SPEAKERS' PROFILE
Alexander Agadjanian
Alexander Agadjanian is Professor of Religious Studies at the Center for the Study of Religion, Russian State University of the Humanities, Moscow, where he teaches a variety of religious studies courses including Early Forms of Religion, Research Methods in Religious Studies, Religion in the Modern World, and some special sections on the history of religion. He is also teaching online at Arizona State University.
His main areas of research include religion and power/political culture; contemporary religious practices; religion and globalization; recent religious changes in Russia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia; religion in private and public space; forms of modern secularism. He has area expertise in both Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Theravada Buddhism, and he has developed an interest in comparative religious studies.
He has recently co-edited and contributed to Religious Practices in Post-Soviet Russia (2006); Eastern Orthodoxy in the Global Age (2005) and has authored a number of articles in scholarly journals such as «Social Compass», «Religion, State and Society», «Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion», «Revue d'Etudes Comparatives Est-Ouest».
Alexander Agadjanian is member of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion and American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies.
Thomas C. Berg
Thomas C. Berg is Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, Minneapolis, where he teaches Constitutional law, Religious liberty, Intellectual property, and Federal courts, and serves as co-director of the Terrence Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy.
His main scholarly interests are in religious liberty, the relationship of religion and society, constitutional law, and intellectual property. He is the author of two leading texts, The State and Religion in a Nutshell (2004) and the casebook Religion and the Constitution (with Michael McConnell and John Garvey), which won the 2004 Alpha Sigma Nu Prize for best book in professional studies from the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.
Professor Berg is or has been a member of advisory committees for the National Council of Churches, the Pew Forums Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy, the Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom, the DePaul Center for Church/State Studies, and Democrats for Life of Minnesota.
Silvio Ferrari is Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Milano, Italy, where he teaches Canon law. He also teaches Church and State relations at the University of Leuven and Church and State relations at the University of Strasbourg.
His main scholarly interests are: Church and State issues in Italy and West Europe; relations between Israel and the Vatican; comparative law (European and U.S. models of Church-State relationship); history of canon law; comparative law of religions.
Amongst his many publications, Diritto e religione in Europa occidentale, together with Ivan C. Iban (1997) and Lo spirito dei diritti religiosi. Ebraismo, cristianesimo e islam a confronto (2002).
Prof. Ferrari is Director of the «Quaderni di diritto e politica ecclesiastica» and editorial co-ordinator of «Daimon. Annuario di diritto comparato delle religioni». He is also member, amongst other appointments, of the Board of Directors of the International Academy for Freedom of Religion and Belief (Washington), of the Executive Committee of the European Consortium for Church and State Research (Milano), of the Comitato Nazionale di Bioetica (Roma), and of the Scientific Committee of Institut européen en sciences des religions (EPHE, Paris).
Jeremy Gunn is the Director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief and the Senior Fellow for Religion and Human Rights at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at the Emory University School of Law. He is a member of the Advisory Council on Freedom of Religion and Belief of the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (based in Warsaw, Poland), and is the member of several advisory boards for organizations involved in freedom of religion and belief.
After completing law school, he served as a law clerk for the Honorable Douglas P. Woodlock in the Federal District Court of Massachusetts, before moving to Washington, D.C., where he was an attorney at the law firm Covington & Burling. He has held several positions in the U.S. government, including at the U.S. Department of State and as the Executive Director and General Counsel of a federal agency of the U.S. government that declassified records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
In addition to publishing dozens of articles on religion, politics, and law, he recently published in France Dieu en France et aux Etats-Unis: Quand les mythes font les lois, with Blandine Chélini-Pont (2005). The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees commissioned him to prepare a report on “The Complexity of Religion in Determining Refugee Status” (2002), subsequently revised and published as The Complexity of Religion and the Definition of “Religion” in International Law, in «Harvard Human Rights Journal» (2003).
Mark Hill
Mark Hill is a Fellow of the Centre for Law and Religion at Cardiff University and a member of the European Consortium for Church and State Research. He is Chancellor of the Anglican Dioceses of Chichester and Europe and a Recorder of the Crown Court.
His publications include Ecclesiastical Law (2000), Religious Liberty and Human Rights (2002) and English Canon Law (1998), and he is editor of the «Ecclesiastical Law Journal». As a barrister with chambers in the Middle Temple, Mark Hill regularly advises on matters of ecclesiastical law and has represented clients in a number of leading cases.
Francesco Margiotta Broglio is Professor of History of Religious Institutions and State-Church Relations at the University of Firenze, as well as Dean of the European doctorate in Canon Law at the University of Paris (J. Monnet Faculty).
Amongst his many appointments, he is religious policy commentator of «Corriere della Sera»; chairman of the government commission for implementation of the Concordat; editor in-chief of «Religione e Società»; president of the Hebrew Culture Foundation “Primo Levi”; chairman of the Advisory Commission on Religious Freedom of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers in Roma; president of the Conciliation and Good offices Commission against Discrimination in Education for Unesco. He is also member of the executive board of the Italian National Commission for Unesco and of the Social Sciences Council in Rome.
His publications include, besides over 200 scientific papers on ecclesiastical and canon law, history of religious institutions and State-Church relations, and religious policy, Italia e Santa Sede dalla Grande Guerra alla Concicliazione (1966), Stato e confessioni religiose (1974-75), Religione e sistemi giuridici (1997).
Alberto Melloni is Professor of Contemporary history at the University of Modena e Reggio Emilia.
Amongst his many appointments, he was Director of the Postgraduate School for excellence professional education in History and Religion at the University of Bologna, as well as founding member of Tres and co-director of «Concilium».
He is member of the editorial board of «Cristianesimo nella storia», of the Académie Internationales des sciences religieuses, of the Society for Medieval Canon Law and of the Association for Computers and Humanities. He is President of the National Committee for “Bilancio delle scienze religiose nel 900” as well as Vice-secretary of the Fondazione per le scienze religiose Giovanni XXIII, Bologna.
He published widely on matters of history of religion and religion and politics; amongst his publications, Storia del concilio Vaticano II, ed., directed by G. Alberigo (1995-2001); L'altra Roma. Politica e S. Sede durante il concilio Vaticano II (1959-1965) (2000); Il conclave. Storia dell'elezione del papa (2005; translated in German, Spanish, Portuguese, French); Chiesa madre, chiesa matrigna. Un discorso storico sul cristianesimo che cambia (2004).
Alberto Melloni cooperates with Rai, «Corriere della Sera», and many others journals and reviews.
Werner Menski
Werner Menski is Professor of South Asian Laws at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He has also been visiting professor at the Punjab Law College of Lahore (Pakistan), at the Pakistan College of Law of Lahore, at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University, and at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Amongst his many publications, Hindu Law. Beyond Tradition and Modernity (2003), Modern Indian Family Law (2001), Comparative Law in a Global Context: The Legal Systems of Asia and Africa (2000), and Muslim Family Law, with HH Judge David Pearl (1998).
Adam B. Seligman
Adam B. Seligman is Professor of Religion at Boston University and Research Associate at the Institute for Culture, Religion and World Affairs there. He has lived and taught at universities in this country, in Israel and in Hungary where he was a Fulbright Fellow from 1990-1992. He lived close to twenty years in Israel where he was a member of Kibbutz Kerem Shalom in the early 1970’s.
His publications include The Idea of Civil Society (1992), Inner-worldly Individualism (1994), The Problem of Trust (1997), Modernity’s Wager: Authority, the Self and Transcendence (2000) and Market and Community, with Mark Lichbach (2000). His work has been translated into over a dozen languages.
At present, with the help of major grants from The Ford Foundation and Pew Charitable Trusts, he is working on the problem of religion and toleration. Part of this work is devoted to establishing school curricula for teaching tolerance from a religious perspective. In this endeavor he is working with colleagues in Berlin, Sarajevo and Jerusalem. With them too, he has established the International Summer School on Religion and Public Life, which leads seminars on religion and the public square in different parts of the world.
His latest book is Modest Claims, Dialogues and Essays on Tolerance and Tradition (2004).
Dr. Erik Sengers studied social and political sciences in Amsterdam and Catholic theology in Utrecht. In 2003 he graduated at the Catholic Theological University in Utrecht on a dissertation about the history of the Dutch Catholic Church from rational choice-perspective.
Since then, he works as a sociologist of religion at Kampen Theological University on a research project about renewal movements in Dutch Christian Churches in the context of the religious market.
Rik Torfs is Full Professor at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), where he was dean from 1994 to 2003. He is in charge of visiting appointments at the University of Strasbourg (France), at the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa) and at the University of Nijmegen (The Netherlands).
He is member of the editorial board of the «Revue de Droit Canonique (RDC)», of the Board of Directors of the European Consortium for State-Church Research, and of the Commission pour le Dialogue Interculturel (Gouvernement Belge).
Amongst his publications, besides of nearly 300 articles on canon law, law, Church and State relationships, he wrote A Healthy Rivalry: Human Rights in the Church (1995) and Married Personalism: Code and Council (to be published).
He is also editor of the European Journal for Church and State Research.
Marco Ventura is full professor of Law and Religion at the Faculty of Law of the University of Siena, where he coordinates the “Law and Religion Programme”. He is Director of the Summer School in Law & Religion.
After his Phd in Strasbourg, he was professor at the Universities of Perugia, Bari and Foggia. He was visiting professor at the University College of London, at the University of Oxford and at the University Robert Schuman of Strasbourg.
He is currently member of the European Consortium for Church and State Research and of the Scientific Board of the Ecclesiastical Law Journal.
Amongst his many publications, Procréer hors la loi. Loi civile, loi morale et loi canonique face à la nouvelle procréation (1994), La laicità dell’Unione europea. Diritti, mercato, religione (2001) and La liberté de conscience dans la régulation publique de la religion. La compétition européenne, in Un nœud de libertés. Les seuils de la liberté de conscience dans le domaine religieux (2005).
Since 2001 he is the Director of «Daimon», Journal of Comparative Religious Laws.
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