Starting tomorrow, Monday 11 September, at 9:00 AM GMT +1 (4 AM ET, 1 AM PT) the conference Rowan Williams: A Cambridge Celebration will be streamed live on Youtube at the following link. The conference details and header image are taken from the conference’s website, and the former are provided below.
Rowan Williams is Honorary Professor of Contemporary Christian Thought in the University of Cambridge. From 2002 to 2012 he served as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. From 2013 to 2020 he was the 35th Master of Magdalene College, University of Cambridge. He was made a life peer in 2013, becoming Lord Williams of Oystermouth. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Northwestern University Research Initiative for the Study of Russian Philosophy and Religious Thought.
Rowan Williams: A Cambridge Celebration
This conference will bring together scholars, many of whom have studied under Lord Rowan Williams or have worked closely with or alongside him, to honour his contributions as a writer, scholar, and churchman to contemporary thought. Papers will take inspiration from his work to explore the manifold ways he has inspired generations of students, and to pursue further the new directions his work has opened up on theology, philosophy, spirituality, art, literature, poetry, politics, culture, society, ecumenism, and last but not least, comparative literature and culture.
Rowan Williams has had a long and close association with the University of Cambridge and the Faculty of Divinity. As an undergraduate, he read theology at Christ’s College. After his doctoral work on Vladimir Lossky at Oxford, he returned to Cambridge initially for ordination at Westcott House, followed by his appointment as University Lecturer in Divinity and later Dean of Clare College. This conference will therefore be a fitting tribute to mark the retirement of Lord Williams as Master of Magdalene College and Professor in Contemporary Christian Thought at the University.
‘Registration is now closed.
Livestream: both days of the conference will be livestreamed on YouTube. To follow the livestream, please follow this link.
Concert on Monday 11th September: in addition to the conference programme (see below), we are delighted that mezzo-soprano Lea Luka Sikau, and classical pianist and Gates Scholar Isaac Sebenius will present a musical intervention in response to the conference, in Trinity College Chapel on 11 September 2023 at 18:00. This short concert for voice and piano will engage with and transpose the themes of the conference programme into music, and further celebrate the depth and range of Rowan Williams’ scholarship. The full programme for the concert can be viewed here.
There is no charge for attending the concert, but a retiring collection will be taken for the musicians.’
Organisers:
- Joshua Heath, Junior Research Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge University, UK
- Pui-Him Ip, Tutorial Programme Director, The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion & Affiliated Lecturer in Divinity, Cambridge University, UK
- Isidoros Katsos FRHistS, Associate Professor of Theological Epistemology and Ancient Philosophy, Athens University, Greece & Research Fellow, Campion Hall, Oxford University, UK
Speakers:
- Lewis Ayres, Professor of Historical Theology, Durham University, UK & Visiting Professorial Fellow, Institute for Religion and Criical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University, Australia
- Ragnar Misje Bergem, Associate Professor in Systematic Theology, MF Norweigian School of Theology, Norway
- Sarah Coakley FBA, Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity Emerita, Cambridge University, UK & Professorial Fellow in Religion and Theology,
- Ruth Coates, Associate Professor in Russian Religious Thought, Bristol University, UK
- Mark Edwards, Professor of Early Christian Studies, Oxford University, UK
- Caryl Emerson, A. Watson Armour III University Professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Princeton University, USA
- Simon Gaine, Pinckaers Chair in Theological Anthropology and Ethics, Angelicum Thomistic Institute, Italy
- David Fergusson FBA, Regius Professor of Divinity, Cambridge University, UK
- Lucy Gardner, Tutor in Doctrine, St Stephen’s House, Oxford, UK
- David Bentley Hart, Research Associate, University of Notre Dame, USA
- Joshua Heath, Junior Research Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge University, UK
- Douglas Hedley, Professor of the Philosophy of Religion, Cambridge University, UK
- Pui-Him Ip, Tutorial Programme Director, The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion & Affiliated Lecturer in Divinity, Cambridge University, UK
- Isidoros C. Katsos FRHistS, Associate Professor of Theological Epistemology and Ancient Philosophy, Faculty of Theology, Athens University, Greece & Research Fellow, Campion Hall, Oxford University, UK
- Martin Laird O.S.A., Professor of Early Christian Studies, Villanova University, USA
- Andrew Louth FBA Professor Emeritus of Patristics and Byzantine Studies, Durham University, UK
- Morwenna Ludlow, Professor of Early Christian Thought, Exeter University, UK
- John Milbank, Emeritus Professor of Theology, Nottingham University, UK
- Oliver O’Donovan FBA Professor Emeritus of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology, Edinburgh University, UK
- Aristotle Papanikolaou, Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture and Co-Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center, Fordham University, USA
- Catherine Pickstock, Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity, Cambridge University, U.K.
- Ben Quash, Professor of Christianity and the Arts, King’s College London, UK
- Catherine Rowett, Professor of Ancient Philosophy, University of East Anglia, UK
- Andrew Shanks, Canon Emeritus of Manchester Cathedral, UK
- Graham Ward, Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford University, UK
Rowan Williams: A Cambridge Celebration – Conference Schedule
Old Divinity School, St John’s College
Monday 11 September 2023 (All times GMT+1)
08:30-09:00 – Registration
09:00-09:10 – Welcome
09:10-09:30 – Opening Address, David Fergusson (Cambridge)
09:30-10:30 – Panel 1: Philosophical Theology.
Chair: Janet Soskice (Cambridge)
David Bentley Hart (Notre Dame) – Living Spirit and Living Word: Reflections on Consciousness and Language
Pui Him Ip (Cambridge & Copenhagen) – Speakable and unspeakable in nature: the view from Copenhagen reconsidered
Catherine Pickstock (Cambridge) – Flotsam and spindrift: the arrival of words
10:30-11:00 – Panel 1 Discussion
11:00-11:30 – Coffee Break
11:30-12:30 – Panel 2: Doctrinal Theology – Past, Present and Future.
Chair: David Fergusson (Cambridge)
Lewis Ayres (Durham) – The Mysteries That Remain: Lessons in Trinitarian Theology from Gregory Nazianzen
John Milbank (Nottingham) – The identity of Christ and identity as such
Graham Ward (Oxford) – The diremption of meaning
12:30-13:00 – Panel 2 Discussion
13:00-14:00 – Lunch
14:00-15:00 – Panel 3: Contemplative Theology – Silence and Prayer.
Chair: James Hawkey (Westminster Abbey)
Sarah Coakley (Cambridge) – Inner-trinitarian relations as ‘deflections of desire’? The Trinity, prayer, and the problem of speculation on the divine ontology.
Simon Gaine (Angelicum) – Will there be silence in heaven?
Martin Laird (Villanova) – The Jesus Prayer and the practice of theology in St. Diadochos of Photiki
15:00-15:30 – Panel 3 Discussion
15:30-16:00 – Tea Break
16:00-17:00 – Panel 4: Political and Moral Theology.
Chair: Andrew Bowyer (Oxford)
Ragnar Misje Bergem (MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society) – The authority of Christ
Oliver O’Donovan (Edinburgh) – Divine and human action
Andrew Shanks (Manchester Cathedral) – On the state-institutionalisation of the public conscience
17:00-17:30 – Panel 4 Discussion
18:00-19:00 – A Concert in Response, Trinity College Chapel.
Lea Luka Sikau (mezzo-soprano)
Isaac Sebenius (piano)
Tuesday 12 September 2023 (All times GMT+1)
09:00-10:00 – Panel 5: Eastern Orthodox Theology.
Chair: Dragos Herescu (The Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge)
Isidoros Katsos (Athens) – Could there be an Eastern Orthodox philosophy of religion and what might it look like?
Andrew Louth (Durham) – Rowan Williams’ engagement with Orthodox theology: Vladimir Lossky and Olivier Clément
Aristotle Papanikolaou (Fordham) – Avoiding the avalanche while Looking East in Winter
10:00-10:30 – Panel 5: Discussion
10:30-11:00 – Coffee Break
11:00-12:00 – Panel 6: Theology, Arts and Imagination.
Chair: Giles Waller (Cambridge)
Lucy Gardner (Oxford) – Seeing the Word: Balthasar and theological imagination
Douglas Hedley (Cambridge) – Theology and play
Ben Quash (King’s College London) – Sapiential imagination: the arts and the expansion of grace
12:00-12:30 – Panel 6 Discussion
12:30-13:30 – Lunch
13:30-14:30 – Panel 7: The Russian Imagination.
Chair: Fr Stephen Platt (Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius)
Ruth Coates (Bristol) – The transnational Russian (religious) imagination
Caryl Emerson (Princeton) – Being Dostoevsky (how Rowan Williams opens up Bakhtin)
Joshua Heath (Cambridge) – The Russian tragic imagination
14:30-15:00 – Panel 7 Discussion
15:00-15:30 – Tea Break
15:30-16:30 – Panel 8: Ancient Greek Philosophy, Early Christianity and Contemporary Theology.
Chair: David Ford (Cambridge)
Mark Edwards (Oxford) – The Fathers, computers and us
Morwenna Ludlow (Exeter) – ‘What is it to be called a theologian?’
Catherine Rowett (East Anglia) – Corporeal communication and embodied meaning: a creation story
16:30-17:00 – Panel 8 Discussion
17:00-17:10 – Short Break
17:10-17:40 – Closing Address, Rowan Williams (Cambridge)
17:40-17:45 – Final remarks
This conference is generously cosponsored by the following organisations: The Faculty of Divinity, Trinity College Cambridge, The Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius, The Anglican and Eastern Churches Association, St John’s College Cambridge and Magdalene College Cambridge.