2022-2023 Academic Year:

April 27th, 4:00PM CT
Nilanjan Das, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto
Presenting from in-progress monograph on the epistemology of Śrīharṣa; title TBD
Location: Swift Hall, Room 207

May 5th, 12:30 PM CT
Audrey Guilbault, Ph.D. student, Philosophy/Divinity School (joint), University of Chicago
“Practical Truth and Disjunctivism about Action in Chinese Buddhist Philosophy”
Location: Swift Hall, Room 403

May 18th, 3:30 PM CT
Angela Vettikkal, Ph.D. student, Philosophy, Yale University
“Nāgārjuna Against Action”
Location: Swift Hall, Room 207

2020-2021 Academic Year:

• Tues., October 13–Mat Messerschmidt (PhD Candidate, Committee on Social Thought), “The Nietzschean Body and ‘Incorporation.'” 12:30 PM, Virtual Meeting.
• Tues., October 20–Michael Naas (Professor, DePaul University), “Grace and the Machine: Jacques Derrida’s Perjury and Pardon I (Seminar of 1997-1998).” 6:00 PM, Virtual Meeting. Co-sponsored with the Religion, Literature, and Visual Culture Club.
• Tues., November 10–John Marvin (MA Student, Divinity School), “Edward Nelson vs. Arithmetic: God, Iconoclasm, and the (In)consistency of PA.” 12:30 PM, Virtual Meeting.
• Thurs., December 3–Danica Cao (MA Student, Divinity School), “Return to the Fundamental Substance against the Pursuit of Authentic Dharmadhātu – The 1943 Debate between Xiong Shili and Lü Cheng.” 6:00 PM, Virtual Meeting.
• Thurs., January 28–Michael S. Allen (Assistant Professor, University of Virginia), “When Good Philosophers Make Bad Arguments: Examples from Nyāya and Vedānta.” 4:00 PM, Virtual Meeting.
• Tues., February 9–Daniel Arnold and Brook Ziporyn (Professors, Philosophy of Religions). Faculty conversation on the question “What is ‘comparativism’ in the Philosophy of Religions?” 6:00 PM, Virtual Meeting.
• Tues., February 16–Jack Plimpton (MA Student, Divinity School), “‘Don’t Swim Upriver to that Shallow Pond, Bataille! There’s an Oceanic Lake Ahead’: A Theory of Two Oceanic Forms of Being.” 12:30 PM, Virtual Meeting.
• Tues., February 23–Anna M. Duong-Topp (MA Student, Divinity School), “Ontological Homelessness as a Phenomenology of Belonging: Comparing the Nihilisms of Martin Heidegger and Keiji Nishitani.” 12:30 PM, Virtual Meeting.
• Tues., March 9–Ryan S. Bingham (PhD Student, Religion, Literature, and Visual Culture), “The Critics of Metaphysics and the Power of their Judgment, Part II: Heidegger and Derrida.” 12:30 PM, Virtual Meeting.
• Tues., April 13–Anil Mundra (PhD Candidate, Philosophy of Religions), “Critique, Contradiction, and Common Sense in the Anekāntajayapatākā.” 12:30 PM, Virtual Meeting.
• Thurs., April 29–Sonam Kachru (Assistant Professor, University of Virginia), “Non-Presentism in Antiquity: South Asian Buddhist Perspectives.” 4:30 PM, Virtual Meeting.
• Tues., May 4–Dhruv Raj Nagar (PhD Candidate, Philosophy of Religions), Title TBA. 12:30 PM, Virtual Meeting. Note: Postponed until further notice.
• Thurs., May 13–Tyler Neenan (PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions), “The Boundaries that Do No Bounding, The Boundlessness that Nevertheless Bounds: Zhuangzi & Absolute Division,” a Joint Series Part I, “Treatise on the Border(s).” 7:00 PM, Virtual Meeting.
• Thurs., May 20–Chiayu Hsu (Postdoc, Divinity School), “The Boundaries that Do No Bounding, The Boundlessness that Nevertheless Bounds: Zhuangzi & Absolute Division,” a Joint Series Part II, “Division(s) and Transformation(s): Five Cognitive Stations in the Delimitation of Things.” 7:00 PM, Virtual Meeting.
• Weds., June 9—Book Launch Event and Reading Group for Jean Vioulac’s Apocalypse of Truth: Heideggerean Meditations, with a presentation by translator Matthew J. Peterson (PhD Candidate, Philosophy of Religions). Translator’s talk at 4:00 PM, reading group discussion at 5:00 PM. Virtual Meeting.

2019-2020 Academic Year:

• Mon., October 7–Dan Arnold, Ryan Coyne, Sarah Hammerschlag, and Brook Ziporyn (Professors, Philosophy of Religions). Faculty panel on the question “What is Philosophy of Religions?” 12:30 PM, Swift 208.
• Mon., October 14–Thomas Meyer (Professor, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München), “The Human Condition vs. Classical Political Philosophy: Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, and the ‘War of Ideas’.” 4:00 PM, Social Science Research Building 122. Co-sponsored with the Jewish Studies Workshop.
• Mon., October 21–Peter Chen (MA Student, Divinity School), “a this and a that: atheism and interpretation.” 12:30 PM, Swift 200
• Mon., November 4–David Newheiser (Research Fellow, Australian Catholic University), “A Pessimistic Politics of Hope.” 12:30 PM, Swift Common Room
• Mon., November 11–Ryan Bingham (PhD Student, Religion, Literature, and Visual Culture), “Grammēsis: Time and Writing in Derrida’s ‘Ousia and Grammē.'” 12:30 PM, Swift 200
• Mon., January 27–Daniel Wyche (PhD Candidate, Philosophy of Religions), “Georges Friedmann: From the Great Disequilibrium to the Interior Effort.” 12:30 PM, Swift 200
• Mon., February 10–Samuel Catlin (PhD Candidate, Comparative Literature & Divinity), “Masters of Suspicion: The History of ‘Critique’ and Contemporary Debates in Hermeneutical Theory.’ 12:30 PM, Swift 200.
• Mon., February 13–Evening Roundtable with History of Judaism Club. 5:00-8:30 PM, Ida Noyes Pub.
• Mon., February 24–William Underwood (PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions), “‘On the Jewish Question’: Marx at the End of Reason.” 12:30 PM, Swift 100.
• Weds., April 22–Tyler Neenan (PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions), “The Jiji / Weiji Dyad and the End of the Changes.” 12:30 PM, Virtual Meeting.

2018-2019 Academic Year:

• Wed., October 3–Welcome Lunch, 12:30 PM, Swift Quad
• Wed., October 17–Jesse Berger (PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions), “Is Sarvajñata Synthetic or Gestalt? Kundakunda, Cantor, and the ‘Inaccessibility’ of the Absolute.” 12:30 PM, Swift 200
• Mon., October 29–Gil Anidjar, (Professor, Department of Religion, Columbia University), “Friends like These (A Comico-Political Essay).” 12:30 PM, Swift Common Room. Co-sponsored with the Jewish Studies Workshop.
• Wed., November 14–Pieter Hoekstra (MA Student, Divinity School), “Blanchot, Judaism, and “The Impossible Necessary.”” 12:30 PM. Swift 200. Co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies Workshop and the Religion, Literature, and Visual Culture Club.
• Wed., December 5–Matthew Peterson (PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions). “Apocalypse and Truth”: an excerpt from a translation-in-progress of Apocalypse of Truth by Jean Vioulac. 12:30 PM, Swift 200.
• Wed., January 16–Jean-Luc Marion (Professor of Philosophy of Religions, UChicago), “What do We Mean When We Speak of Revelation?” 5:15 PM. Swift Common Room
• Wed., February 6–Kristóf Oltvai (PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions), “Theologizing Otherwise: Culture and/as the Critique of Metaphysics in Husserl, Adorno, and Levinas.” 12:30 PM. Swift 400.
• Wed., February 13–Tamsin Jones (Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Trinity College), “Is Academic Theology an Answer to the Problem of Philosophy of Religion?” 4:30 PM. Swift 201.
• Wed., February 20–Mendel Kranz (PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions),  “On the Borders of Europe: Zionism and (Post) Colonialism in Memmi and Levinas.” 12:30 PM, Swift 400. Co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies Workshop.
• Wed., March 6–Dhruv Raj Nagar (PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions). Sanskrit in between Prior & Posterior Hermeneutics: Śankara’s Apophatic Depth-Grammar and its Contribution to Vedic Hermeneutics.” 12:30 PM, Swift 400.
• Wed., April 10–Lawrence McCrea (Professor of Asian Studies, Classics, and Religious Studies, Cornell University). “Reading and Rationality in Late 1st Millennium Indian Philosophy.” 4:30 PM. Swift Common Room.
• Wed., April 17–Matthew Peterson (PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions).”Freud’s Paul: Pathogenesis and the Question of Historical Truth.” 12:00 PM. Swift 200.
• Wed., April 24–Kirsten Collins (PhD Student, Religion, Literature, and Visual Culture). “That Other Fornication: Jewish Law in the Sources of Foucault’s Histoire de la sexualité IV.” 12:00 PM. Swift 200.
• Wed., May 8–Nancy Levene (Professor, Dept. of Religious Studies, Yale University), “Canon, Repetition, and the Opponent: Interpretation in the History of Ideas.” 4:30 PM. Swift Common Room.
• Mon., May 13–Carlos Manrique (Professor, Dept. of Philosophy, Univsersidad de los Andes). “Ontologies of the colonized body, and the politics of religious edgings (notes on a civic popular uprising in Afro-Colombia’s pacific littoral).” 12:00 PM. Swift 106.
• Wed., May 22–Scott Ferguson, Zeke Goggin, Lisa Hendrick, Russell Johnson, Hannah Roh, Stephen Walker (PhD Candidates, Philosophy of Religions). Panel and Send-off to graduating and soon-to-be graduating students in Philosophy of Religions. 12:00PM, Swift 200.
• Wed., May 29–Olivia Bustion (PhD Student, Theology). “The Spirit as Plural Person: A Constructive Reading of Karl Barth’s Pneumatology.” 12:00PM. Swift 400.

2017-2018 Academic Year:

• Wed., Oct 4–Scott Ferguson (PhD Candidate, Philosophy of Religions), “Descartes, Boyle, and (Early) Kant on Physico-Theology and the Existence of God.” 4:30pm, Swift 208
• Wed., Oct 18–William Underwood (PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions), “The Time of Love’s Power: Lorde, Marion, and the Politics of the Erotic ‘I’.” 4:30pm, Swift 208.
• Wed., Nov 1–Kristóf Oltvai (MA Student, Divinity), “Good without Being? Communion, Personhood, and Evil in Jean-Luc Marion’s Theology.” 5:00pm, Swift 400
• Wed., Nov 15–Russell Johnson (PhD Candidate, Philosophy of Religions),“’It Masquerades as a Religion’: Islamophobia, McCarthyism, and the American Imagination.” 4:30pm, Swift 208
• Tues., Nov 28–Ryan Coyne (Associate Professor of the Philosophy of Religions and Theology, University of Chicago), “Grand Politics and the Question of Survival in Heidegger’s Black Notebooks.” 4:30pm, Swift 201
• Thurs., Nov 30–Emmanuel Falque (Honorary Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Catholic University of Paris), “Crossing the Rubicon.” 10:00am, Swift 403
• Wed., Feb 28–Niki Clements (Rice University), “Foucault’s Christianities.” 4:30pm, Swift 208

2016-2017 Academic Year:

• Tues., Oct 4–Meet and Greet, 6:00pm, campus Pub.
• Tues., Oct 11–Morten Thaning (Copenhagen Business School), “Ungovernable: Reassessing Foucault’s Ethics in Light of Agamben’s Pauline Conception of Use.” 5:00pm, Martin Marty Center Library
• Tues., Oct 18–Mark Siderits (Illinois State University), “Non-self and ‘Religion’: Buddhism’s anti-essentialist challenge to the category.” 5:00pm, Swift 201
• Tues., Jan 24–Russell Johnson (PhD Candidate, Philosophy of Religions), “Nonviolent Revolution: Gandhi and Kierkegaard on Means and Ends.” 5:00pm, Swift 200
• Tues., Feb 21–Kirsten Collins (MA Student, Divinity), “Reconstitution and Rupture: Religion After Religion and Maurice Blanchot.” 4:00pm, Swift 201
• Fri., Feb 24–Tupac Cruz (Universidad de los Andes), “Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Fortune.” 12:00pm, Swift 403
• Tues., Feb 28–Bettina Bergo (University of Montreal), “And God Created Woman.” 4:30pm, Swift 201
• Tues., March 7–Anil Mundra (PhD Candidate, Philosophy of Religions), “Unity in Diversity: Haribhadra Sūri’s Anekânta-vāda as a Response to Religious Difference.” 4:30pm, Swift 201
• Wed., April 5–Noreen Khawaja (Yale University), “Philosophy, Theory, History.” 4:30pm, Swift Common Room
• Wed., April 26–Matthew Peterson (PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions), “Historicity and Absence: On the Return of Excess in the Study of Religion.” 4:30pm, Swift 403
• Wed., May 17–Dhruv Raj Nagar (PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions), “On the Various Branches of An Other Philosophy: Thinking Otherwise & Thinking the Othered in Western Metaphysics.” 4:30pm, Swift 201
• Wed., May 31–Cody Jones (PhD Student, Religion, Literature, and Visual Culture), “What a Ghost is Owed: Towards a Hauntological Theory of Debt.” 4:30pm, Swift 201

2015-2016 Academic Year:

• Wed. Sept. 30th, 2015 — Start-of-Year Meet-&-Greet!  4:30pm, Swift Hall, East Lawn
• Wed, Oct 7th, 2015 –Monima Chadha (Monash University, Australia), “Selfless Minds: An Abhidharma Buddhist Analysis of Experience”. 4:30 pm, Swift Hall, 106
• Sun Oct 18th-Mon Oct 19th — Jewish Studies Conference: Martin Buber: Philosopher of Dialogue, Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership
• Tue, Oct 20th –Toshihiro Horikawa (Kyoto University / Universität Heidelberg), “Hasidism and Taoism/Buddhism in Buber’s I-Thou Philosophy”.  4:30pm Stuart 104 (Co-sponsored with Jewish Studies Workshop)
• Wed, Oct 28th — Anil Mundra (University of Chicago), “The Natural, The Normative, and the Study of Religion.” 4:30 pm, Swift Hall, 200
• Wed, Nov 11th –Franklin I. Gamwell (University of Chicago), “Comparative Philosophy of Religion: The Foreword Revisited.”  4:30 pm, Swift Hall, 200 (Reception to Follow)
• Wed, Dec 2nd –Jason Cather (University of Chicago), “Anselm and the Existential Fallacy.”  4:30 pm, Swift Hall, 200 (Ida Noyes Pub Reception to Follow)
• Thur, Jan 7th — Kevin Schilbrack (Applachaian State University), “Comparison and Evaluation in Philosophy of Religions.”  4:30 pm, Swift Hall, Common Room (Reception to Follow)
• Tue, Jan 19th –Dan Wyche (University of Chicago), “The Politics of Self-Overcoming: Notes on Georges Friedmann.”  4:30 pm, Swift Hall, 106 (Ida Noyes Pub Reception to Follow)
• Wed, Feb 3rd — Young Eun Hwang (University of Chicago), “A Constructive Comparative Religious Ethical Analysis of Augustine and Xunzi: The Sacred Origin of Human Rights and its Demand for Just Society.”  4:30 pm, Swift Hall, 106.
• Wed, Feb 10th –Zeke Goggin, “The Idea of Sacrifice in Hegel’s Frankfurt Period.” 4:30 pm, Swift Hall, 106.
• Wed, Feb 24th –Michael Morgan (Indiana University), Topic TBA, 5:00pm, Swift Hall, 106.

2014-2015 Academic Year:

• Fri. Oct 10th, 2014 – Amy Hollywood (Elizabeth H. Monrad Professor of Christian Studies, Harvard University) – “On the True, the Real, and Critique in the Study of Religion.”  3 pm, Swift Hall, Common Room.
• Mon. Oct 13th, 2014 – Nicholas Adams (Senior Lecturer, University of Edinburgh)– “Hegel’s Methodological Lessons for Philosophy of Religion Today.”  12pm, Swift Hall, 208.
• Wed, Nov 5th, 2014 – Hannah Roh (PhD student, Philosophy of Religions) –“Interrogating Cross-Cultural Inquiry in Philosophy of Religions: A Case Study of Self and Agency in Modern Korean Christianity.”  4:30 pm, Swift Hall, 208
• Wed,  Nov 19th, 2014 – Zeke Goggin (PhD candidate, Philosophy of Religions) – “Selfhood and Sacrifice in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit“
• Tue, Dec 9th, 2014 – Evan Kuehn (PhD student, Theology) – “From Postulates of Reason to Doctrines of Faith: On Doing Theology After Kant.”
• Wednesday, January 7th, 2015 –Pamela Sue Anderson (Professor of Modern European Philosophy of Religion, University of Oxford)
  
• Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015 – Benjamin Y. Fong (Harper Fellow, Associate Professor of Social Sciences in the College, U Chicago) – “Freak Stuff or Protestant Stock-in-Trade?: Edwin Diller Starbuck’s The Psychology of Religion in Light of its Influence on William James.” 4:30 pm, Swift Hall 201
• Tuesday, February 17th, 4:30 – Sean Hannan (PhD candidate, History of Christianity)  – “A New Realist Philosophy of Time and its Augustinian or Post-Phenomenological Critique.”
• Tuesday, January 20th, 4:30 – Anil Mundra (PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions) – “Argument, Agreement, and Authority in Classical Indian Philosophy of Religions” Swift 201.
• Tuesday, April 14th, 12:00 – Matthew Peterson (MA student, Divinity): “Between Halakhah and the Other: Navigating the Scope of Jewish Ethics”
• Tuesday, April 28th, 4:30 – Dalmar Hussein (PhD student, Philosophy of Religions) -TBA
• Tuesday, May 12th, 4:30 pm – Tyler Roberts (Grinnell College): “Critical Responsiveness: Between Philosophy and Religion.”
• Thursday, May 21st, 3:30 pm – Eric Ziolkowski (Professor of Bible, Religious Studies Dept Head and Co-Chair of Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern Studies Program, Lafayette College): “What Kierkegaard Has to Say to Comparative Religion.” (Swift 106, location subject to change)
• Tuesday, May 26th, 4:30 pm – Davey Tomlinson (PhD Candidate, Philosophy of Religions) –“Philosophy as a way to die: Memory, meditation, and rebirth in Greece and Tibet.”

NB: The schedule will continue to be updated throughout the academic year.  Please check back here for any changes or additions or subscribe to our mailing list for timely updates.