddison

Further details such as a call for papers, a detailed programme and opportunities to book a place can be found below:

• Call for Papers
• Booking Form
• Conference Programme
• Conference Poster (please distribute)

Seminar/Workshop Website:
http://theologyphilosophycentre.co.uk/MaximusEastWest/

A Saint for East and West:
The Thought of Maximus Confessor
in Eastern & Western Christian Theology

XVI International Conference on Patristic Studies
University of Oxford
9-11 August 2011

The Centre of Theology and Philosophy presents a new look into the theology of St. Maximus Confessor for contemporary theology. The aim of the seminar will be to elaborate on those issues in Maximus’ theology and philosophy that would serve to further ecumenical discussion between Eastern and Western Christianity and contribute to the need of Maximus’ thought for contemporary theology. Each workshop of the seminar will be 2 1/2 hours long, and will cover four areas: Reception and Influence, Anthropology, Spirituality, and Philosophy and Metaphysics. The goal of the seminar will not be a joint resolution between the Eastern and Western Christian traditions, but to better understand how both traditions have, perhaps, misread each other in light of numerous ‘proof texts’. Greater clarity of theological positions will also hopefully yield more recognition that much is shared between the two traditions.

Featured Presenters Include:

• Archbishop Rowan Williams
• Metropolitan Kallistos (Timothy) Ware
• John Milbank
• Andrew Louth
• Nikolaos Loudovikos
• David Bradshaw
• Adam Cooper
• Louis Granados
• Adrian Guiu
• Ed Siecienski
• Joshua Lollar
• Torstein Tollefsen
• Melchisedec Toronen

Please click here to download the seminar schedule/programme.

Details on registering for the conference may be found here at the International Patristic Studies conference website.

For more information, please contact:

Daniel Haynes
atxdh@nottingham.ac.uk

****SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE THIS MAY HAVE COST AND PLEASE MAKE NOTE OF THE
CHANGES IF YOU HAVE POSTED THIS CALL FOR PAPERS ELSEWHERE****

In the Aftermath of German Idealism
May 13-14, Bergische Universität Wuppertal

Keynote speakers:

• Markus Gabriel, Universität Bonn, author of Der Mensch im Mythos and Transcendental Ontology (forthcoming by Continuum)
• Jean-Christophe Goddard, Université de Toulouse le Mirail, author of  La philosophie fichtéenne de la vie: Le transcendantal et le pathologique
• Arnaud François, Université de Toulouse le Mirail, author of Bergson, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche: Volonté et réalité
• Sean McGrath, Memorial University of Newfoundland, author of The Dark Ground of Spirit: Schelling and the Unconscious (forthcoming by Routledge)
• Devin Shaw, Zane University of Ottawa, author of Freedom and Nature in Schelling’s Philosophy of Art

It is with pleasure we invite you to participate at the following *trilingual* conference, sponsored by EuroPhilosophie (www.europhilosophie.eu) and organized by l’Amicale des étudiants EuroPhilosophie. (You will find the trilingual version of this Call for Papers attached.)

Since the philosophical upheaval caused by Kant’s transcendental philosophy, the status of what would later be called “German Idealism” has been anything but clear. On the one hand, the efforts of the major representatives of post-Kantianism only intensified the intrinsic ambiguity of the founding gesture of the tradition. Instead of simply interpreting or expanding Kant, yet all the while attempting to radicalize his original breakthrough, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel developed surprisingly different and opposing systems. On the other hand, the 19th- and 20th-century reception of Hegelianism would have another decisive effect, which would in its own way obfuscate the signification of German Idealism by drastically altering our perception of the tradition as a whole. Not only was Hegel thought to be the culmination of the operative logic of German idealism, which would for a long time prevent us from understanding the works of Fichte and Schelling in and of themselves, but there was also a primordial urge to immanently rethink Hegelian dialectics from the standpoint of historical finitude while being faithful to its fundamental insights, arguing for the implicit and irreducible potential still lurking in this movement.

However, the history of German idealism did not in any way end there. In the 20th century we have seen seen a countless number of virulent attacks against “traditional” metaphysics arise as different philosophical schools demanded us to give up “dead” and “outdated” notions like system and totality, German Idealism often being seen the as the epitome of excessive, unbridled reason. Yet, in the face of these so-called “devastating” critiques, classical German philosophy has not been sentenced to death and banished to the abyssal forgetfulness of a forever lost past. Not only has there been an intense increase of secondary literature in the past decades, but a multitude of contemporary philosophers are returning to this moment in order to develop their own thought. The status of German Idealism remains more ambiguous and uncertain than ever: even two centuries after its emergence, we find ourselves – still or again –  in the aftermath of German Idealism and feel its effects deep within the internal pulsations of philosophy itself.

Therefore, the goal of this conference is to open up an space within which one approach the reception of German Idealism and address its philosophical heritage. The unifying theme will be the following constellation of questions: Why do we constantly go back to German Idealism and cannot simply rid ourselves one and for all of its fundamental concepts? What could German Idealism teach us today? Are there still non-cultivated resources lurking within the thought of Kant, Fichte, Hegel and Schelling? Are we only able to unearth these resources today by passing through their internal and external critiques? Should we take the risk and plunge headfirst into the tradition in attempting to reactualize it?

Please send a short abstract (200-400 words) for a 20-30 minute presentation to be given in English, French or German to Joseph Carew (jstephencarew@gmail.com) *and* Daniel Pucciarelli (arelli@gmail.com) by the 15th of April.

Proposed topics are (but in no way limited to)

• The immediate reception of German Idealism (Jacobi, Reinhold, Schulze, Maïmon, Marx, the Schellingian, Feuerbachian, Kierkegaardian, Schopenhauerian or Marxist critique of Hegel)
• The role of concepts such as “finitude,” “system,” “totality,” “liberty” or “subjectivity” in German Idealism and its reception
• The category of contingence in Schellingian and Hegelian dialectics
• Contemporary rereadings of Hegel (Frankfurt School, Butler, Jameson, Malabou, Nancy, Pippin, Žižek)
• The current resurgence of Schelling (Grant, Gabriel)
• The appropriation of Hegel by representatives of analytical philosophy searching for a new grounding for epistemology (McDowell and Brandom)
• Critique of the notion of history and post-Hegelian philosophies of history
• Contemporary usage of German Idealism in practical philosophy
• Critiques of German Idealism from within different philosophical movements (phenomenology, Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze – and so on unto infinity)
• New interpretations of Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel

The Future of Creation Order

International Conference, 16 – 19 August 2011, VU University Amsterdam
http://www.cpc2011.org

Conference theme

The Character Project at Wake Forest University is very excited to launch its funding competition entitled “New Frontiers in the Theology of Character.” This $180,000 RFP is aimed at work in theology or religious ethics on the topic of character, and proposals can request between $40,000 and $100,000 for projects not to exceed one year in duration. We hope to make between 3-4 awards. A residential incentive of $6,000 for one semester or $12,000 for an academic year will be offered to theology RFP winners who are willing to move to Wake Forest University during the award period, and this stipend would not count as part of the research funding request. A willingness to move will not be taken into account when evaluating proposals.

Since work here will primarily be theoretical, the funding is aimed at semester or yearlong sabbatical research leave projects involving a book manuscript or series of substantive articles on character.

This competition is supported by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

For more details, please visit www.thecharacterproject.com

Saturday the 26^th of February 2011
12h – 17h00
Newman House
St. Stephen’s Green
Dublin

John Caputo, Syracuse University

Joseph Cohen, University College Dublin

William Desmond, Catholic University of Leuven

Richard Kearney, Boston College and University College Dublin

PROGRAMME

12h – 14h

(Chair: Patrick Masterson)

Richard Kearney

God after God? Theism/Atheism/Anatheism

William Desmond

Default Atheism and the Idiocy of the Sacred

14h15 – 16h15

(Chair: Dermot Moran)

Joseph Cohen

Of a God to come in Philosophy

John Caputo

Radical Theology As A Theology of the Event

16h30

Discussion

Conference Website: http://theologyphilosophycentre.co.uk/Krakow2011/

Call for papers:

What is Life?:
Theology, Science, and Philosophy

Kraków, Poland
24-28 June 2011

In partnership with: Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, DePaul University; Pontical University of John Paul II, Kraków; Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Kraków; Institute for Faith and Learning, Baylor University

‘During those days men will seek death but they will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.’ —Revelation 9:6

‘Biologists no longer study life.’ —François Jacob

‘If we ask the question when did human life begin? The answer is never.’ —Michael Ghiselin

‘No such things as selves exist in the world: Nobody ever was or had a self.’ —Thomas Metzinger

‘In the depth of its night, our flesh is God.’ —Michel Henry

As philosophy unfolded during the last century many of our most cherished goods were seemingly lost: ethics became an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes, formal thought gave way to adaptation, and thus was merely functional, objects were fictions, more akin to Homer’s gods than real things, life and death no longer appeared to be viable or real terms, and lastly, the self was revealed to be non-existent. This great wave of nihilism presented us with a palpable nightmare, ripping asunder the realities we inhabited – gently tapping our lives with a hammer, the hollow sound exposing the emptiness. The choices are, therefore, starker for the idea that one could simply abandon God and retain a meaningful, common sense existence was shown to be a farce. The cultural refrain of ‘no I don’t believe in God but I do believe in being good to people’ – collapsed, the fullness of its decadence exposed. In this way, that which came as a foe did the work of a friend, for once again, it was a question of God or the abyss.

This year in Kraków, we seek to examine, confront and explore all the major questions that surround the notion of life.

We are especially interested in papers in the following areas:

• Phenomenology
• Metaphysics
• Systematic Theology
• Patristics
• Philosophy of Science
• Biblical Studies
• Politics and Life
• Vitalism
• Speculative Materialism
• Resisting Violence
• Economics and Life

Please go to the official conference website to see the full list of speakers, information on location, booking information, and where you will also be able to submit a paper abstract.