2017 KEYNOTE LECTURERS

"Giving an Account of Evil" 

Dr. Maureen Junker-Kenny

"Justice and Mercy as Attributes of God in the Face of Evil" 

Maureen Junker-Kenny, Dr. theol., F.T.C.D., is Professor in Theology and Head of the Department of Religions and Theology, Trinity College, Dublin. Her research interests are conditions of faith in modernity, F. Schleiermacher, foundations and applications of ethics. Recent publications include Habermas and Theology (London/New York: T & T Clark/Continuum, 2011), Ethics for Graduate Researchers (Oxford: Elsevier, 2013), co-ed. with C. Russell/L. Hogan, and Religion and Public Reason. A Comparison of the Positions of J. Rawls, J. Habermas and P. Ricoeur (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014, paperback 2016, translation into Arabic forthcoming).

Dr. Antje Kapust

"Facing the Violence of Evil: Response and Responsibility"

Antje Kapust is the Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Bochum/ Germany; she has served as an associate professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville (USA) (2001), Temple University in Philadelphia, (USA) (2002/2003), Heidelberg/ Germany (2008) and Vienna/Austria (2009/2010). She was involved in research on human dignity in Hannover University (2005/2006), gender and ethnicitity in Paderborn University (2011), phenomenology of religion and life in Mainz University/ Germany (2012-2014). Since 2011, she also been a professor of art and theory of the image at a private university. Reasearch areas and publications include et. al. ethics of war (Book: War and the loss of speech), violence (Book: Violence), human rights and human conditions (Handbook on Human Dignity 2013). Forthcoming works include "War and Trauma" (book) and "Art, Images and Human Rights."

Dr. Marcel Henaff

"On the Genesis of Evil in the Human Species: Homo Sapiens, Homo Loquens, Homo Crudelis"

Marcel Hénaff, is a philosopher and anthropologist, professor at the University of California, San Diego. He has taught at the Universities of Copenhagen, Johns Hopkins, Kyoto and at the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris. He studied anthropology at the University of Abidjan, Ivory Coast. His publications include Claude Lévi-Strauss and the Making of Structural Anthropology (U of Minnesota Press, 1998; orig. Belfond, 1991); Public Space and Democracy (coedited with Tracy Strong, U of Minnesota Press, 2001; The Price of Truth. Gift, Money, Philosophy, Stanford U Press, 2010 [Orig: Le Prix de la vérité. Paris, Seuil, 2002Grand Prize ofPhilosophyofFrenchAcademy]. The City in the Making, Rowman, London, 2015;  Le Don des philosophes.  Repenser la réciprocité, Paris, Seuil,  2012; Violence dans la raison? Conflit et cruauté, Paris, L’Herne, 2014.  His main field of research is political philosophy and anthropology of political institutions, economic relationships, forms of social bond and symbolic practices; sourcesofviolence;  religious and cultural formations.

Dr. David GUSHEE

"A Christian Ethical Analysis of the Evils Involved in the Election of Donald Trump"

Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics and Director of the Center for Theology and Public Life, Mercer University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Widely regarded as one of the leading moral voices in American Christianity, he is the author or editor of 21 books and hundreds of articles in his field, including Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust, The Sacredness of Human Life, and, most recently, Changing Our Mind, Kingdom Ethics (2nd edition, 2016), Evangelical Ethics: A Reader, and his latest Letter to My Anxious Christian Friends (2016). 

Dr. Gushee is the recently elected Vice-President of the American Academy of Religion (USA) and is the current President of the Society of Christian Ethics (USA).

DR. MAHMOUD MASAELI

"Response of Sufism to the Evil of Terrorism"

Mahmoud Masaeli obtains his Ph.D. in Political Science from Carleton University. He has pursued another Ph.D. in Philosophy (ABD), and has also been appointed as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Ethics and International Relations at Saint Paul University in Ottawa. Before moving to Canada in 2000, he was serving as a senior research officer in international relations at the Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS) in Tehran. He has also taught in Azad University in Tehran- Kareadj. His areas of interest and concentration include ‘globalization and global ethics'; ‘ethics of global development', ‘dialogical ethics'; ‘theories of global justice', ‘justice as recognition', and 'modern political philosophy'. In addition, he holds an especial interest in the esoteric dimension of faith traditions, notably Islamic spirituality, since he believes that these spiritual approaches can potentially complete and promote dialogical perspectives in today's lifeworld.