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“Godehard Brüntrup SJ is a German philosopher and Jesuit and since 2003 professor of philosophy at the Munich School of Philosophy with a focus on metaphysics, philosophy of mind and language philosophy.
After joining the Jesuit Order, Brüntrup studied philosophy at the University of Philosophy and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München from 1979 and graduated in 1984 with a Master of Arts degree. His academic teachers included Wolfgang Stegmüller and Lorenz Bruno Puntel. After completing his studies in philosophy, he studied Catholic theology at the Philosophical-Theological University of St. Georgen in Frankfurt am Main and the University of Innsbruck, where he graduated in 1989 as a graduate theologian.
In 1990 he began working on his doctoral dissertation under his doctoral supervisor Peter Bieri, after which he received his doctorate in 1993 at the FU Berlin. In 2003 he joined the College of Philosophy and was appointed professor there. Beginning in 1984, Brüntrup taught and researched at various US universities, including Rutgers University, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Arizona. In 2002, he refused a call to full professor of Fordham University, but since then taught there several times as a visiting professor.
Since January 2012, Brüntrup holds the Erich Lejeune Endowed Chair of Philosophy and Motivation - in this role he is particularly concerned with questions of philosophical psychology, the metaphysics of mental causation, the theory of free will and the theory of action. For the winter semester 2013/14 Brüntrup took a reputation as James Collins Visiting Professor in Philosophy of Saint Louis University. Since then he regularly spends August / September as Extracurricular Professor at St. Louis University.”
“Nevin Climenhaga is a Research Fellow in the Dianoia Institute of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University. He received his Ph.D. in 2017 from the Philosophy Department at the University of Notre Dame, with a graduate minor in History and Philosophy of Science. Prior to that, he received an M.A. in Philosophy from Western Michigan University and a B.A. in Humanities and Peace & Conflict Studies from Messiah College.
Climenhaga’s research interests include epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and ethics. He has published papers on Bayesian measures of confirmation (Philosophical Studies, 2013), the problem of evil (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2018), the use of intuitions in philosophy (Mind, 2018), causal inference (Noûs, forthcoming), and the relation of probability and explanation (Journal of Philosophy, 2017; Philosophy of Science, 2017; Philosophical Studies, forthcoming).
Climenhaga is currently working on a book project defending infallibilism about knowledge, according to which we know all and only those propositions that are certain for us. Other articles-in-progress explore inductive inference, the nature of probability, the skeptical theist response to atheistic arguments from evil, the relation of divine providence and human free will, and the application of probability theory to historical reasoning.”
“Joshua Cockayne is a lecturer at the Logos Institute for Analytic and Exegetical Theology at the University of St. Andrews. Joshua’s research focuses on issues of spirituality, spiritual practice, and ecclesiology in analytic theology. He completed his PhD at the University of York for work on Kierkegaard and the spiritual life. He has published articles in Religious Studies, Faith and Philosophy, The British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Zygon, and Modern Theology. His book, on Kierkegaard and a second-personal approach to spirituality, will be coming out in 2020 with Baylor University Press.”
“Alison Fitchett Climenhaga completed her Ph.D. in the Theology Department at the University of Notre Dame in 2018, and she works as a research fellow in the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University. Alison’s research engages the history and contemporary practice of Christianity in eastern Africa, with a focus on Catholic communities in Uganda and Rwanda. Drawing on extensive ethnographic and archival research in both countries, her work examines lay formation and leadership especially in charismatic Catholic lay associations, the role of religion in conflict and peacebuilding, and the experiences of Catholic women in the region. She is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Networks of Devotion, Landscapes of Faith: Catholic Charismatic Movements in Uganda, which analyzes how lay associations’ ritual life and organizational cultures form and sustain different styles of Catholic practice, contributing to internal differentiation of the Catholic tradition at both local and global levels. Her research also explores how devotional practices interact with development efforts and contribute to post-conflict social reconciliation in Uganda and Rwanda. In addition to an article on the interaction of charismatic faith healing practices with biomedical treatment (Mission Studies 35/2, 2018), Alison’s work analyzes how the material culture and ritual at Rwandan Catholic shrines shape post-genocide reconciliation processes and communicate Rwandans’ theological engagement with scripture and tradition in light of the genocide.”
“I’m Lecturer at the Philosophy Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I specialize in the philosophy of Kierkegaard and am the author of Kierkegaard on Faith and Love (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Love (in Hebrew, 2011), as well as various articles in book collections and in peer-reviewed journals. I’m currently working on a book on romantic love (under contract with Oxford University Press).”
“Samuel Lebens is a research fellow at the University of Haifa. His PhD focused on the philosophy of Bertrand Russell, as did his first book, Bertrand Russell and the Nature of Propositions (Routledge, 2017). His second book provides an axiomitization of the Jewish faith, The Principles of Judaism (Oxford University Press, 2020). He has published papers on the philosophy of religion, the ontology of literature, and early analytic philosophy. He is also an ordained Rabbi.”
“Professor Wayne McKenna was appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at ACU in 2013. Prior to joining ACU, he was Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and Research) at the University of Western Sydney (UWS), where he previously had a variety of roles including Executive Dean, College of Arts, and Provost of the Bankstown Campus. He has also held positions with the University of Newcastle, University of Geneva in Switzerland, and the University of Toulouse in France.
Professor McKenna holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in English and a PhD from the University of Leeds, UK. Early career research interests included the work of Charles Lamb and W.J. Turner with later focus on the impact of the digital age on the humanities in computational stylistics and electronic text.”
“James McLaren (DPhil 1990) is Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research, at ACU. He was formerly a Professor in Ancient History and Biblical Studies and the Foundation Director of the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at ACU. His main research interests relate to the interactions between the Jewish and Roman worlds in the early imperial period, especially as expressed in the writings of Flavius Josephus and the war of 66-70 C.E.”
"Simon Oliver is Van Mildert Professor of Divinity at Durham University and Residentiary Canon of Durham Cathedral. His teaching and research focus on systematic and philosophical theology, particularly the doctrine of creation. His most recent book is Creation: A Guide for the Perplexed (2017) and his next is titled Creation’s Ends: Teleology, Ethics and the Natural. He is currently editing The Oxford Handbook of Creation, to be published in 2022."
“Dr Darren Sarisky is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry. Prior to coming to Australian Catholic University, he was a Departmental Lecturer in Modern Theology at the University of Oxford. While in this role, he received a teaching excellence award for pioneering a new module for the Faculty of Theology and Religion called Key Themes in Systematic Theology. He has also been a Junior Research Fellow at Homerton College, University of Cambridge. During this time, he served as the Co-director of the MPhil in Christian Theology and supervised the work of several research postgraduates.
Dr Sarisky’s primary area of research is theological interpretation of Scripture. In 2019, he published a book that explores the difference a faith commitment makes for the practice of interpreting the Bible: Reading the Bible Theologically (Cambridge University Press). He has also published several essays that explore different aspect of the broader subject. Some of these articles focus on modern figures and questions about reading the Bible in interfaith settings, while others deal with issues of interpretation as they manifested themselves in the earliest centuries of Christian theology. Dr Sarisky has recently published an edited volume called Theologies of Retrieval: An Exploration and Appraisal (T. & T. Clark, 2017), which investigates forms of theology that make frequent reference to classical texts from the Christian tradition when dealing with contemporary questions. At present, he is working on a project on theological genealogies of modernity and several further essays on scriptural interpretation.
Dr Sarisky’s research has been supported by grants from the University of Oxford’s John Fell Fund, the Strategic Fund of Oxford’s Faculty of Theology and Religion, the Church of England, and most recently Australian Catholic University.
He currently serves on the steering committee for the Theological Interpretation of Scripture section of the Society of Biblical Literature (US) and has been on the executive committee for the Society for the Study of Theology (UK).”
“Aaron Segal is a Lecturer in the Philosophy Department at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a co-founder (with Samuel Lebens and Dani Rabinowitz) of the Association for the Philosophy of Judaism. Alongside his work on metaphysics, which he has published in such journals as Nous, Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, Philosophical Studies, and Philosophical Perspectives, Aaron has published numerous articles on religious themes--such as the afterlife, faith, and divine attributes--in a Jewish philosophical context. He has also co-edited (with Daniel Frank) the volume, Jewish Philosophy Past and Present (Routledge), a volume which brings classical Jewish philosophy into conversation with contemporary philosophy; he has co-edited (with Samuel Lebens and Dani Rabinowitz) the volume, Jewish Philosophy in an Analytic Age (Oxford), a volume of original essays on analytic Jewish philosophy; and he is co-editing (with Daniel Frank) the volume, Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed: A Critical Guide (Cambridge).”
“Josef Stern, William H. Colvin Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Chicago and the Inaugural Director of the Joyce Z. and Jacob Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies (2009-2014), works in both medieval Jewish and Arabic philosophy and contemporary philosophy of language. Among his publications are Metaphor in Context (MIT Press, 2000); Quotations as Pictures (forthcoming MIT Press, 2020); Parables and Problems of Law (1998); and The Matter and Form of Maimonides’ Guide (Harvard University Press, 2013), which was awarded the 2014 Book Prize by the Journal of the History of Philosophy for the best book on the history of philosophy published in 2013. This book was also translated into Hebrew as Ha-homer ve- ha-tzurah Be-Moreh Nevukhim Le-RaMBaM (Kibbutz Ha- me’uhad Press, 2017). In 2018-19 Stern was a Marie Curie/EURIAS Fellow at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies; for Fall 2019 he a Mandel Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; in Spring 2020 he was a Visiting Professor at the Gregorian Pontifical University, Rome; and in Winter 2012 he will be Joyce Z. Greenberg Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago.”
“Eleonore Stump is the Robert J. Henle Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University. She is also Honorary Professor at Wuhan University and at the Logos Institute, St. Andrews, and a Professorial Fellow at Australian Catholic University. She has published extensively in philosophy of religion, contemporary metaphysics, and medieval philosophy. Her books include Aquinas (2003), Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering (2010), and Atonement (2018). She has given the Gifford Lectures at Aberdeen (2003), the Wilde lectures at Oxford (2006), the Stewart lectures at Princeton (2009), and the Stanton lectures at Cambridge (2018). She is past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers, the American Catholic Philosophical Association, and the American Philosophical Association, Central Division; and she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.”
“Rachel Teubner is a Research Fellow in Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University and an Affiliate Fellow at the Institute for Critical Inquiry – Berlin (2019-2020). She is currently completing a monograph, Practicing Humility: Paradox and Poetry in Dante’s Commedia. Her research has been focused on Christian thought and literary production in the medieval and early modern period, while engaging contemporary feminist theological and ethical debates concerning humility, self-sacrifice, and the status of the body.”
“Thomas M. Ward is an assistant professor of philosophy at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He specializes in the history of philosophy, focusing on the Middle Ages. A 2009 Harvey Fellow, Ward is the author of Divine Ideas (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), John Duns Scotus on Parts, Wholes, and Hylomorphism (Brill, 2014), as well as many research articles in the history of philosophy, including “A Most Mitigated Friar: Scotus on Natural Law and Divine Freedom,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 93:5 (2019), winner of that journal’s Rising Scholar Essay Contest in 2018.”
“Christof Wolf is the Founder, CEO and President of Loyola Productions Munich, Inc. and DOK TV & Media, Inc., two film production companies especially producing /specialists in documentaries, promotionals, and educational films. He is a graduate of the New York Film Academy. He has directed and produced a number of short documentaries, including his work about the American Zen master Bernie Glassman as well as the award winning feature length documentaries “In Spite of Darkness. A Spiritual Encounter with Auschwitz” (Best Documentary, Redemptive Storyteller Award, Silver Telly Awards), and “Ai-un: Hugo Makibi Enomiya-Lassalle – Bridge Builder between Zen and Christianity” (Telly Awards: Spirituality, History, Documentary and Biography). He has become a specialist in animated documentaries, including scenes of the ZDF/ARTE production “Challenging Churchill”.
He is lecturer at the Munich School of Philosophy “for Art, Culture, and Religion”, since 2012 Chaplain for the “Association of Catholic Journalists Germany” (GKP) and since 2015 Chaplain for the “Association of Catholic Entrepreneurs” Munich. He leads film retreats around the world and is the founder and President of TIFF (The Iñigo Film Festival) for World Youth Day, a gathering of young people from around the world.”
“Judith Wolfe is Professor of Philosophical Theology at the University of St Andrews. At St Andrews' School of Divinity, she also serves as Deputy Head of School and as Director of the Graduate Programme in Theology and the Arts.
Prof. Wolfe was educated at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (BA in Amirim and English Literature) and the University of Oxford (MPhil in English literature, MA in Theology, and DPhil in Philosophical Theology), and has taught in Berlin, Oxford, and St Andrews. Her core expertise is in eschatology and apocalypticism in theology, philosophy and literature, on which she has published widely.”
“David is an associate lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of York. He specialises in philosophy of religion and analytic theology (an area York touts as one of its five research themes), and has taught courses on the philosophy of Christianity and on the philosophy of the Hebrew bible. Alongside his colleague, David Efird, David helps to organise the annual conference of the UK branch of the Society of Christian Philosophers, and was twice chosen to be a young scholar on the Jewish Philosophical Theology project. In addition to publications on the philosophy of Christian doctrine in, for instance, Religious Studies, David's work on biblical narratives has been published in the Journal of Analytic Theology and in TheoLogica. He is currently working on a manuscript tentatively titled 'Seeing God Face to Face: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Beatific Vision'. David is delighted to be attending this workshop with his wife, Laura, from whom can be credited the genesis of much of his published work.”
“Dr Tamra Wright is Director of Academic Studies at the London School of Jewish Studies.
She also holds a visiting lectureship at King’s College London. A specialist in 20th century Jewish philosophy, she delivered the Stanton Lectures in Philosophy of Religion at Cambridge University in 2009 and is the author of The Twilight of Jewish Philosophy: Emmanuel Levinas’s Ethical Hermeneutics. She co-edited Face to Face with Animals: Levinas and the Animal Question (SUNY 2019) and Radical Responsibility: Celebrating the Thought of Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (Maggid 2013), and has published articles on Jabès, Buber, Levinas, Fackenheim, and post-holocaust Jewish thought.”
“Mark Wynn is Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford and was previously (2013-20) Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Leeds. His books
include Spiritual Traditions and the Virtues: Living Between Heaven and Earth (2020), Renewing the Senses: A Study of the Philosophy and Theology of the Spiritual life (2013), Faith and Place: An Essay in Embodied Religious Epistemology (2009), and Emotional Experience and Religious Understanding: Integrating Perception, Conception and Feeling (2005). He has served
as President of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion (2015-17) and Editor of Religious Studies (2016- 18), and In 2015 gave the Wilde Lectures in Natural Religion at the University of Oxford.”
“Fr. Patrick Zoll, S.J., was born in 1977 in Gummersbach, Germany (close to Cologne). He entered the Jesuits in 1998 after finishing high school and studied philosophy and theology in Munich, Madrid and Bonn. Fr. Zoll received his doctorate in philosophy at Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms University Bonn in 2015. In his dissertation, he defended the thesis that a commitment to liberal values like liberty, equality, or plurality does not oblige one to refrain from using perfectionist or religious reasons when it comes to the public justification of policies. Currently, Fr. Zoll is working on his habilitation – a necessary step in European higher education to attain the highest level of qualification – in which he is defending the thick Thomistic thesis that existence is participating in being (esse) against thin theories of existence, which are currently dominant in analytic as well as continental philosophy. He is a visiting Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University.”