KEY-NOTE SPEAKERS


Michel Cazenave
France

1963: entrée à l'Ecole Normale Supérieure (Rue d'Ulm, section lettres). 1977: entrée à France Culture, comme conseiller auprès du directeur. 1984: co-fondateur et vice-président du CIRET. 2005: fondateur et président du CEFRI-Jung (Cercle Francophone de Recherche et d'Information Carl Gustav Jung). Sélection de livres: La Science et l'âme du monde, Albin Michel, 1996, 4e éd., La synchronicité, l'âme et la science, Albin Michel, "Espaces libres", 1994, La science et les figures de l'âme, Le Rocher, "Transdisciplinarité", 1996.
Site Internet : http://www.michelcazenave.fr/

Rev. Ioan Chirilă
Romania

Ph.D. in Theology – Old Testament and Hebrew Language. Areas of competence: Old Testament theology, exegesis and hermeneutics, Jewish literature, biblical archaeology and biblical Hebrew. Dean of the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Cluj-Napoca, where Father Chirilă teaches Old Testament, Biblical Archaeology and Hebrew Language as Full Professor. Father Chirilă is Visiting Professor of UMF „Iuliu Hatieganu” in Cluj-Napoca, Director of the Center of Bioethics of UBB in Cluj-Napoca, Corresponding member of ETRF, EURESIS coordinator of Cluj research team, President of ADSTR Pole in Cluj-Napoca, founding member of IASSO, TRES member and representative of the Romanian Orthodox Church within WCC.

Predrag Cicovacki
USA

Predrag Cicovacki was born in 1960 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. After receiving a B.A. in philosophy at the University of Belgrade, he came to the United States in 1986 to study Kant with Lewis White Beck, at the University of Rochester. Since 1991, he has taught philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross, where he served as Director of Peace and Conflict Studies (2000-2003) and was the Editor-in-Chief of Diotima: A Philosophical Review. Cicovacki was a visiting professor at the University of Freiburg (1998-1999) and a guest professor at The Advancement of University Education in Ethics, The Center for Applied and Professional Ethics, University of Moscow, Russia (June-July 2005). He has guest lectured in the US, China, Germany, India, Japan, Serbia, Taiwan, Montenegro and Russia.
Cicovacki is the author of the following books: Anamorphosis: Kant on Knowledge and Ignorance (1997), The World We Live In: A Philosophical Crossword Puzzle (2002), and Between Truth and Illusion: Kant at the Crossroads of Modernity (2002), and Dostoevsky and the Affirmation of Life (2009). He is the editor of Essays by Lewis White Beck: Fifty Years as a Philosopher (1998) and Kant's Legacy: Essays in Honor of Lewis White Beck (2001). He is the author of over fifty philosophy papers published in English, Serbian, German, Russian, Chinese and Slovenian. He is editor to The Ethics of Reverence for Life: Albert Schweitzer’s Philosophical Writings (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2009).

Ronald Cole-Turner
USA

Since 1996, Ronald Cole-Turner has held the H. Parker Sharp Chair in Theology and Ethics at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He was educated at Princeton Theological Seminary and is the author of The New Genesis: Theology and the Genetic Revolution, co-author of Pastoral Genetics: Theology and Care at the Beginning of Life, and editor of several volumes, including most recently Design and Destiny: Jewish and Christian Perspectives on Human Germline Modification (2007). He has served on the Executive Committee of the International Society for Science and Religion and has lectured across the United States and in Korea, India, France, Romania, Germany, Italy, England, Russia, and elsewhere. He is currently at work on a theological assessment of the use of technology for human enhancement, including transhumanism.

Rev. Doru Costache
Australia

PhD. Clergyman of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia. Lecturer in Patristics at St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological College (Sydney College of Divinity). Co-founder of the Association for the Dialogue Between Science and Theology in Romania (ADSTR). Chairman of the Research Committee of the Sydney College of Divinity. Vice-President of the New South Wales Ecumenical Council. Publications in Patristics and Science & Religion. Interested in exploring the place of tradition within contemporary culture.

Milan S. Dimitrijevic
Serbia

Graduated in Astronomy and Physics, MSc 1976, PhD 1978, Research professor (1986), Director AOB 1994-2002. On Mathematical Faculty of Belgrade University teaches on post-graduated (doctoral) studies: “Astronomical Spectroscopy” and “Influence of collisions with charged particles on astrophysical plasma spectra”. Editor in Chief of “Serbian Astronomical Journal” (and its precursor) and of Publications of the Astronomical Observatory in Belgrade 1987-2002, President of Astronomical Society “Rudjer Boskovic” 1982-2004, Editor in Chief of the journal “Vasiona (Universe)” 1985-2004, Member of Editorial boards of “Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion” and “European Journal for Science and Theology”, President of the Society of Astronomers of Serbia since 2008. Federal Minister for Science, Technology and Development 1993-94. Member of the Organizing Committee of Commission 14 “Atomic and Molecular Data” of IAU Division XI, and Co-Chairperson of its Working Group for Line Broadening, Member of the Governing Board of Euro-Asian Astronomical Society, Member of the Council of EAS (2008). Author of ~ 200 papers in international scientific journals, more than ten books on science but also on poetry, and a member of the Association of Writers of Serbia (2008). Main scientific interests: Astronomical spectroscopy, Line profiles, Line broadening, Atomic and molecular collision processes in Stellar atmospheres, History and Philosophy of Astronomy.

Nidhal Guessoum
United Arab Emirates

Nidhal Guessoum is an Algerian astrophysicist; he received his PhD in 1988 from the University of California, San Diego. He spent two years as a post-doctoral researcher at NASA’s GSFC and made many research visits to various research centers and universities worldwide. He has published over 50 papers in gamma-ray astrophysics, attended over 30 international conferences, received many research grants and awards, and written about 100 articles on Science, Education, Religion, and Society. Prof. Guessoum has for many years been active in the area of popularization of science and the interface between science and religion. He has co-authored two books (“The Determination of Lunar Crescent Months and the Islamic Calendar”, Algiers 1993 and Beirut 1997; “The Story of the Universe: from Early Conceptions to the Big Bang”, Algiers 1998, 2002, 2007, Beirut 2006), co-edited a proceedings volume from an international conference on Islamic astronomy (2007), and recently published “Réconcilier l’Islam et la Science Moderne: l’esprit d’Averroès” (Paris, 2009).

Rev. Christopher C. Knight
UK

Ph.D. in astrophysics, University of Manchester, 1977. B.Th (with distinction) in theology, University of Southampton 1983. Ordained priest of the Anglican Church 1982. Received into the Orthodox Church in 2002. Ordained priest of the Orthodox Church in 2009. Executive Secretary, International Society for Science and Religion. Research Associate of the Faraday Institute, St. Edmund's College, Cambridge, and of the Psychology and Religion Research Group, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, UK. Books: Wrestling With the Divine: Religion, Science, and Revelation (Fortress Press, 2001), The God of Nature: Incarnation and Contemporary Science (Fortress Press 2007; Romanian translation: Curtea Veche, 2009).

Solomon Marcus
Romania

Born March 1, 1925, Bacau, Romania. Professor of Mathematics, University of Bucharest. Academician, Romanian Academy. Research and teaching in mathematical analysis, mathematical computer science, linguistics, poetics, semiotics, philosophy of science; in these fields, hr published several tens of books in Romanian, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Hungarian, Greek and several hundreds of articles in professional journals. He is recognized as one of the initiators of mathematical linguistics and of mathematical poetics. In the last 15 years, he became interested in the dialogue between science and religion and he published some papers on this subject. One of them received a distinction from Templeton Foundation.

Michael Murray
USA

Michael Murray is the Arthur and Katherine Shadek Professor in the Humanities and Philosophy at Franklin and Marshall College (Lancaster, PA). He received his B.A. at Franklin & Marshall College, and his M.A, and Ph.D at the University of Notre Dame. He has held fellowships from the Institute for Research in the Humanities (Madison, Wisconsin), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, the Notre Dame Center for Philosophy of Religion. In addition to a variety of articles in the history of philosophy and the philosophy of religion, he has recently published Philosophy of Religion (Cambridge, with Michael Rea) and Nature Red in Tooth and Claw: Theism and the Problem of Animal Suffering (Oxford), The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion (Oxford, with Jeffrey Schloss). He has two books forthcoming: Predestination and Election (Yale) and Divine Evil? (Oxford, with Michael Rea and Michael Bergmann).

Alexei V. Nesteruk
UK and Russia

Research lecturer at the University of Portsmouth as well as a visiting professor of St. Andrew’s Biblical Theological College in Moscow. His research is in philosophical cosmology and theological appropriation science in Eastern Orthodoxy. PhD, he is author of 90 papers and two monographs. The recent one The Universe as Communion. Towards a Neo-Patristic Synthesis of Theology and Science was published by T&T Clark in 2008 and it will be published soon in Romanian translation (Curtea Veche Publishing House, Bucharest, Series “Science and Religion”).

Basarab Nicolescu
France and Romania

Theoretical physicist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris, France. Professor at the Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Member of the Romanian Academy. Founding member of ISSR. President-Founder of the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research and Studies (CIRET). Founder and Director of the Transdisciplinarity Series, Rocher Editions, Monaco, of the Romanians in Paris Series, Oxus Editions, Paris and of the Science and Religion Series, Curtea Veche Publishing House, Bucharest (in collaboration with Magda Stavinschi). A specialist in the theory of elementary particles, Basarab Nicolescu is a major advocate of the transdisciplinary reconciliation between Science and the Humanities. His books include: Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity, State University of New York (SUNY) Press, New York, 2002; Nous, la particule et le monde, Rocher, Monaco, 2002 (2nd edition) ; Science, Meaning and Evolution - The Cosmology of Jacob Boehme, Parabola Books, New York, 1991. He edited recently Transdisciplinarity - Theory and Practice, Hampton Press, Cresskill, New Jersey, 2008. A complete biobibliography of Basarab Nicolescu can be found on the page
http://basarab.nicolescu.perso.sfr.fr/Basarab/index.html

María Cristina Núñez
Mexico

María Cristina Núñez Madrazo is Ph. D. in Anthropology. Researcher at the EcoDialogue Station in the Institute of Biology. Professor and Coordinator of the Master’s Program in Transdisciplinary Studies for Sustainability at the University of Veracruz, Mexico. Founder of the EcoDialogue Station in the University of Veracruz (since 2005), an academic place where several transdisciplinarity projects for sustainability were performed. Professor in the Sociology School of the University of Veracruz, since 1985, where she coordinated the Methodology and Research Academy. She promotes the academic dialogue between science and other forms of knowledge into the University and she organized and was active participant of a multidisciplinary Seminar in Complexity Theory. Author of books and papers about Mexican Peasantry Culture. The most outstanding books are: Ejido, caña y café. Política y cultura campesina en el centro de Veracruz (Ejido, cane and coffee. Peasant politics and culture in Center of Veracruz), 2005 and Migración internacional: crisis agrícola y transformaciones culturales en la region central de Veracruz (International Migration: Agricultural Crisis and Cultural Changes in Central Veracruz), 2008.

Alexandru Popescu
UK

Psychiatrist, psychotherapist, psychologist of science and religion. Born in Ploiesti, Romania, and educated in Bucharest, London, Los Angeles, and Oxford, he completed a post-graduate diploma in psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic in London and a doctorate in the psychology of religion at Oxford University. He is an Honorary Research Associate of Balliol College, Oxford, and works as a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in the Oxford Deanery. He chairs the “Theology and Mental Health” sub-committee of the “Faith Communities and Mental Health” Reference Group, based at the World Council of Churches in Geneva. He is the author of Petre Tutea: Between Sacrifice and Suicide (Ashgate, 2004) and a contributor to The Cambridge History of Christianity, Eastern Christianity, edited by Michael Angold (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Antonio Carlos De Azevedo Ritto
Brazil

Academic Background: Post-Doctoral studies in History of Science and Techniques and Epistemology – COPPE – UFRJ – 2003, Doctor in Informatics – PUC-RIO – 1994, Course of High Studies in Politics and Strategy of the Superior School of War – Brazil – 2004, Master in Computer science – UFPe – 1980, Specialization in Didactics of Superior Learning – UGF – 1985, Bachelor in Mathematics – UFPe – 1977.
Highlights of CV: Since 1984, University Professor of the UERJ – University of the State of Rio de Janeiro. Since 2008, Member of the Program of Post-Graduation in Public Politics and Human Formation of the UERJ with the Project of Research “Social Technology − from the globalization as only vision to the pluralist territory”. From the same year, coordinator of the Course of Post-Graduation in the Area of Public Politics/Social Technology in the IME/UERJ. Since 2005, he integrates the Coordination of the Courses of Post-Graduation in the Management of Projects of Technology in the IME/UERJ. He is studying and publishing in the areas of Social Technology and Transdisciplinarity since 2003. He published the book Chaordic Organizations, Modeling of Innovative Organizations, Rio de Janeiro, Ciência Moderna Editora, 2005.

Jean Staune
France

Titulaire du DEA de Paléontologie humaine préhistoire et géologie du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. Philosophe des sciences. Collaborateur scientifique et chargé de cours à l'Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Il est l'auteur de Notre existence a t elle un sens?, Presses de la Renaissance, Paris, 2007 et Au delà de Darwin, pour une nouvelle vision de la vie, Paris, Actes Sud / Jaqueline Chambon, 2009.

Magda Stavinschi
Romania

PhD in Astronomy, president of ADSTR – The Association for the Dialogue between Science and Theology in Romania, of IASSO – the Institute for Advanced Study in Science and Orthodoxy and of three national programs under the aegis of the John Templeton Foundation.. Director of the Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy (1990-2005), president of the Commission "Astronomy Education and Development" of the International Astronomical Union (2006-2009), Chair of the SEAC working group "Astronomy and cultural heritage", redactor in chief of the journal "Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion".

Mihail Şora
Romania

Philosophe, ancien chercheur au CNRS (France), ancien directeur littéraire aux Éditions d’état pour la littérature et les arts (ESPLA, Bucarest). Membre fondateur du Groupe de Dialogue Social (GDS), de l’Alliance Civique et du parti politique homonyme, en Roumanie. Ancien ministre de l’enseignement dans le premier gouvernement démocratique (1990). Il a publié de nombreux articles, éditoriaux, entretiens dans la presse culturelle et littéraire roumaine, après 1989. A traduit en roumain Benjamin Fondane, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jean-Paul Sartre. Ouvrages : (en français) Du dialogue intérieur. Fragment d’une anthropologie métaphysique (1947 ; tr. rom. 1995, 2006) ; (en roumain) Sarea pământului. Cantată pe două voci despre rostul poetic (1978, Prix de l’Union des écrivains) ; A fi, a face, a avea (1985) ; Eu & tu & el & ea... sau Dialogul generalizat (1990) ; Firul ierbii (1998 ; Prix de l’Union des écrivains) ; Câteva crochiuri şi evocări (2000) ; Filosoficale. Filosofia ca viaţă (2000) ; Locuri comune (2004) ; Clipa & timpul (2005), etc. Nombreux prix et distinctions nationales et internationales, dont le Prix National de Littérature (2005). L’ensemble de l’œuvre philosophique de Mihai Şora est édité et/ou réédité, à partir de 2006, aux Éditions Humanitas, Bucarest. En 2007, la Société Roumaine de Phénoménologie commence le programme «Trois philosophes roumains» de traduction et d’édition à l’étranger des œuvres d’Alexandru Dragomir, Constantin Noica et Mihai Şora. Site Internet : http://www.mihaisora.eu