Category Archives: Past Events

Call for Papers: “The Synagogue in Ancient Palestine” (Helsinki, 22-24 Sept 2016)

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CALL FOR PAPERS
The Synagogue in Ancient Palestine:  Current Issues and Emerging Trends
22–24 September 2016, University of Helsinki

*Feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested*

CFP Synagogue conferenceThe study of synagogues in ancient Palestine is flourishing more than ever. In the last decade at least four synagogues — one from the Late Second Temple-period (Magdala) and three dating to Late Antiquity (Kh. Wadi Hamam, Horvat Kur, Huqoq) — have been exposed by different archaeological expeditions. There is a thriving debate among scholars regarding the functioning and significance of these buildings within the Jewish communities of Palestine. Another continuing debate among archaeologists is the identification and dating of the exposed architectural remains. The excavations of the three above-mentioned late-antique synagogues have exposed richly decorated mosaic floors, which has added to our knowledge of the development of Jewish art. The Synagogue in Ancient Palestine. Current Issues and Emerging Trends provides an opportunity for scholars working on synagogues to discuss current issues in the field.
Four keynote speakers are confirmed: Jodi Magness is Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and director of the Huqoq excavations. Karen Stern Gabbay is Assistant Professor of History, Brooklyn College, and specialized in the cultural identity and material culture of Jewish population in the Greco-Roman world. Zeev Weiss is Eleazar L. Sukenik Professor of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and director of the Sepphoris excavations. Jürgen Zangenberg holds the Chair for History and Culture of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, Leiden University, and is director of the Horvat Kur excavations.

We invite papers that evaluate and integrate both textual and archaeological approaches to the synagogue in ancient Palestine and discuss some of the following issues in synagogue studies: The origins and development of synagogue(s); Questions of dating; Archaeology of Galilean and Judean synagogues including the most recent archaeological findings; Synagogue art and architecture; The synagogue within the Jewish community; Synagogues and Christian communities; Methodology; The history of synagogue research in the context of the early modern and current political situation. We encourage also papers from doctoral students.

Please send your abstract of 250–400 words, along with your name, institution, e-mail and tentative title, by Tuesday 15 March 2016 to Rick Bonnie, rick.bonnie@helsinki.fi.

The conference will be held at the University of Helsinki, 22–24 September 2016. There is no registration fee, but participants must cover their own travel and accommodation costs. The conference is organized by Rick Bonnie, Raimo Hakola, and Ulla Tervahauta, Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki.

The conference is funded by the Centre of Excellence in Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions and the Centre of Excellence in Reason and Religious Recognition, both Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki. The conference is organized in co-operation with the Foundation of the Finnish Institute in the Middle East.

Issues of Recognition in Pragmatism and American Transcendentalism

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Issues of Recognition in Pragmatism and American Transcendentalism
Wed 16 – Fri 18 December 2015, University of Helsinki
Faculty Hall, Faculty of Theology

► Co-organized by: Kyoto University, SPIRITS International Project “Philosophy as Translation and Understanding Other Cultures” (Kyoto University), The Centre of Excellence Reason and Religious Recognition (Academy of Finland, University of Helsinki, Faculty of Theology), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Stockholm Office), Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies

The event is open for everyone, no registration required.

16-18 December 2015 PUBLIC PROGRAMME

In the age of globalization, borders between cultures and nations have become all the more fluid. Tragedies produced by tensions between religious values have increased. It is an urgent task today to reconsider how to live with different cultures – where the what is different understood potentially to go beyond the grasp of one’s comprehension. In particular, with the pressing need of internationalization, it is an urgent task for higher education in Japan to shift its manner of thinking towards new ways of coexistence – towards a reconstruction of center-peripheral structures in the light of dissent and the experience of marginalization.

To address this issue, and in virtue of their distinctive geo-political perspectives, Finland and Japan together have the potential to decentralize dominant Euro-American thinking. Geographically and historically, Finland has been located at the periphery of Europe and has had to live with the intersections of multiple cultures and languages. Likewise Japan, on the periphery of Asia, is under pressure, domestically and internationally, to engage with diversity as a response to globalization.

Against this background, and in the light of ongoing academic exchange between Finland and Japan, this international and interdisciplinary conference thematizes the issue of recognition in the context of living with other cultures. Centering on American philosophy (pragmatism and transcendentalism) as its guiding thought, and interconnecting this with studies on education, religious studies, political science, aesthetics, literature, etc., we shall approach the question of recognition, reconsidering its relation to the nature of human being and language. We shall be engaged in dialogue dedicated to the question of understanding other cultures in the light of interdisciplinary, international and practical aspects.

The conference will create a unique forum for dialogue for mutual reflection that goes beyond the conventional framework of Euro-American thinking: a hub of researchers from Japan and from

Northern European countries including Finland will be joined by scholars from the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and the United States. The voices of young and female researchers will especially be encouraged.

For more information, please see the attached program.

Recognition and the Qur’ān

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The last session of our spring seminar approached the Qur’ān and the Qur’ānic heritage from two largely opposed points of view. Our guest, research professor Anthony Lappin from Maynooth University, opened the session by a detailed discussion of the reception history of the first Latin translation of the Qur’ān as told by the layers of marginal notes and comments appended to the manuscripts. Lappin’s material is rather complex by nature, but it yields us a vivid picture of the ebbs and flows of the Latin understanding and appreciation of the book.

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Anthony Lappin (photo Heikki J. Koskinen)

Commissioned in the 1140s by Peter the Venerable, the translation was to serve the purpose of a well-founded refutation of Islam. The work, eventually titled Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete, was carried out in the Cluniac monastery of Nájera by two astronomical translators, Robert Ketton and Herman of Dalmatia, whose appended notes betray a reasonably developed understanding of the Qur’ān and the Arabic exegetical tradition. This expertise was soon lost, however, as a look at some of the thirteenth century manuscripts shows. These abound with a wide variety of more or less imaginative “explanations” of recurrent themes in the Qur’ān; for an illustrative example, the two central jurisprudential terms ḥalāl and ḥarām were all but lost for the subsequent readership.

Although there are several thirteenth century copies of the text, it became the object of a quite unprecedented interest in the fifteenth century. Since the beginning, political questions pervaded the reception of the Latin Qur’ān. Indeed, there are interesting parallels between the tense geopolitical situation of the twelfth century Iberian peninsula, the text’s context of birth, and the fifteenth century with its increasing Ottoman presence. But it is interesting to observe that certain fifteenth and sixteenth century readers, such as Marsilio Ficino, Nicholas of Cusa or Johann Albrecht Widmanstetter, were much more favorably attuned to the “pseudoprophecy” and attempting to read it as a piece of universal wisdom – albeit with often quite idiosyncratic presumptions.

Lappin’s fascinating talk showed that in a sense, little has changed in the Western reception of the Qur’ān. Although scholars of Islam have experienced a decisive upsurge of requests for their expertise after the 9/11 attacks and the steady global presence of fundamentalist interpretations of political Islam, the underlying political interests in the attention to the book and the “law of Muḥammad” are scarcely veiled.

If professor Lappin’s presentation could be characterized as a study of one thread in the history of outsider recognitions of the Qur’ān, my own talk attempted to address the question of whether the ideas of religious recognition and tolerance are to be found in the Qur’ān and the classical exegetical tradition. If we define religious tolerance heuristically as the belief or attitude that another’s religious beliefs can be intrinsically valuable even if (either entirely or partly) untrue, we can argue that such a concept is articulated in the Qur’ān. Indeed, the peaceful nature of the Islamic religion is often corroborated by appeal to such verses as the beginning of 2:256 (There is no compulsion in religion).

Islam is a highly textual religion, and interpreting the Qur’ān in new historical contexts always entails an engagement with the scholarly tradition. Although the situation has become more complex with the twentieth century advent of the fundamentalist claims for broader interpretative authority, the classical exegetical authorities still represent the most important standards according to which Qur’ān is read and taught. For this reason, it is not only historically interesting but also crucially important for contemporary Islamic ethics and interreligious dialogue to look at how these authors understood the passages expressing the alleged Qur’ānic idea of tolerance.

In my brief talk I focused on Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s (d. 1209) extensive verse-by-verse commentary, the Mafātīḥ al-ghayb. Rāzī’s concise discussion of Q 2:256 finds it relevant for three questions, all of which pertain to the topic of religious tolerance. Strictures of time, however, forced me to focus on only of them – the theological question of whether free decision (ikhtiyār) is a necessary feature of genuine religious commitment (the other two questions are related to the status of dhimmīs and the validity of wartime shahāda). Interestingly, Rāzī connects this question to the old theological debate of whether, and in what precise sense, human beings are the agents of their acts. This question is theologically problematic, because one natural answer to it threatens to compromise God’s omnipotence and omniscience: if temporary agents are the causes of their acts, then their agency limits that of God; and if they act freely, that is, in a way undetermined by any factors external to them, then God cannot know how they will act before they have acted.

Jari Kaukua (photo Heikki J. Koskinen)

Jari Kaukua (photo Heikki J. Koskinen)

The two opposing views, one emphasizing the free agency and consequent responsibility of human beings, the other sticking to an uncompromised concept of God’s omnipotence, were characteristic of the two main schools of Islamic theology, that is, Mu‘tazilism and Ash‘arism, respectively. In this question, Rāzī sides with the Ash‘arite view but also holds on to the idea that personal choice is necessary for genuine religion.

In the end, it is difficult to see whether he is capable of solving the dilemma, but regardless of that, one interesting observation for the question of tolerance can be made. This is the fact that both of the rival theological schools expressly subscribe to the idea that people should be allowed free choice of religious subscription – at least in the case of responsible adults who are actual unbelievers, as opposed to apostates. If anything, the Ash‘arite view is even more pronounced in this regard: since everything, including the “free” choice of submission to Islam, is in God’s hands, human beings must refrain from forcing their beliefs on each other.

As duly noted in the discussion period, these observation can only constitute a start for assessing the approach of Rāzī and other classical exegetes on our material. Crucial questions to consider will be, for instance, whether and on what basis apostasy is condemned while sticking to this notion of religious tolerance, and on how this material is related to the factual existence of minority religions in classical Islamic societies.

 

A seminar on Religious Tolerance, Acceptance and Recognition in Early Christianity

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The Early Christianity seminar at the European Association of Biblical
Studies (EABS) focuses this year on religious recognition. The event
will take place at the annual meeting of the association, held on July
12–15, 2015 in Cordoba, Spain. The meeting will be part of the
celebrations of the 700th anniversary of the city’s synagogue.
Early Christianity has often been studied from the perspective of
conflicts, both among different religious traditions (Christianity
vis-à-vis Judaism and polytheistic traditions) and within formative
Christianity (rivalry between different Christian teachers and their
schools).

Several texts, both canonical and non-canonical, no doubt reflect
suspicion and/or open hostility toward “others”. The focus in the
seminar, however, will be on other modes of interaction; it will be
asked what kinds of examples of constructive dialogue can be found in
early Christian sources. Are there signs of peaceful coexistence of
different religious traditions? Were competing traditions sometimes
recognized as legitimate partners in dialogue? What forms of
interaction and exchange were adopted and how were they justified?

For more information, please visit http://www.eabs.net/site/cordoba-2015/
—
Text by Outi Lehtipuu, who will be chairing the Early Christianity seminar at the EABS.

Workshop on Text, Ritual, and Magic

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Workshop on Text, Ritual, and Magic

April 14-15, 2015

University of Helsinki

Organizers: The Centre of Excellence in Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions (CSTT), and the Centre of Excellence in Reason and Religious Recognition Research (RRR)

Description: This workshop focuses on the interface between texts and magical or ritual practices. As a starting point we wish to question and deconstruct the dichotomy between magic and religion. We are particularly interested in texts as material artefacts and their magical and ritual uses as well as practices described in texts. The presentations cover a variety of source materials and methodological approaches as the workshop brings together scholars working in different fields.
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CoE’s first SAB-meeting

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CoE’s Advisory Board had its first meeting in November, 14-15, 2014. The board members (in the first picture above) are Professor Judith Lieu (Cambridge), Professor Werner Jeanroad (Oxford) and Professor Elisabeth Parmentier (Strasbourg) as well as Academy Council Chair, Professor Olli Mäenpää (standing in the second picture above), Science Advisor Mrs. Riitta Launonen and representative of Faculty, Vice Dean Auli Vähäkangas.

After the SAB-meeting, two CoE-researchers, Dr. Ritva Palmen and Doc. Maijastiina Kahlos, presented papers concerning their research subjects. The event ended with a dinner.

The Centre Co-organizes the 5th NSPR Conference

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The 5th Nordic Society for Philosophy of Religion Conference, co-organized by the Centre of Excellence in Reason and Religious Recognition Research, is coming up in June 2015. The topic will be “The origins of religion in philosophy, theology and religious studies”. Please take a look at the Call for Papers on the Nordic Society for Philosophy of Religion Conference website for further information about topics and deadlines. The due date of the abstracts is 16th February 2015. The abstracts should be sent to hanna.ronikonmaki@helsinki.fi and must include applicant’s name, professional affiliation and the title of the paper. For further information please contact: timo.koistinen@helsinki.fi .

Confirmed speakers include : Ingolf U. Dalferth, Jan-Olav Henriksen, Simo Knuuttila and Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir.

 

FSLA XXIII Registration Open

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XXIII Finnish Symposium on Late Antiquity
Tvärminne, Finland, 17–18 October 2014
“Conflict in Late Antiquity”

The XXIII Finnish Symposium on Late Antiquity takes place on 17–18 October 2014. The theme of the symposium is “Conflict in Late Antiquity”.

Our keynote speakers are Hagith Sivan (Department of History, University of Kansas), Petri Luomanen (Biblical Studies, University of Helsinki), Lucy Grig (School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh) and Antti Lampinen (Classics, University of Turku). Conflict will be approached from a wide perspective, including different types and levels of conflict and attempts at solving them. Points of view vary from political and military to cultural and religious conflicts between and within traditions. Please refer to the programme attached.

The symposium will be organized in the premises of a zoological research station operated by the University of Helsinki at a beautiful location in Tvärminne on the southern coast of Finland (http://luoto.tvarminne.helsinki.fi/english). The symposium is organised by an interdisciplinary organizing committee (see below) and funded by the Academy of Finland‘s Centre of Excellence “Reason and Religious Recognition”, Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki, and Department of World Cultures, University of Helsinki.

The seminar is free. We will offer transportation from Helsinki to Tvärminne and back, as well as accommodation in a shared room (2 persons) and meals in Tvärminne, but we are not able to cover the costs for travelling to or from Helsinki, or accommodation in Helsinki.

Registration for the conference will start on September 1, 2014. In order to register as a participant for the seminar, please send an email to Ulla Tervahauta, ulla.tervahauta(at)helsinki.fi. Upon applying for participation, you are kindly asked to provide your contact information as well as to inform us about special diets etc. Please also mention if you do NOT need the coach transportation from Helsinki.

Welcome!

The organizing committee
Maijastina Kahlos, PhD, Classics / “Reason and Religious Recognition”, University of Helsinki, maijastina.kahlos(at)helsinki.fi
Ulla Tervahauta PhD, Biblical Studies, University of Helsinki, ulla.tervahauta(at)helsinki.fi
Ville Vuolanto, PhD, History, University of Tampere / University of Oslo, ville.vuolanto(at)uta.fi

http://www.helsinki.fi/worldcultures/fsla/index.html

Conflict in Late Antiquity
XXIII Finnish Symposium on Late Antiquity
Tvärminne, 17-18 October 2014

FRIDAY  17 OCTOBER
9.00 Departure by coach from Helsinki
c. 11 Arrival and accommodation
11.30 Opening of the Symposium
11.45 Lunch

12.30 Friday session I: Pilgrimage, asceticism and social conflict
Hagith Sivan: Jerusalem: A Landscape of Conflict in Late Antiquity
Walter Roberts: Soldiers of Christ from the Byzantine Perspective: Monks, Emperors and Conflict in the Late Antique Byzantine Empire
Kristina Sessa: Conflict, Narrative and the Formation of Monastic Communities in Sixth-Century Italy

14.15 Coffee

14.35 Friday session II:  Identity and religious conflict
Petri Luomanen: Conflict and Identity in Early Christian Heresiologies: The Case of Jewish Christians
Blossom Stefaniw: Straight Reading: Ideology, Exegesis and the Body in the Origenist Controversy

15.50 Short break

16.00 Friday session II continues
Susanne Moraw: Conflict and Gender: Why Images of Real Life Publicise Harmony and Images of Myth Do Not
Raphael Schwitter: Controlling the Debate: Authorial Power in Christian Dialogues of Late Antiquity

17.00 Sauna/Men
18.30 Sauna/Women
20.00 Dinner

SATURDAY 18 OCTOBER
8.00-9.00 Breakfast

9.00 Saturday session I: Social conflict and intolerance in late Roman culture
Lucy Grig: Popular Culture and Social Conflict in Late Antiquity
Victoria Leonard: Texts, Travels, and Turncoats: Intolerance and Conformity in the Early Fifth Century

10.15 Short break

10.30 Saturday session II: Literary images and the creation of a conflict
Antti Lampinen: Creating a Religious Conflict: Gallic Elite and the Literary Image of a Persistently Pagan ‘Vulgus’
Jaakkojuhani Peltonen: Emperor Julian as a User of Alexander the Great and Marcus Aurelius in the Competition for Power and Prestige

11.45 Lunch

12.30 Saturday session II: War and political conflict
Alvaro Sánchez-Ostiz: Theodorus and the Two Eagles of Jupiter: Claudianus’s Propagandistic
Treatment of the Conflict between East and West
Jeroen Wijnendaele: Triumph and Tragedy. Stilicho’s War Against Radagaisus (405–406 CE)
Charles S. Pazdernik: Conflict Aversion in Procopius of Caesarea

14.00 Coffee and packing
14.30 Conclusion of the symposium

15.00 Departure

c. 17 Arrival in Helsinki