http://www.aarweb.org/programs/summer_seminars/About/staff.asp
Summer Seminars on Theologies of Religious Pluralism and Comparative Theology
Core Instructional Staff
The TESC has been able to gather a core team of scholar-teachers who are expert in TRP and comparative theology to plan for these Summer Seminars. These scholar-teachers include some of the most influential scholars in their respective areas, scholars who have created and determined the very shape of these fields. The TRP Planning Committee (listed below) will serve as instructors for the Summer Seminars:
John J. Thatamanil, Project Director
Assistant Professor of Theology, Vanderbilt Divinity School
Thatamanil is the author of The Immanent Divine: God, Creation and the Human Predicament (Fortress Press, 2006). He is currently at work on a book tentatively entitled Religious Diversity After “Religion” (Fordham University Press). He is Chair of the Theological Education Steering Committee and a past President of the North American Paul Tillich Society.
Francis X. Clooney, S.J.
Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology, Harvard Divinity School
Clooney is one of the founding figures of comparative theology in its contemporary form. He is the author of numerous books, including Theology After Vedanta: An Experiment in Comparative Theology (SUNY Press, 1993); Hindu God, Christian God: How Reason Helps to Break Down the Boundaries Between Religions (Oxford University Press, 2001); and Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (Oxford University Press, 2005). He has just completed two books, Beyond Compare: St. Francis de Sales and Sri Vedanta Desika on Loving Surrender to God (Georgetown University Press, 2008) and The Truth, the Way, the Life: Christian Commentary on the Three Holy Mantras of the Srivaisnava Hindus (Peeters Press, 2008). Clooney is also a member of the AAR’s Executive Committee of the Board.
Jeannine Hill Fletcher
Associate Professor of Theology, Fordham University
Hill Fletcher has published a ground-breaking book entitled Monopoly on Salvation? A Feminist Approach to Religious Pluralism (Continuum, 2005), as well as the following articles: “As Long as We Wonder: Possibilities in the Impossibility of Interreligious Dialogue” in Theological Studies; “Unknowing in the Place of Understanding: The Theological Fruits of Dialogue” in Prophetic Witness: Catholic Women’s Strategies for the Church, ed. Colleen Griffith (Crossroad, forthcoming, 2008); and “Women’s Voices in Dialogue: A Look at the Parliament of the World’s Religions” in Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 16:1 (2006).
S. Mark Heim
Samuel Abbot Professor of Christian Theology, Andover Newton Theological School
Mark Heim is the author of several books on Christian approaches to TRP. Among these, two have been recognized as foundational offerings that have changed the very terms of conversation within the field: Salvations: Truth and Difference in Religion (Orbis, 1995) and The Depth of the Riches: A Trinitarian Theology of Religious Ends (Eerdmans, 2000).
Marcia Hermansen
Professor of Theology and Director of the Islamic World Studies Program, Loyola University, Chicago
Hermansen is the author of The Conclusive Argument from God (1996), a study and translation (from Arabic) of Shah Wali Allah of Delhi’s Hujjat Allah al-Baligha. She is the co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World (MacMillan, 2003) and the author of American Sufis (under contract to Oxford); “Islamic Concepts of Vocation” in Revisiting the Idea of Vocation, ed. John Haughey (Catholic University of America Press, 2004), “What's American about American Sufi Movements?” in Sufism in Europe and North America, ed. David Westerlund (Routledge, 2004), “Islamic Religious Healing in Chicago: Intersections of South Asian Sufi, American, and Islamic Models” for Religious Healing in America, ed. Susan Sered and Linda L. Barnes (Oxford, 2004); and “The Evolution of American Muslim responses to 9/11” in Religious Responses to 9/11, ed. Ron Geaves (Ashgate, 2004).
Steven Kepnes
Murray W. and Mildred K. Finard Chair of Jewish Studies and Religion
and Chair of the Religion Department,
Colgate University
Kepnes is the author of Liturgical Reasoning (Oxford University Press, 2007); Scripture, Reason, and the Islam–West Encounter, ed. with Basit Koshul (Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2007); Reasoning After Revelation: Dialogues in Postmodern Jewish Philosophy with Peter Ochs and Robert Gibbs (Westview Press, 1998); Interpreting Judaism in a Postmodern Age (New York University Press, 1996); and The Text as Thou: Martin Buber’s Hermeneutics (Indiana University Press, 1992). He is currently working on a book on the signs of prophecy.
John Makransky
Associate Professor of Theology, Boston College
John Makransky, Associate Professor of Theology, Boston College. Makransky’s publications include Buddhahood Embodied: Sources of Controversy in India and Tibet (SUNY Press, 1997); "Historical Consciousness as an Offering to the Trans-Historical Buddha" and "Contemporary Academic Buddhist Theology: Its Emergence and Rationale" in Buddhist Theology: Critical Reflections by Contemporary Buddhist Scholars, which he co-edited with Roger Jackson (RoutledgeCurzon, 2000); "Mahayana Buddhist Ritual and Ethical Activity in the World" in Buddhist-Christian Studies Journal (2000); "Buddhist Perspectives on Truth in Other Religions: Past and Present" in Theological Studies Journal (2003); "Buddhist Analogues of Sin and Grace: A Dialogue with Augustine" in Studies in Interreligious Dialogue (2005); "Buddha and Christ as Mediations of Ultimate Reality: A Mahayana Buddhist Perspective" in Buddhism and Christianity in Dialogue (2005); "No Real Protection Without Love and Compassion" in Journal of Buddhist Ethics (2005); Awakening Through Love: Unveiling Your Deepest Goodness (Wisdom Publications, 2007); and "Buddhist Inclusivism: Reflections Toward a Contemporary Buddhist Theology of Religions" in Buddhist Attitudes to Other Religions (2008).
Peter W. Ochs
Edgar M. Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies, University of Virginia
Ochs has edited, co-authored, and authored several books, including The Return to Scripture in Judaism and Christianity: Essays in Postcritical Scriptural Interpretation (Paulist Press, 1993) and Peirce, Pragmatism, and the Logic of Scripture (Cambridge University Press, 2005). He is currently at work on two books projects: Another Reformation: Postliberal Christianity and the Jews (Brazos Press) and Come, Study! Teaching and Learning Scriptural Reasoning (Eerdmans Press).
Anantanand Rambachan
Professor of Religion, Philosophy and Asian Studies, Saint Olaf's College
Rambachan's monographs include Accomplishing the Accomplished: The Vedas as a Source of Valid Knowledge in Sankara (University of Hawai’i Press, 1991); The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda's Reinterpretation of the Authority of the Vedas (University of Hawai’i Press, 1994); and most recently, The Advaita Worldview: God, World, and Humanity (SUNY Press, 2006).
While no attempt can be made to cover every religious tradition, the staff as currently envisioned will be able to provide a wide range of perspectives that represent several of the major strands of religious diversity that mark American life.
