'Engaging the Contemporary 2019: The Philosophical Turn towards Religion'
Welcome to our Sixth Edition of Engaging the Contemporary, an annual philosophy conference which seeks to promote an interdisciplinary approach to a variety of currents debates, held in the cosmopolitan city of Valletta, Malta, on the 7 and 8 November 2019. This year’s theme centres upon the recent, re-emerging relationship between philosophy and religion, a bond which seemed almost completely lost from the intellectual and political history of Western secular modernity. During the second part of the 20th century, eventually intensifying even more in recent years, religion emerged as a central topic of the Humanities, reconsidered for its rich, complex role within contemporary culture.
Engaging the Contemporary 2019 is an International Conference that will offer the opportunity to assess, question and discuss developments within the philosophy of religion. This conference will provide a space both for those who have ‘re-turned’ to the philosophy of religion from the Continental tradition in the late 20th century as well as for those from other contemporary approaches. In the hope that this encounter will foster a productive engagement, we invite contributions on the following themes:
I. Metaphysics, Ontology and Science
II. Phenomenology
• Natural Theology
• Problem of Evil
• God, Science and Naturalism
• Speculative Realism
• Comparative Religion
• Religious Diversity
• Radical Phenomenology
• Givenness and Revelation
• Empathy and the Other
• Incarnation, Flesh and Vulnerability
• Invisibility and Visibility
• Religious Experience
III. Hermeneutics and Deconstruction
IV. Self, Society and Community
• Weak Theology
• Radical Hermeneutics
• Religion and the Gift
• Truth and Post-Truth
• Messianism
• The Im/Possibility of Faith
• Religion, the Public Sphere and Post-Secularism
• Religion and Gender• Forgiveness and Reparation
• Virtuous Life
• Confession and Self-Disclosure
• Political Theology