Interdisciplinary Conference on Sharing Sacred Space – Rome, December 2011

An interdisciplinary conference “Sharing Sacred Space: Legal, Theological, and Sociological Perspectives,” was held 14-15 December 2011 at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome.

The conference was co-organized by the Interdisciplinary Program in Law and Religion, Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America and the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Brigham Young University, J. Reuben Clark Law School, United States, in addition to the Angelicum’s The John Paul II Center. Additional sponsors were the International Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Education (IFIIE), Italy, and the Richard L. Evans Chair of Religious Understanding, Brigham Young University.* 

The program featured experts in Christian, Islamic, and Jewish traditions, scholars in law, philosophy, history, and sociology from France, Iran, Italy, Israel, the Netherlands, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States:

France
Professor Dionigi Albera, University of Aix-en-Provence
Professor Maria Couroucli, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)

Iran
Ayatollah S. Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad, Shahid Beheshti University

Israel
Professor Raymond Cohen, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Dr. Eyal Ben-Eliyahu, Herzog College
Rabbi Alon Goshen-Gottstein, Elijah Interfaith Institute
Professor Haviva Pedaya, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Professor Elchanan Reiner, Department of Jewish History, Tel Aviv University
Rabbi Daniel Sperber, Department of Talmud, Bar-Ilan University

Italy
Rabbi Jack Bemporad, The John Paul II Center, Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas
Professor Irene Kajon, Università di Roma
Sapienza Fabrizio Marrella, University ‘Ca Foscari,’ Venice; European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratization
Shayk Abd Al-Wahid Pallavacini, Islamic Religious Italian Community
Imam Yahya Pallavacini, al-Wahid Mosque
Professor Andrea Poma, University of Turin
Professor Riccardo Pozza, Institutu per Il Lessico Intellettuale Europeo e Storia della Idee (ILIESI)

Netherlands
Dr. M.Y. (Menachem) Klein, Leiden University
Professor Ben Vedder, Radboud University

Turkey
Professor Recep Sentürk, Fatih University

Ukraine
Director Gennadiy Druzenko, Institute of European Integration

United Kingdom
Professor Glenn Bowman, University of Kent at Canterbury
Professor Peter W. Edge, Oxford Brookes University
Professor Laurence P. Hemming, University of Lancaster
Professor Seth D. Kunin, Durham University
Dr. Peter Petkoff, Brunel University
Professor Yuri Stoyanov, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

United States
Professor Anna B. Bigelow, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, North Carolina State University
Professor Marshall J. Breger, Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America
Professor Robert A. Destro, Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America
Professor W. Cole Durham, Jr., International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Brigham Young University, J. Reuben Clark Law School
Professor James Faulconer, Brigham Young University
Rev. Dr. Elias Mallon, Catholic Near Eastern Association
Shayk Yasir Qadhi, Rhodes College
Professor Mark A. Wrathall, Department of Philosophy, University of California Riverside

*The sponsors thank the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for both generous material and intellectual support.