Stela Tasheva, Sasha Lozanova
The International Society for Intellectual History (ISIH) was created in 1994. Traditionally, ‘intellectual history’ is interpreted as an identification and analysis of ‘intellectual traditions, disciplines, and practices, as they developed over time, were inextricably interconnected both to one another and to more concrete historical conditions.’ (ISIH, 2017). Prof. Michael Hunter (Birkbeck College, University of London) is ISIH Executive Committee President. The last four conferences of the research community were held at Princeton University, New Jersey (2013); Victoria College, University of Toronto (2014); Rethymnon Campus, University of Crete (2016) and American University in Bulgaria (30 May – 1 June 2017).
We are sharing here impressions of the latest conference, held in Blagoevgrad in our capacity as participants.
Obviously, the topic of the conference, The Rethinking of Religious Belief in the Making of Modernity was as relevant as ever, especially nowadays in the light of the technological breakthroughs, political developments and the ensuing global processes, armed conflicts, regional depopulation, migration, environmental issues, etc. The large number of papers was indicative of the interest in the topic. They treated religion in all its historical and local forms as a meeting point of a number of economic, social, cultural processes and developments. The conference was dominated by historians, philosophers and theologians. Political analysts, philologists, ethnologists and art historians formed a smaller group. The participants’ research profiles allowed for a very wide interdisciplinary scope.
Given the thematic scope of the event, most of the papers broached the early modern period (17th through the 20th cc.) focusing on the development of the Western philosophy (incl. research on the ideas of Martin Luther, Samuel von Pufendorf, John Locke, Isaac Newton, George Berkeley, Henri de Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte, as well as of some of the later such as Karl Marx, Heidegger, Benjamin, etc.). Most of the topics dealt with the development and rethinking of Catholicism, Protestantism, and less with Orthodoxy and other Abrahamic religions (incl. Judaism and Islam). Some of the colleagues presented their views of the issues (and modernisation) of Hinduism, Shinto and Buddhism. The most numerous were historiographic works. Certain authors evaluated and revaluated great and less popular figures and religious ideas in various historical and/or contemporary contexts. To us, being representatives of a country with an Orthodox culture, very interesting were the papers presented by Itzchak Weismann, Haifa University, Israel, The Making of Islamic Modernity: Salafi Thought between the Forefathers and the West; Anna Blijdenstein, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, Judaism and Islam: Remaking Religion in Enlightenment Thought and Mick Deneckere, Ghent University, Belgium, Japanese True Pure Land Buddhism and the Modernisation of Japan. In these works we witnessed overcoming of the Eurocentric point of view, which in our opinion limits the work of part of the contemporary research community.
Interesting Bulgarian studies were presented by Markus Wien, American University in Bulgaria, Thrown into Modernity? Re-defining Jewish Identities in Post-Ottoman Bulgaria and Ewelina Drzewiecka, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland, Understanding Religion: The Case of Bulgarian Modernity.
Our paper was titled Tracing Religion and Cult in the Architecture of European Totalitarian Regimes of the 20th c. Architectural research subject was not precisely typical of the disciplinary scope of the conference, but it was this perhaps that stirred up a discussion.
The rest of the Bulgarian participants were in tune with the general thematic scope, dealing with philosophic and religious problematics: Iordan Avramov, Intellectual Curiosity and Religious Diversity: Henry Oldenburg and Communication of Knowledge Within and Across; (Jordan Detev, In the Footsteps of a Lost Spirituality); Petar Cholakov, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, From Suspicion to Political Right: The Evolution of Locke’s Views on Toleration; Iva Manova, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Thomas Aquinas vs. Karl Marx: Neo-Thomists and Marxist-Leninists on Religion and Atheism (1950s-1960s.
The course of the conference was covered by regional media since the beginning. Participants were impressed both with the very strict time limits for the presentation of the papers and discussions and the marvellous working conditions and the spring and youth air of Blagoavgrad.
Conference venue
Campus of the American University in Bulgaria (AUBG)
Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
Panels and keynotes:
Balkanski Academic Center (BAC), on the AUBG campus
Address: 8, Svoboda Bachvarova Street, Blagoevgrad
The foyer and the “Andrey Delchev” Auditorium are on the ground floor of the BAC.
Rooms 201, 202, 203, 204, and 206 are on the first floor of the BAC.
All rooms are equipped with a computer connected to the internet, a projector, a screen, a Hi-Fi system, a DVD reader, and whiteboards.
The main entrance of the BAC is the entrance facing the campus square.
Lunches and coffee breaks:
America for Bulgaria Student Center (ABF Center), on the AUBG campus
Address: 12, Svoboda Bachvarova Street, Blagoevgrad
The lobby is on the ground floor of the ABF Center.
The AUBG restaurant is on the third and last floor of the ABF Center.
The main entrance of the ABF Center is the entrance facing the campus square.
Conference banquet, with folklore show and live jazz music:
Hotel Park Bachinovo, restaurant
Address: Bachinovo Nature Park, Blagoevgrad (5 km from the AUBG campus, 4 km from the center of Blagoevgrad.)
The Hotel Park Bachinovo can be reached by taxi from the AUBG campus or the center of Blagoevgrad in less than ten minutes. The cost of a taxi drive from the AUBG campus or the center of Blagoevgrad to the Hotel Park Bachinovo is around 5 leva, i.e. around 2.50 euros.
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DAY 1: TUESDAY, MAY 30, 2017
8.30-9.30: Distribution of conference folders and name tags (BAC foyer)
Coffee and snacks (BAC foyer)
9.30-10.00: Conference opening (BAC, “Andrey Delchev” Auditorium):
Michael Hunter (President, International Society for Intellectual History)
Steven F. Sullivan (President, American University in Bulgaria)
Emilia Zankina (Provost, American University in Bulgaria)
Diego Lucci (Conference convenor)
10.00-11.00: Keynote 1 (BAC, “Andrey Delchev” Auditorium):
Lyndal Roper (University of Oxford), Mortality and Hatred in Luther’s Antipapalism
Facilitator: Michael Hunter
11.15-12.30: Session 1 (BAC):
Panel 1.1 – Merchants of Light: Samuel Hartlib, John Evelyn, and Henry Oldenburg as Communicators of Knowledge
Room 201
Chair: Paolo Luca Bernardini
Iordan Avramov (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria), Intellectual Curiosity and Religious Diversity: Henry Oldenburg and Communication of Knowledge Within and Across
Mihnea Dobre (Western University “Vasile Goldis” Arad and University of Bucharest, Romania), Intermediaries, Merchants, and Polemicists: On the Letters Exchanged by Descartes, More, Petty, and Hartlib
Oana Matei (Western University “Vasile Goldis” Arad and University of Bucharest, Romania), Merchants of Light and Lamps: John Evelyn’s Projects of Natural History
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Panel 1.2 – Judaism, Islam, and Modernity
Room 202
Chair: Markus Wien
Talya Fishman (University of Pennsylvania, USA), Jews and Creed in the Era of Confessionalization
Anna Blijdenstein (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands), Judaism and Islam: Remaking Religion in Enlightenment Thought
Itzchak Weismann (Haifa University, Israel), The Making of Islamic Modernity: Salafi Thought between the Forefathers and the West
Panel 1.3 – Religion in the Italian Risorgimento
Room 203
Chair: Elisa Bianco
Glauco Schettini (Fordham University, USA), Revolutionary Faiths: Politics and Religion in Late Eighteenth-Century Italy (1796-1799)
Alessandro De Arcangelis (University College London, United Kingdom), From the National Risorgimento to European Modernity: Religion in Italian Intellectual History, 1799-1861
Fernanda Gallo (Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom, and University of Lugano, Switzerland), The Shaping of European Identities: Modernity and the Reformation in the Risorgimento Political Thought
Panel 1.4 – Enlightenment, Theology, and the Science of Religion
Room 204
Chair: Hans-Peter Söder
Eric Carlsson (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA), Letter and Spirit: Rethinking Theology in the German Enlightenment
Katherina Kinzel (University of Vienna, Austria) and Niels Wildschut (University of Vienna, Austria), Religious Belief and Historical Science in German Historicism
Ralph Leck (Indiana State University, USA), Max Müller and the Science of the Sacred: Double Enlightenment in Milieus of Religious Fundamentalism
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Panel 1.5 – From Republican Toleration to the Collapse of Pluralism: Towards an Episodic History of Toleration and Pluralism
Room 206
Chair: Douglas Jacobsen
Rafał Lis (Jesuit University Ignatianum, Poland), The Evolution of Republicanism and the Prospects of “Civil Religion” and Religious Pluralism in Late Eighteenth-Century Poland
Christopher Donohue (National Human Genome Research Institute, USA), “Pluralism is confined to cosmological arguments”: Pluralism, Religion and the Limits of Secularization
Jordan Detev (University of Sofia “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Bulgaria), In the Footsteps of a Lost Spirituality
12.30-13.30: Buffet lunch (AUBG restaurant in the ABF Center)
13.30-14.45: Session 2 (BAC):
Panel 2.1 – Religion and the State in Pufendorf and Locke
Room 201
Chair: Luka Ribarević
Heikki Haara (University of Helsinki, Finland), Pufendorf: Coercion, Religious Belief and Toleration
Petar Cholakov (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria), From Suspicion to Political Right: The Evolution of Locke’s Views on Toleration
Fabio Mengali (University of Trento, Italy), Locke’s Reasonable Christianity: From the Reason-Faith Relation to New Historical Social Bonds
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Panel 2.2 – Religious Criticism and Intellectual Change
Room 202
Chair: Serguey Ivanov
Paschalis M. Kitromilides (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece), Spinozist Ideas in the Greek Enlightenment
Ioannis Kyriakantonakis (Centre for Asia Minor Studies in Athens, Greece), Ecclesiastical History as Intellectual Criticism: Early Modern Greek Contexts
Stefano Zappoli (University of Bergamo and State Classical Lyceum “Paolo Sarpi” in Bergamo, Italy), The Uses of Religion in the Movement of Italian Unification
Panel 2.3 – Christianity and Communism in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century
Room 203
Chair: Marianna Shakhnovich
Piotr Kuligowski (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland), Religious Language in Politics: The Case of the Polish Pre-Marxist Radical Left (1830s-1840s)
Anton Jansson (University of Gothenburg, Sweden), “The Pure Teachings of Jesus“: The Theologico-Political Language of Wilhelm Weitling’s Communism
Alexandra Medzibrodszky (Central European University, Hungary), Christianity, Socialism and Just Resistance in Late Imperial Russia
Panel 2.4 – Truth and Progress, between Science and Religion
Room 204
Chair: Teresa Castelao-Lawless
Petr Pavlas (Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic), The Book Metaphor Triadised: A Layman’s Bible and God’s Books in Raymond of Sabunde, Nicholas of Cusa and John Amos Comenius
Paolo Luca Bernardini (University of Insubria, Italy), Looking for the Truth: A Re-Reading of Nicholas Malebranche
Daniel Špelda (Masaryk University, Czech Republic), The Idea of Scientific Progress and Secularization
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Panel 2.5 – Medieval Political Thought
Room 206
Chair: Ian W.S. Campbell
Fani Giannousi (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece), “Potestas et Sapientia”: Religion, Ideology and Politics in the Carolingian Era
Ákos Tussay (Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Hungary), “Rex habet imaginem Dei”: The Theocratic Vindication of the Pre-eminence of the Kingly Estate
Sabeen Ahmed (Vanderbilt University, USA), The Secular Roots of Islamic Political Philosophy: Reading Averroes through Aristotle
15.00-16.15: Session 3 (BAC):
Panel 3.1 – Ancient Religions, Christianity, and the Search for True Religion in Enlightenment Britain
Room 201
Chair: Mihnea Dobre
Felicity Loughlin (University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom), The Study of “Paganism” in Enlightenment Scotland: A Crisis of the European Mind?
Michelle Pfeffer (University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and University of Queensland, Australia), Christian Materialism and the Reform of the Soul: Exegesis and Anti-Catholicism in Eighteenth-Century England
Matteo Bonifacio (University of Turin, Italy), Berkeley and the “Citadel of Christianity”
Panel 3.2 – Modern Concepts of Humanity, between Science and Religion
Room 202
Chair: Christopher Donohue
Monica Libell (Lund University, Sweden), Linnaeus’s Racialization of Man
Douglas H. Shantz (University of Calgary, Canada), Making the Modern Self: Culture, Identity and Autobiography in Eighteenth-Century German Pietism and Enlightenment, 1700 to 1790
Elisabeth M. Yang (Rutgers University, USA), Horace Bushnell’s Notion of the “Essentia Organica” in “Christian Nurture” and His Child-Centered Anthropology
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Panel 3.3 – Bulgaria from Modernity to Socialism
Room 203
Chair: Kiril Petkov
Markus Wien (American University in Bulgaria, Bulgaria), Thrown into Modernity? Re-defining Jewish Identities in Post-Ottoman Bulgaria
Ewelina Drzewiecka (Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland), Understanding Religion: The Case of Bulgarian Modernity
Sasha Lozanova (University of Forestry, Bulgaria) and Stela Tasheva (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria), Tracing Religion and Cult Influence in the Architecture of European Totalitarian Regimes in the Twentieth Century
Panel 3.4 – Modernity and Theology: Alternative Interpretations and Developments
Room 204
Chair: Adriano Vinale
Hans-Peter Söder (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany), Theologies of Knowledge: From Saint Simon and Comte to Stiegler’s Decadent Societies
Slobodan Dan Paich (Artship Foundation, USA, and Victor Babes University Timisoara, Romania), Understanding and Misunderstanding: Currents of Modern Thought Inclusive of Transcendence
Beninio McDonough-Tranza (Free University of Berlin and Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany), Prosperity Theology and the New Spirit of Capitalism
Panel 3.5 – Liberalism, the Welfare State, Republicanism, and Religion
Room 206
Chair: Sean Homer
Arthur Ghins (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom), The French Exception: Constant, Tocqueville and the Religious Underpinnings of Liberalism
Kristian Keto (University of Helsinki and University of Tampere, Finland), Religion and the Welfare State: A Historical Approach
Konstantinos Bizas (University of Jyväskylä, Finland), Concepts and Method in J.G.A. Pocock’s Republicanism
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16.15-16.45: Coffee break (ABF Center lobby)
16.45-17.35: Session 4 (BAC):
Panel 4.1 – Newton’s Religion
Room 201
Chair: Oana Matei
Irene Zanon (University of Venice “Ca’ Foscari”, Italy), The Alchemical Apocalypse of Isaac Newton: A Syncretic Study of Newton’s Alchemy and Eschatology
Remus Gabriel Manoila (University of Bucharest, Romania), The Fall of Monarchy: Isaac Newton’s Reading of Tertullian
Panel 4.2 – Persisting Devotional Practices and Innovative Beliefs in Early Modern Central and Western Europe
Room 202
Chair: Cyril Selzner
Finn Schulze-Feldmann (Warburg Institute, United Kingdom), Persisting Devotional Practices as a Challenge for the Established Churches: The Discrepancy between Dogma and Belief in Early Modern Christendom
Lyke de Vries (Radboud University, Netherlands), The Rosicrucian Upheaval: “allgemeiner reformation divini et humani”
Panel 4.3 – Religion and Modernization in India
Room 203
Chair: Itzchak Weismann
Binal Somani (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, United Kingdom), Finding the Self in Colonial Gujarat: A Study of Swaminarayan Hinduism
Leena Taneja (Zayed University, United Arab Emirates), Hindutva: How the Rise of “Essential” Hinduism Is Shaping Modern India’s Political Landscape
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Panel 4.4 – Theology in Higher Education
Room 204
Chair: Wayne Hudson
Serguey Ivanov (American University in Bulgaria, Bulgaria), Two Hypostases in One Person: Biblical Theology in a Liberal Arts Curriculum
Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen (Messiah College, USA) and Douglas Jacobsen (Messiah College, USA), Re-Conceptualizing “Religion” in Modernity and Post-Modernity
17.45-18.45: Keynote 2 (BAC, “Andrey Delchev” Auditorium):
Michael Hunter (Birkbeck, University of London), The Supernatural and the Natural in English Thought, 1650-1750
Facilitator: Iordan Avramov
19.00: Meeting time for the guided walking tour of Blagoevgrad
Meeting point: BAC main entrance
Duration: one hour
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DAY 2: WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 2017
9.30-10.20: Session 5 (BAC):
Panel 5.1 – Hume on Religion
Room 201
Chair: Francesca Rebasti
Laura Nicolì (Italian Institute for Historical Studies, Italy), First Symptoms of Religion in Mankind: Hume, the Philosophes and the Heathens
Spyridon Tegos (University of Crete, Greece), Rituals and Moral Culture in the Enlightenment: Hume on Religious and Secular Rituals in the Civilizing Process
Panel 5.2 – Religious Differences, Polemics, and Conflicts in Early Modern Europe
Room 202
Chair: Talya Fishman
Kiril Petkov (University of Wisconsin-River Falls, USA), War, Religion, and Modernity: Cross-Cultural Conflict and the Rationalization of Western Religions in the Early Modern Mediterranean
Elisa Bianco (University of Insubria, Italy), “Protestant Byzantium”: The Byzantine Church as Precursor of the Reformation in Louis Maimbourg’s Works (1610-1686)
Panel 5.3 – Rethinking Time in Twentieth-Century Philosophy
Room 203
Chair: Marco Russo
Vladimir Glebkin (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Russia), Interpretations of Boredom in Modernity: The Case of Pascal and Heidegger
Hjalmar Falk (University of Gothenburg, Sweden), The Messianic Moment: Löwith, Benjamin, and the Modern Regime of Time
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Panel 5.4 – Religion in Contemporary Cinema
Room 204
Chair: James Coffin
Sean Homer (American University in Bulgaria, Bulgaria), Orthodoxy and the National Imaginary in the Films of Milcho Manchevski
Liat Steir-Livny (Sapir Academic College and Open University of Israel, Israel), God’s Neighbors: The Representation of Judaism and Religious Fanaticism in Israeli Cinema
10.35-11.25: Session 6 (BAC):
Panel 6.1 – Antitrinitarianism and the Racovian Catechism in Jacobean England
Room 201
Chair: John Coffey
Ariel Hessayon (Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom), The Supposed Burning of the Racovian Catechism in 1614: Historical Context and Primary Sources
Diego Lucci (American University in Bulgaria, Bulgaria), The Supposed Burning of the Racovian Catechism in 1614: The Origin and Transmission of a Historiographical Myth
Panel 6.2 – Catholic Practices and Institutions, from the Counter-Reformation to the Enlightenment
Room 202
Chair: Andreas Motsch
Tiziana Faitini (University of Trento, Italy), A Catholic History of the “Profession”: The Moral Problematization of Professional Activities and the States of Life in the Post-Tridentine “Institutiones morales”
Stanislaw Witecki (Jagiellonian University, Poland), A Variety of Catholic Enlightenment: Reform Programs of Bishops in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
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Panel 6.3 – Modernization and Secularization in Nineteenth-Century Japan
Room 203
Chair: Francesco Campagnola
Andreea Barbu (University of Bucharest, Romania), Alternative Stories of Modernity and Secularization in the Nineteenth Century: Europe and Japan
Mick Deneckere (Ghent University, Belgium), Japanese True Pure Land Buddhism and the Modernisation of Japan
Panel 6.4 – Repressed Concepts: On Religion and Abstract Art in the Twentieth Century
Room 204
Chair: Slobodan Dan Paich
Samuel O’Connor Perks (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium), Religious Phenomenology and Abstract Art: Rethinking the Connection between Catholic Ideas and the Menil Art Collection
Rajesh Heynickx (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium), A Forgotten Conception of Abstract Art: Michel Seuphor’s Pre-War Conversion
Panel 6.5 – The Fascination with Classical Greece in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Europe
Room 206
Chair: Paschalis M. Kitromilides
Pandeleimon Hionidis (Independent Scholar, Greece), The Anglican Church and Philhellenism in Mid-Victorian Britain, 1866-1881
Stefano Gulizia (Independent Scholar, Italy), The Alcestis Effect: Warburg and the Religion of the “Ancients” in Imperial Hamburg
11.45-12.45: Keynote 3 (BAC, “Andrey Delchev” Auditorium):
Jonathan I. Israel (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton), Spinoza, Tindal and the “Dutch Way”: The Western World’s Tortuous Path to a Democratic Republicanism Stripped of All “Ius in Sacra” (1650-1800)
Facilitator: Adam Sutcliffe
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12.45-13.45: Buffet lunch (AUBG restaurant in the ABF Center)
13.45: Meeting time for the trip to the Rila Monastery
Meeting point: ABF Center lobby
14.00: Departure to the Rila Monastery (by coach)
17.00: Departure from the Rila Monastery (by coach)
The Monastery of Saint Ivan of Rila is one of the nine UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Bulgaria. It is situated in the Rila Mountains, at an elevation of 1,147 m (3,763 ft). The monastery is named after its founder, Saint Ivan of Rila (876-946), and today houses around 60 monks. The oldest building in the Rila Monastery, Hrelyo’s Tower, was built in 1334-35, whereas most of the monastery was destroyed by fire in 1833 and was reconstructed between 1834 and 1862.
Entrance to the Rila Monastery, its church, and some rooms is free. The monastery also hosts a small museum with many artifacts from the Middle Ages and the early modern period: an individual admission ticket to the museum costs 8 leva (i.e. around 4 euros).
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DAY 3: THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 2017
9.30-10.45: Session 7 (BAC):
Panel 7.1 – Hobbes’s “Theology” under Scrutiny: Covenant, Liberty of Conscience and Obligation between Biblical Exegesis and Politics
Room 201
Chair: Theodore Christov
Luka Ribarević (University of Zagreb, Croatia), Political Hebraism in “Leviathan”: Hobbes on Abrahamic and Sinai Covenants
Francesca Rebasti (Normal Superior School of Lyon, France), Liberty of Conscience between Heresy and Orthodoxy: Hobbes’s Exegesis of the Gloss on Romans 14:23
George Wright (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA), Is Christianity in Hobbes a “Civil Religion”?
Panel 7.2 – Catholic Thought in the Time of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation
Room 202
Chair: Douglas H. Shantz
Dawid Nowakowski (University of Lodz, Poland), “Bodies can be compelled; minds must be turned, since they cannot be compelled”: Preaching as an “Introduction” to Law in the Ecclesiastes of Erasmus of Rotterdam
Gennaro Cassiani (Independent Scholar, Italy), Rethinking Filippo Neri on the Counter-Reformation Stage (1515-95)
Ian W.S. Campbell (Queen’s University Belfast, United Kingdom), The Scotist Revival, Anti-Aristotelianism, and Enlightened Modernity
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Panel 7.3 – Religion in the Russian Empire, from the Enlightenment to the Revolution
Room 203
Chair: Tatiana V. Chumakova
Andreas Berg (Bond University, Australia), Mysticism, Polizeistaat and the Fragmentation of the Idea of Europe in the Russian Enlightenment
Antonina Kizlova (National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”, Ukraine), Rethinking of Sacred Space in Kyiv Dormition Caves Lavra (19th – early 20th century)
Ekaterina Teryukova (Saint Petersburg State University, Russia), The Russian Religious Legislation in the Age of Revolutions (1905-1917): After the Russian Imperial Officials’ Researches
Panel 7.4 – Religion and the United States in the Contemporary Era
Room 204
Chair: Pierangelo Castagneto
Michael Akladios (York University, Canada), The Rebirth of Coptic Ecumenism: Bishop Samuel and the Archdiocese of North America, 1920-1981
Rafal Milerski (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany), Religious Freedom in the Catholic Church: A Fruit of Americanization?
James Coffin (Ball State University, USA), Men Create Gods in Their Image: Religious Adaptation among Modern Navajo
11.00-12.15: Session 8 (BAC):
Panel 8.1 – Calvinism in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Britain and North America
Room 201
Chair: Andrew Murphy
Cyril Selzner (University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France), Dreams of a New Order: Early English Presbyterian Sacred and Secular Political Theory
Adam Faircloth (Pennsylvania State University, USA), Resistance Theory and the Reconceptualization of the Federal Covenant in Milton, Knox, and Ponet
Gerard F. Willemsen (Protestant Theological University, Netherlands), The Atheist and the Puritan: Religious Doubt in Seventeenth-Century Transatlantic Anglo-Puritanism
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Panel 8.2 – Sociability, Utility, and Religion in Enlightenment Britain
Room 202
Chair: Petar Cholakov
Alvin Chen (University of Oxford, United Kingdom), Two Concepts of Enlightenment: Sociability and Progress in Bernard Mandeville and George Berkeley
Shinji Nohara (University of Tokyo, Japan), Fellows and Non-Fellows in Adam Smith
Raffaele Russo (University of Innsbruck, Austria), Manufacturing Obedience: Bentham’s Utilitarian Critique of Institutional Religion
Panel 8.3 – Interpreting Spinoza
Room 203
Chair: Jonathan I. Israel
Albert Gootjes (Utrecht University, Netherlands), Between French Libertines and Dutch Cartesians: Spinoza’s Utrecht Visit (1673) and the Printing of the Ethics
Li-Chih Lin (University of Groningen, Netherlands), Mapping Nature through Language: Reading Spinoza’s Language with the “Book of Nature”
Adam Sutcliffe (King’s College London, United Kingdom), Spinoza and Jerusalem: Spinozism, Radicalism and Jewish World-Historical Purpose in the Zionist Vision of Moses Hess
Panel 8.4 – Revisiting Thomas Aquinas
Room 204
Chair: Riccardo Pozzo
Ritva Palmén (University of Helsinki, Finland), The Sense of Shame in Medieval and Renaissance Philosophical Psychology
Andrea Favaro (Faculty of Canon Law “St. Pius X”, Italy), The Paradigm of Sovereignty and Its Religious Fundaments: The Political Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and Carl Schmitt on the Autonomy of the Individual
Iva Manova (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria), Thomas Aquinas vs. Karl Marx: Neo-Thomists and Marxist-Leninists on Religion and Atheism (1950s-1960s)
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Panel 8.5 – Humanistic Religion in Twentieth-Century Philosophy
Room 206
Chair: Valentin Cioveie
Marco Russo (University of Salerno, Italy), A Humanist God? On the Relationship between Humanism and Religion in the Twentieth Century
David Férnandez Navas (Complutense University of Madrid, Spain), “Not humiliate anything”: Perspectives on María Zambrano’s Philosophy of Love
Adriano Vinale (University of Salerno, Italy), Christianity as a European Counter-Myth: Simone Weil’s and René Girard’s Destitution of the Founding Violence
12.30-13.30: Buffet lunch (AUBG restaurant in the ABF Center)
13.30-14.45: Session 9 (BAC):
Panel 9.1 – Reading Cicero in the British Enlightenment: Religion, Morality and Political Authority
Room 201
Chair: Spyridon Tegos
Tim Stuart-Buttle (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom), Locke, Stillingfleet and the Immortality of the Soul
Katie East (Newcastle University, United Kingdom), Reading Religion: The Transmission of Ciceronian Theology in the English Enlightenment
Ashley Walsh (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom), “Religio” Stripped of “Superstitio”: David Hume’s Ciceronian Conception of the Church-State Relationship
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Panel 9.2 – Science and Religion in the Making of Modernity
Room 202
Chair: Daniel Špelda
Ovidiu Babeş (Western University “Vasile Goldis” Arad and University of Bucharest, Romania), John Wilkins and Probable Opinion: Is the Moon just like the Earth?
Teresa Castelao-Lawless (Grand Valley State University, USA), Lagging behind Enlightened Europe? Inacio Monteiro, Teodoro de Almeida, and the Public Circulation of Experimental Philosophy in Portugal
Jan Molina (University of Warsaw, Poland), The Mechanics of the Divine: The Idea of the Subject’s Sovereignty in the Works of de Sade and de Maistre
Panel 9.3 – Reflecting on Religion in Russia, from the Revolution to the Post-Soviet Era
Room 203
Chair: Ekaterina Teryukova
Marianna Shakhnovich (Saint Petersburg State University, Russia), The Revolution of 1917 and the Science of Religion in Russia
Tatiana V. Chumakova (Saint Petersburg State University, Russia), Vladimir N. Beneshevich on the Church and Revolution
Vera Pozzi (Independent Scholar, Italy), Tolerance and Intolerance in Russian Orthodoxy: Kant and Orthodox Thought in Post-Soviet Historiography
Panel 9.4 – Philosophizing on God in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century
Room 204
Chair: Eric Carlsson
Michael Glass (Temple University, USA), Kierkegaard: Religious Difference without Relativism
Riccardo Pozzo (University of Verona, Italy), Philosophizing on the Concept of God
Stuart Mathieson (Queen’s University Belfast, United Kingdom), James Orr and Abraham Kuijper: The Genesis of a Christian Worldview
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Panel 9.5 – Modernity and Secularization: Fundamentalist Answers and the Meaning of Authentic Religion
Room 206
Chair: Ralph Leck
Alina Giosanu (University of Bucharest, Romania), Orthodox Fundamentalism: The Rejection of Modernity
Sorina Elena Amironesei (University of Bucharest, Romania), The Many Faces of Postmodern Idolatry and the Answer of the Icon
Valentin Cioveie (University of Bucharest, Romania, and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany), Hermeneutics of Christian Identity in Very Recent Modernity
15.00-16.15: Session 10 (BAC):
Panel 10.1 – Politics and Religion in Hobbes
Room 201
Chair: George Wright
Alissa MacMillan (University of Antwerp, Belgium), Fear Transformed: From Religious to Religion in the Early Modern Period
Alessandro Mulieri (FWO Research Foundation Flanders and Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium), The Marsilian Roots of Thomas Hobbes’s Politics of Religion
Theodore Christov (George Washington University, USA), Hobbes, Schmitt, and the Unity of the State
Panel 10.2 – Protestantism, Politics, and Progress: Contested Intellectual Legacies
Room 202
Chair: Ariel Hessayon
Andrew Murphy (Rutgers University, USA), Religious Toleration and Moral Orthodoxy: William Penn and the Politics of Conscience
John Coffey (University of Leicester, United Kingdom), William Wilberforce and “the Literati of Modern Times”
Pierangelo Castagneto (American University in Bulgaria, Bulgaria), Awakening the American Revolution: Joseph Tracy’s “History of the Revival of Religion in the Time of Edwards and Whitefield” (1842)
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Panel 10.3 – Encountering and Comparing Ancient and Non-European Religions in Eighteenth-Century Europe: On Difference as Distance from Modernity
Room 203
Chair: Mick Deneckere
Francesco Campagnola (Ghent University, Belgium), The Classics as a Paradigm for Japanese Religions and Religious Policies: Positioning Modernity in Space and Time
Andreas Motsch (University of Toronto, Canada), Jesuit Modernity between Comparative Religion and the Anthropology of the Religious: The Case of Joseph-François Lafitau’s “Moeurs” (1724)
Wim de Winter (Ghent University, Belgium), Two Late Eighteenth-Century European Travelers’ Images of and Interactions with Chinese Religions against the Background of Early Modernity
Panel 10.4 – Religious Music and Poetry
Room 204
Chair: Stefano Zappoli
Gioia Filocamo (Superior Institute for Musical Studies “G. Briccialdi” in Terni, Italy), Accepting Death through Laude: Lay Theology for the Bolognese Gallows during the Early Modern Era
Marco Beghelli (University of Bologna, Italy), Singing Forbidden: Women and Castrati in Churches and Theatres
Mariateresa Storino (Conservatory of Music “O. Respighi” in Latina, Italy), Music as a Means of Reconciliation between Religious Belief and Humanistic Culture: The Case of Franz Liszt
16.15-16.45: Coffee break (ABF Center lobby)
16.45-17.45: Keynote 4 (BAC, “Andrey Delchev” Auditorium):
Wayne Hudson (University of Tasmania), Religion and Modernity: Hidden Histories
Facilitator: Robert White (AUBG Dean of Faculty)
17.45-18.00: ISIH meeting (BAC, “Andrey Delchev” Auditorium)
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20.00: Conference banquet
Show of the Folklore Ensemble “Biser”
Live jazz music by the Big Band Blagoevgrad
Conference closing
Venue: Hotel Park Bachinovo, restaurant (Bachinovo Nature Park, Blagoevgrad)
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The Conference is co-organized by the International Society for Intellectual History (ISIH) and the American University in Bulgaria (AUBG).
The Organizing Committee would like to thank the following organizations:
At ISIH: Advisory Board; Executive Committee; Editors of the Intellectual History Review
At AUBG: Conferences and Events Office; Accounting Office; Bookstore; Dining Services; Division of Finance; Facilities Office; Faculty Office; Office of Communications and Marketing; Office of Computing and Communications; Office of the Dean of Faculty; Office of the President; Office of the Provost; Purchasing and Travel Office; Residence Life and Housing Office; Student Services; Transportation Office; Faculty Assembly; Academic Affairs Committee; Department of History and Civilizations
Folklore Ensemble “Biser”; Big Band Blagoevgrad; Rila Monastery; Hotel Park Bachinovo; Hotel Monte Cristo
Special thanks to Radosveta Miltcheva, Antoniya Arnautska, Rumyana Boshkilova, and Anelia Stoyanova
Cover image: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, “The Tower of Babel”, c. 1563 (detail)
Conference poster by Giles Timms (American University in Bulgaria)
For more information, please contact the conference convenor, Diego Lucci, via email at: dlucci@aubg.edu
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Thank you for participating in ISIH 2017!
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