The Sixth Extinction Symposium Schedule, Speakers, and Bios
Speakers and Timetable
The Sixth Extinction: Interreligious Insights, Warnings, and Questions
19 September 2018, 10:45-4:30
DCU All Hallows Campus, Purcell House PG01
Timetable
10:45-11:00 Coffee
11:00 Welcome, Dr Ethna Regan, Head of School of Theology, Philosophy, and Music
Statement of Support from Rabbi Zalman Lent and Rabbi Dr Charles Middleburgh
11:10 Professor Michael Northcott, University of Edinburgh
Religion and Ecology: From the Romantics to Rewilding
(Chair: Dr Gabriel Flynn, DCU)
12:10 Professor Hilary Marlow, University of Cambridge
The Tanach and Environmental Ethics
(Chair: Dr Brad Anderson, DCU)
1:00-2:00 Lunch
2:00 Professor Azizan Baharuddin, University of Malaya (Malaysia)
Islamic Perspectives on Environmental Ethics and Climate Change
(Chair: Dr Jonathan Kearney, DCU)
2:45 Dr Colette Sciberras, Malta and Durham University
How to Keep Faith in Times of Environmental Crises - A Buddhist Perspective
(Chair: Dr Alan Kearns, DCU)
3:30 Open Discussion among all Participants
(Chair: Dr Peter Admirand, DCU)
Speaker Biographies
Professor Michael Northcott
Michael Northcott is Guest Professor at the University of Heidelberg and Professor of Ethics Emeritus at the University of Edinburgh. He has been visiting professor at Claremont School of Theology, Duke University, Flinders University, Heidelberg University, the Indonesian Consortium of Religious Studies Universiti Gadjah Mada, and the University of Malaya. His principal research is on the religious roots, and ethical implications, of environmental concern and climate change, and he has conducted field work, and published many papers, on the relationship between religion and environmental concern in the UK, the United States and Southeast Asia. His PhD was published as The Church and Secularisation: Urban Industrial Mission in Northeast England (Peter Lang, 1991), and his first major research monograph was The Environment and Christian Ethics (1996, Cambridge University Press). Other monographs include Life After Debt: Christianity and Global Justice (1999, SPCK), An Angel Directs the Storm: Apocalyptic Religion and American Empire (SCM Press, 2005), A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming (Darton Longman and Todd and Orbis Books, 2007), A Political Theology of Climate Change (Eerdmans, 2013), Place, Ecology and the Sacred (Bloomsbury 2015) and his co-edited books include Diversity and Dominion: Dialogues in Ecology, Ethics, and Theology (Cascade 2009), Theology After Darwin (Authentic Media 2009) and Systematic Theology and Climate Change (Routledge 2016).
Professor Hilary Marlow
Hilary Marlow is a Senior Researcher at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity, and Fellow and Director of Studies at Girton College, Cambridge University. Hilary’s research focuses on reading religious Scriptures in the context of modern society, with two main emphases: interfaith dialogue and ecological hermeneutics. Some of her works include: Biblical Prophets and Contemporary Environmental Ethics; “What am I in a Boundless Creation?’ An Ecological Reading of Sirach 16 & 17” (Biblical Interpretation 22 (2014) pp. 34-50); “The Hills are Alive: The Personification of Nature in the Psalter” in Leshon Limmudim: Essays on the Language and Literature of the Hebrew Bible in honour of A.A. Macintosh. Eds. David Baer and Robert Gordon (London: T & T Clark, 2013); “Law and the Ruining of the Land: Deuteronomy and Jeremiah in Dialogue” (Political Theology 14 (2013) pp. 650-660); and editor (with Dr Mark Harris, Edinburgh) of The Oxford Handbook of Bible and Ecology (under contract with Oxford University Press for publication in 2020).
Professor Azizan Baharuddin
Dr Azizan Baharuddin is a professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur and Director-General of the Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia, where she also served as deputy director-general from 2011 to 2015. She has also been director of the Centre for Civilisational Dialogue from 2000 to 2011. Professor Baharuddin has special interests in environmental ethics, the interactions and relationships between religion and science, and the impact of science on society. She is the author of Science and Religion in the Islamic Perspective (2005) and Discourse on Science, Religion and Development (2006, with others), as well as co-editor of Islam and Ecology: A Bestowed Trust (2003); she has also written numerous journal articles and book chapters. Professor Baharuddin earned her B.Sc. at the University of Tasmania, M.Sc. at University College London, and Ph.D. at the University of Lancaster.
Dr Colette Scibberas
Dr Sciberras’ research lies at the intersection of two broad fields in philosophy, namely Buddhism and environmental philosophy. Currently, her research focuses on the intersection between faith and reason and on philosophy of mind. Publications have included: “Buddha, Aristotle and Science: Rediscovering Purpose and Flourishing in Nature,” in Hartman, Laura (ed.) That all may Flourish: Comparative Religious Environmental Ethics, OUP, 2018; “Does nature have value in the Pali canon?” Environmental Values 22 (3), Jun 2013; and “Animals in Buddhism: In Defence of Hierarchical Evaluation Issues” in Ethics and Animal Rights, 2011. Her PhD is from Durham University, where she was also a post-doctoral researcher. She currently teaches philosophy in Malta.