Extended Session in AAR Annual Meeting in Atlanta

A team of our Centre of Excellence's researchers got an extended session into the programme of the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting in Atlanta, 21-24 November 2015.



The overall title of our session was 'From Tolerance to Recognition: Recognition and the Acceptance of Otherness'. The session included eight presentations with the contributions of Olli-Pekka Vainio & Aku Visala, Panu-Matti Pöykkö, Minna Hietamäki, Elina Hellqvist, Ritva Palmén & Heikki J. Koskinen, Anna-Liisa Tolonen, Joona Salminen, and Tim Riggs.

 

Cornel West in Atlanta

The session was presided by our CoE leader Risto Saarinen. We also had the honour and pleasure of having Robert Orsi and Vitor Westhelle as our distinguished commentators.

Risto Saarinen presiding

Robert Orsi giving his comments (photo by Elina Hellqvist)

While in Atlanta, we also took time to visit The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

At the King Center

The struggle (for recognition) continues!

Anna-Liisa & Panu-Matti at the Centennial Olympic Park

The Georgia Aquarium



Publishing Projects on Recognition

The first Centre of Excellence gathering during the fall term was held on Tuesday 29 September. This time, the whole CoE met together, and there were no separate team meetings. Three different book projects on the themes of recognition and identity politics were presented and discussed in the Faculty Hall.

Elina Hellqvist presenting

In the first talk by Maijastina Kahlos and myself, an international book project with the working title Reflections on Recognition: Contemporary and Historical Studies was discussed. Along with a host of international contributors, the volume also includes a group of writers from the CoE. There will be a conference organized around this book project at the University of Helsinki in May 26-28 2016. The book will be edited and the conference organized by Kahlos, Ritva Palmén, and myself.

The second presentation by Elina Hellqvist and Minna Hietamäki dealt with a Finnish book that has, at the time of writing this, just come out from the press. In addition to Hellqvist and Hietamäki, the editors of the volume on Religion and Identity Politics (original title: Uskonto ja identiteettipolitiikka) include also Panu Pihkala. This book published by the Finnish Theological Literature Society (STKS) is based on both Risto Saarinen's Academy of Finland project and his Centre of Excellence, also funded by the Academy. [A link to the report on the symposium can be found here.]

The third presentation was given by Ritva Palmén and Heikki Haara, who are editing another Finnish volume on recognition. This book has its origins in the teaching modules provided by various members of the CoE under the Master's Degree Programme Religion, Conflict and Dialogue [link here]. Its team of authors is strengthened by an addition of further important contributors. During the discussions, one of the topics that came up was the challenge of translating theoretical terminology from German and English into ordinary-language Finnish.

Saarinen and Pihlström to Academia Europaea

Professors Risto Saarinen, the Director of our Centre of Excellence, and Sami Pihlström, the Leader of our CoE Team 3, have been invited to membership in the Academia Europaea. The meeting of the Council of the Academy was held in Darmstadt on 6 September 2015.

The object of Academia Europaea is the advancement and propagation of excellence in scholarship in the humanities, law, the economic, social, and political sciences, mathematics, medicine, and all branches of natural and technological sciences anywhere in the world for the public benefit and for the advancement of the education of the public of all ages in the aforesaid subjects in Europe.

Academia Europaea is a European, non-governmental association acting as an Academy. The members are scientists and scholars who collectively aim to promote learning, education and research. Founded in 1988, with about 3000 members which includes leading experts from the physical sciences and technology, biological sciences and medicine, mathematics, the letters and humanities, social and cognitive sciences, economics and the law.

Pragmatism in Paris

The Second European Pragmatism Conference was organized in Paris in September 9-11 2015. Our Centre of Excellence was represented by Sami Pihlström and myself. The participants included also other Finnish philosophers involved in the study of pragmatism. This second conference was considerably larger than the first one in Rome three years ago, so it would seem that pragmatism is a growing trend. The next conference in the series will be organized in Helsinki in 2018.

The opening of the conference

The CoE's research themes of recognition resonated quite nicely with the programme and with the participants of the conference. There was, for example, an interesting session on democracy, and a presentation dealing with Axel Honneth's work. I got to give my talk titled "Mediated Recognition and Brandom's Analysis" in a Nordic Pragmatism Network Invited Panel on normativity. The Finns Henrik Rydenfelt and Mats Bergman also gave their presentations in the same session.

The Eiffel Tower

During the days in Paris, I enjoyed having many good discussions as well as meeting old friends and making new ones. Here is a link to the conference's official pages. Below are a couple more photos.

Notre Dame

Jardin du Luxembourg

Recognition and Religion

On 11 June 2015, the Centre of Excellence organized a symposium with the title 'Recognition and Religion'. This event was part a larger one, the 5th Nordic Conference in Philosophy of Religion. Below are some photographs from the part organized by our CoE. A fuller account written by Hanne Appelqvist can be found behind this link.

Wayne Proudfoot (Columbia University)

Heikki Ikäheimo (University of New South Wales)

Thomas Schmidt (Johann Wolfgang Goethe University)

Lunchtime

Ingolf U. Dalferth in the audience

Reconciliation and Forgiveness

During 3-4 June 2015, the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, the University of Helsinki, the Academy of Finland, and the Philosophical Society of Finland co-organized an international symposium with the title 'Reconciliation and Forgiveness'.

Speakers of the symposium included Martha Nussbaum, who talked on "Anger and Revolutionary Justice".

Another international guest was Avishai Margalit, who has, among many other things, written with Axel Honneth on recognition. This time his topic was "The Sovereignity of Forgiveness".

Lunchtime during the symposium

Speakers of the symposium also included Risto Saarinen and Sami Pihlström from our CoE. Saarinen spoke on "Confession and Forgiveness as Self-Recognition in Calvin", and Pihlström on "Forgiving God vs. Forgiving Human Beings". Fuller information on the event and its programme can be found under this link.

Professor Sami Pihlström's Inauguration

Inauguration ceremonies of new Professors at the University of Helsinki took place on Wednesday the 27th of May. Among them was Sami Pihlström, who is the leader of our CoE's Team 3, and now also a Professor in Philosophy of Religion at the Faculty of Theology. Pihlström's inaugural lecture dealt with the issue of how critical discussion of religion is possible.

The inaugural lecture was given in the University Main Building's Auditorium XIV, which was packed full of audience.

After the lectures, there was a procession to the Great Hall, where Chancellor Thomas Wilhelmsson delivered his inaugural lecture. The programme included also musical numbers by Ylioppilaskunnan Laulajat, a lecture by Professor Barry Gills, and the handing out of the letters of appointment to the new professors.

The ceremony was followed by a Reception in the foyer of the Great Hall and in the Teachers' Lounge.

Family and friends

Pihlström's six-year term as the Director of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies comes to an end in July. After the festivities in the Main Building, Pihlström had invited his former, current, and future colleagues to an informal follow-up reception, or his HCAS farewell party. This event took place in the common room of the Helsinki Collegium.

Pihlström with his predecessor Simo Knuuttila

Knuuttila and Ilkka Niiniluoto at the Collegium