The Global Philosophy of Religion Project Conference 2022

The Global Philosophy of Religion Project is a major international initiative supported by the John Templeton Foundation and the Dynamic Investment Fund at the University of Birmingham. The theme of our 2022 conference is Death and Immortality. It will be hosted in partnership with Closer To Truth, an acclaimed TV and digital media series.

This conference will address philosophical issues concerning death and immortality by discussing questions such as whether there is a coherent model of immortality, whether belief in the afterlife requires supernaturalism, whether such a belief has implications for the metaphysics of the human person, and whether such a belief can be justified through empirical evidence or philosophical arguments.

Confirmed speakers

• Imran Aijaz (Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Michigan-Dearborn, USA)
• Reza Akbari (Professor of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Imam Sadiq University, Iran)
• Emann Allebban (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Providence College, USA)
• Hazel T. Biana (Associate Professor of Philosophy, De La Salle University, Philippines)
• Cennet Ceren Çavuş (Assistant Professor, Muş Alparslan University, Turkey)
• Jessica Frazier (Lecturer in Theology and Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, University of Oxford, UK)
• Jay Garfield (Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy, Logic and Buddhist Studies, Smith College, USA)
• Ted Good (PhD student, University of Toronto, Canada)
• Marie-Hélène Gorisse (Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Hindu and Jain Philosophy of Religion, University of Birmingham, UK)
• Soraj Hongladarom (Professor of Philosophy, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand)
• Liz Jackson (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Ryerson University, Canada)
• Jeremiah Joven Joaquin (Professor of Philosoph, De La Salle University, Philippines)
• Silvia Jonas (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig Maximillian University Munich, Germany)
• Andrew Loke (Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong)
• Kirk Lougheed (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, LCC International University, Lithuania)
• Swami Medhananda (Monk of the Ramakrishna Order and Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at the Ramakrishna Institute of Moral and Spiritual Education, India)
• Peter Millican (Professor of Philosophy at Hertford College, University of Oxford, UK)
• Hasskei Mohammed Majeed (Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Ghana, Ghana)
• Motsamai Molefe (Senior Researcher at the Centre for Leadership Ethics at the University of Fort Hare, South Africa)
• Emmanuel Ofasia (PhD student, Lagos State University, Nigeria)
• Franklin Perkins (Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hawai'i, Manoa, USA)
• Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad (Distinguished Professor of Comparative Religion and Philosophy, University of Lancaster, UK)
• Carlo Rossi (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Chile)
• Agnieszka Rostalska (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Ghent University, Belgium)
• Aaron Segal (Michael and Bella Guggenheim Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)
• Yuanping Shi (PhD student, Leiden University, Netherlands)
• Eduard Shyfrin (Kabbalah and Torah Scholar, UK)
• Christopher Tomaszewski (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Belmont Abbey College, USA)
• Aysenur Ünügür-Tabur (Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Augsburg, Germany)
• Venerable Dr. Yifa (Director, Woodfish Program, USA)
• Carol Zaleski (Professor of World Religions, Smith College, USA) 
• Mohammad Saleh Zarepour (Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Manchester, UK)
• Jingyi Jenny Zhao (ISF Research Fellow at the Needham Research Institute, University of Cambridge, UK)

Closer To Truth

The conference will be hosted in partnership with Closer To Truth, an internationally acclaimed TV and digital media series created, written, and hosted by Dr Robert Lawrence Kuhn and co-created, produced, and directed by an Emmy Award-winning film director Peter Getzels. The show is based on conversations with distinguished scholars worldwide on fundamental questions in the Cosmos (cosmology/physics, philosophy of science), Consciousness (brain/mind, philosophy of mind), and Meaning/God (theism/atheism, philosophy of religion, critical thinking). It features over 4,000 video interviews and over 300 TV episodes. Closer To Truth is broadcast weekly on over 200 PBS and public television stations in the US, and the Closer To Truth YouTube channel has over 20 million views and 190 million minutes of watch time annually. The Closer To Truth team will be present at the conference, hosting some of the keynote sessions and recording material for their TV episodes and web videos that will feature the Global Philosophy of Religion Project.  See Closer To Truth’s interviews and panels on the Global Philosophy of Religion’s first theme: The Existence and Nature of God/Deities

The Global Philosophy of Religion Project

The Global Philosophy of Religion Project is a major initiative that aims to make the philosophy of religion a truly global field. It is supported by funding totalling £2.15 million from the John Templeton Foundation and the Dynamic Investment Fund (DIF) at the University of Birmingham. It is led by Professor Yujin Nagasawa and hosted by the Birmingham Centre for Philosophy of Religion in the School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham.

Sponsors

The John Templeton Foundation 

Contact

Please contact us at gprconference@contacts.bham.ac.uk if you have any questions regarding the conference.

Official language

English