The Hermeneutics of Hope
February 17, 2023 | The Heights | Registration | To attend virtually, please register to receive a zoom link.
THE HERMENEUTICS OF HOPE IN WESTERN PHILOSOPHY AND AFRICAN IGBO ONTOLOGY
The Covid-19 pandemic has generated a level of despair and discomfort for different people (students and staff). There are concerns about the meaning of life in the face of health threats, the quality of socialization and public service culture, about efficient educational and pedagogical approaches, impersonal online economic transactions, and relatively diminished community engagements or human persons’ solidarity. Despite the success in the vaccination of people, there have been some unseen/unknown conditions of suffering or concerns among people. One of the concerns we may share is the hopelessness of isolation and loneliness, and the rise of depression activated by the pandemic. Are there options to move away from despair and other psychological health challenges to a condition of hope and rehabilitation or human well-being? In moving away from despair, one of the positive effects of Covid-19 was the resurgence of a culture of hope and strength. Diverse peoples and cultures have expressed their perspectives on feeling of strength, the strength to carry on, especially after having experienced the death of many loved ones and family members. Some have lost colleagues and predictable organized ways of life, while workplace collegialities have since been modified by the Zeitgeist. In an atmosphere of diverse or intercultural expressions of hope, we have proposed a conference on The Hermeneutics of Hope in Western Philosophy and African (Igbo) Ontology.
This conference will discuss several questions like the following:
- When the human routine life is affected by natural or human-made catastrophes, what would be the alternatives to ordinary life?
- Is hope really a theological virtue? How efficient does hope function in a condition of discomfort?
- What is hope? And, how does it work with or without optimism, and confidence?
- Why the common sense understanding wishes and hopes turn the life people to a more bewildering cycle of disappointment, suffering, and hardship?
- How do African Igbo Ontology and Theological Hope articulate hope and being or hoping and being?
Co-sponsored by the Philosophy Department and PULSE Program
Schedule and RegistrationFriday, February 17, 2023 | The Heights | Registration | To attend virtually, please register to receive a zoom link. | |
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8:00 am - 8:30 am |
Breakfast |
8:35 am - 8:55 am |
Prof. Dermot Moran, Chair, Boston College Philosophy Department
|
9:00 am - 9:40 am |
Hope and Despair as Non-Identical Twins Prof. Rico Sneller
|
9:45 am - 10:15 am | Response Prof. Jeffrey Bloechl |
10:20 am - 11:00 am | Q&A |
11:05 am - 11:15 am | Break/A Short Exercise |
11:20 am - 12:00 pm |
Reaffirming A Transformative Hope in Human Rights Discourse Prof. Mahmoud Masaeli
|
12:05 pm - 12:35 pm | Response Dr. Natalia Abdel |
12:40 pm - 1:00 pm | Q&A |
1:05 pm - 1:45 pm | Lunch |
1:50 pm - 2:30 pm |
The Hermeneutics of Hope in African Igbo Ontology Prof. Stanley Uche Anozie
|
2:35 pm - 3:05 pm | Response Prof. Martin Munyao |
3:10 pm - 3:30 pm | Q&A |
3:35 pm - 3:40 pm | Break/A Short Exercise |
3:45 pm - 4:25 pm |
Hope, Media Communication and African Experience Prof. K. Kalemba
|
4:30 pm - 5:00 pm | Response Prof. Lindsay Hogan |
5:05 pm - 5:25 pm | Q&A |
5:25 pm - 5:50 pm | General Q&A | Closing Remarks Prof. Meghan Sweeney, PULSE Director |
6:00 pm | Dinner
|
Speakers
Stanley Uche Anozie
Professor Stanley Uche Anozie teaches Philosophy (The Person and Social Responsibility) at Boston College (Jesuit University), Massachusetts, USA. He is a Boston College PULSE Program faculty member. He taught Philosophy and Ethics at the University of Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. He taught IndigenousReligions in Global Contexts at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He is also a visiting professor of Philosophy of Race, Hermeneutics, and African Philosophy (CAPES program for visiting scholars) at the Department of Preventive Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of SãoPaulo, São Paulo, Brazil. He was a contributor to Canada and Challenges of International Development and Globalization (a book nominated/finalist for the 2019 PROSE Award by the Association of American Publishers’ Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division).
Dr. Natalia Abdel (Fattah)
ABDEL FATTAH Natalia (Lebanon, 1988): Ph.D. candidate in French Language and Literature at the Saint-Joseph University of Beirut. Her thesis discusses the poetry of Fouad Gabriel Naffah, Nadia Tuéni, and Jad Hatem. Being a professor of French language and literature, she is also the translator of The Phonecian Code, published by Dervy's publishing house in 2018. Passionate about art, Natalia is also a painter inspired by Jung and Theosophical teachings.
Jeffrey Bloechl
Jeffrey Bloechl is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston College and Honorary Research Fellow of the Australian Catholic University. His teaching and scholarship concentrates in the fields of contemporary European thought (especially phenomenology and psychoanalysis), philosophy of religion, and meta-philosophy. His most recent publications include Philosophy as Prophecy. On the Primacy of the Ethical according to Emmanuel Levinas (Northwestern University Press, 2022) and, as editor, Fragility and Transcendence. Essays on the Thought of Jean-Louis Chretien (Rowman & Littlefield, in press).
Lindsay Hogan
Dr. Lindsay Hogan's research interests include media industry studies, children's media culture, and theories of stardom and celebrity. In addition to book chapters in edited collections, her work has appeared in Cinema Journal, The Velvet Light Trap, and Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture. She is also a co-founding contributing editor for the collectively authored media studies blog, Antenna: Responses to Media and Culture.
Kalemba Kizito
Dr. Kalemba Kizito situates himself as a transnational critical cultural studies scholar with a theoretical focus that transverses critical media studies, critical rhetoric and postcolonial/decolonial studies to interrogate the symbolic construction and maintenance of the racialized Other. His current research trajectory centers around the investigation of borders drawing associations between geopolitical, and culturally mediated border practices on corporeality and materiality of the body. A central premise of his work is that borders are documents of violence.
Mahmoud Masaeli
Dr. Mahmoud Masaeli is currently professor of human rights studies at IranAcademia (the Netherlands). He was teaching at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University until retirement in 2019. He is the founder and Executive Director of the global think tank Alternative Perspectives and Global Concerns (ap-gc.net).
His areas of research and teaching interest include global ethics; global justice theory; ethics of global development; human rights (philosophy of HR and international HR law); Humanist approaches in international law and organizations, modern political philosophy; and the hermeneutics of selfhood. He holds a special interest in mystical approaches viewed as natural revelation.
He has published books including Unequal Development, and Ethics of Duty; Cosmic Consciousness and Human Excellence: Insights for Global Ethics; The Return of Ethics and Spirituality in Global Development; Faith in Democracy; Response of Mysticism to Religious Terrorism: Sufism and Beyond; Spirituality and Global Ethics; The Conception of Beauty in African Philosophy; India as A Model for Global Development; Latin American Perspectives on Global Development; African Perspectives and Global Development; The Root Causes of Terrorism: A Religious Studies Perspective; and more.
His most recent books in Farsi language include The Conception of Rights and Freedom in International Political Theory; Human Rights and the Conception of Common Good in Modern Political Thoughts; Radical Approaches to Human Rights; The Principle of Humanity: A Timeless Aspiration for Emancipation, and the Foundations of International Human Rights law. His ongoing books in Farsi include Human Rights and Global Justice Theory; Spiritual Perspectives on Human Rights; Human Rights and Social Protection, Reflections on Human Rights; Right to Development as Human Rights. He is the author of scholarly articles produced for academic purposes as well.
Martin Munyao
Dr. Martin Munyao earned his Ph.D. (Missiology) from Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is an MTh (African Christianity) holder from Daystar University, Nairobi-Kenya. He also holds a BTh from Scott Christian University, Machakos-Kenya. He is currently a lecturer at Daystar University, teaching African Christianity, theology, and peacebuilding. Martin is also an Associate Pastor at New City Fellowship, Nairobi-Kenya.
Rico Sneller
Dr. Rico Sneller is a lecturer of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and analytical psychology. He teaches at the Mandeville Academy and the Jungian Institute (Netherlands), previously at Leiden University. His Ph.D. thesis dealt with the French philosopher Jacques Derrida and his relation to negative theology and Judaism. Recently, he published Perspectives on Synchronicity, Inspiration, and the Soul (Cambridge Scholars 2021). He is a guest lecturer at Al Faraby University in Almaty (Kazakhstan). His general interest is in the Romantic tradition in philosophy (Carl du Prel, Ludwig Klages, Hans Driesch, Hermann Friedmann, etc) which explores the deeper levels of consciousness.
Campus Map and Parking
Parking is available at the nearby Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue Garages.
Boston College is also accessible via public transportation (MBTA B Line - Boston College).
Boston College strongly encourages conference participants to receive the COVID-19 vaccination before attending events on campus.