Vatican II at 50 and Beyond: Scholarship that Supports Interreligious Understanding
One of the achievements of Vatican II was its emphasis on the importance of interreligious understanding. The five decades since the Council have been both productive and promising in this regard. The third forum in the series, held on October 10, 2013, considered the promise and future direction of interreligious understanding.
Program
Welcome
Jonathan Rothchild, Ph.D., Loyola Marymount University
Moderator
Panel Remarks
Pragmatic Pluralism Beyond Relativism: Varanasi and Rome
Christopher Key Chapple, Ph.D., Loyola Marymount University
Rabbinics and Patristics: Contemporary Scholarship between Disciplinary and Religious Boundaries
Gil P. Klein, Ph.D., Loyola Marymount University
Women and Islam: Prevailing Theological Assumptions
Robin Owens, Ph.D (cand)., Mount St. Mary's College
Response & Discussion
Mary McKay, C.S.J., Ph.D., Mount St. Mary's College
Ruth Sanborn, M.A., Mount St. Mary's College
Jim Fredericks, Ph.D., Loyola Marymount University
Panelists
Christopher Key Chapple, Ph.D. is the Navin and Pratima Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology and director of Graduate Yoga Studies at Loyola Marymount University. Professor Chapple received his undergraduate degree in Comparative Literature and Religious Studies from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his doctorate in the History of Religions through the Theology Department at Fordham University. He served as assistant director of the Institute for Advanced Studies of World Religions and taught Sanskrit, Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism for five years at the State University of New York at Stony Brook before joining the faculty at LMU. Professor Chapple's research interests have focused on the renouncer religious traditions of India: Yoga, Jainism, and Buddhism. He is author of Reconciling Yogas (2003) and Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions (1993), and editor of Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life (2002), Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky, and Water (coeditor, 2000), and Ecological Prospects: Scientific, Religious, and Aesthetic Perspectives (1995).
Gil Klein, Ph.D. is assistant professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, specializing in the study of late antique rabbinic Judaism in correspondence with the discipline of architectural history and theory. Professor Klein received his Bachelor of Architecture from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jersalem, and his Master and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Cambridge University. His research interests include Rabbinic Judaism, architectural history, Talmud and Midrash, urban space, Graeco-Roman cities and sacred topography. He is currently working on his first book, Study-City: Urban Architecture and the Topography of Rabbinic Culture.
Robin Owens, Ph.D. (cand) is assistant professor of Religious Studies at Mount St. Mary's College and is completing her doctorate in religious studies at Clarement Graduate University. She received her first master's in Religion at Lancaster Theological Seminary, followed by her M.Div. and S.T.M. at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Professor Owens teaching and research interests include a concentration on the intersections between religion and culture. Her research utilizes a methodological approach to the study of religion that addresses issues related to the role and function of religion in identity formation and power negotiation.