About the Authors

REIMON BACHIKA is professor of the sociology of religion at Bukkyo University, Kyoto. He was born in Belgium in 1936, did religious studies in Louvain, Belgium (1958–62), and completed graduate studies in sociology at the University of Osaka, Japan (1966–75). He is co-author of An Introduction into the Sociology of Religion, (in Japanese, with M. Tsushima, 1996), editor of Traditional Culture and Religion in a New Era (Transaction 2002), contributed to several other books, and wrote numerous articles both in Japanese and English on the sociology of religion and related problems of culture and values.

ALEXANDRA BASA is from the University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Philosophy in the Department of Sociology. She is a member of ISORECEA (International Study of Reli- gion in Eastern and Central Europe Association) and IARS (Independent Academic Research Studies). She has participated in international conferences regarding the scienti c research of religion, and has articles published in foreign and local scienti c publication. Her main interests are the sociology of religion as well as human rights and peaceful con ict solution.

JAN FENNEMA is a physicist and philosopher, who earned his degrees from the Free University in Amsterdam. He has a long history of teaching in grammar schools, professional schools and as a professor of science and philosophy at the University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands. For thirty years, he was also a scientist/philoso- pher at the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (in Dutch: “Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie”) and the Netherlands Organization for Scienti c Research (in Dutch: “Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek”). He retired from these positions in 1994. However, he continues his international travels and participates in international seminars and courses where he continues to struggle with the antagonism between the religious and the secular, between faith and knowledge, between the natural sciences and theology and work for their reconciliation. It was this interest to reconcile the religious and the secular that led him to the international course on the Future of Religion, in which he has been a long time participant. He also has a number of publications in academic journals on the topics of science and religion and the future of humanity.

ANJA FINGER received an MA degree in Sociology and Catholic Theology from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University at Frankfurt/Main. Her chapter on Robert Owen and religion summarises some main points of the thesis submitted for this degree course. Anja also studied the Critical Theory of Religion with Professor Rudolf Siebert at Western Michigan University and is currently working on a sociological PhD thesis critiquing religious and secular sleep disciplines. This project has included a stay at the University of Warwick and is based at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt.

HELMUT FRITZSCHE was born in Torgau in Saxonia, Germany in 1929. He studied theology at the Humboldt-University in Berlin, where he received his doctorate and habilitation. He served as a pastor in the Lutheran Church for ten years and taught religious pedagogy at the University of Jena. From 1969 to 1991, he was professor of systematic theology at the University of Rostock. His main elds of interests are philosophy of religion and issues of dialogue. In 1988, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Reformed Academy in Debrecen/Hungary. 460 • About the Authors

DENIS R. JANZ is Provost Distinguished Professor of the History of Christianity in the Religious Studies Department of Loyola University, New Orleans. He has been a regular participant in the Dubrovnik “Future of Religion” circle for some 18 years. Author or editor of ve books, his current publication project is the 7 volume People’s History of Christianity, forthcoming from Fortress Press.

HANS-HERBERT KÖGLER is an Associate Professor and Graduate Studies Coordinator, Department of Philosophy, University of North Florida, Jacksonville. He has held guest professorships at Charles University, Prague, and University of Klagenfurt, Austria. His books are: The Power of Dialogue: Critical Hermeneutics after Gadamer and Foucault, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press 1996/1999; Michel Foucault, Stuttgart: Metzler Verlag 1994/2004; Empathy and Agency: The Problem of Understanding in the Human Sciences, co-edited with Karsten Stueber, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press 2000. He has numerous articles published on social and political theory, philosophy of the social sciences, hermeneutics, and philosophy of language.

WERNER KRIEGLSTEIN was a student with Theodore W Adorno and Max Horkheimer at the Frankfurt School and holds a doctorate from the University of Chicago. He has taught at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo. He currently teaches philosophy at the College of DuPage. Krieglstein is a course director at the Interuniversity Center in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and board member of the International Society for Universal Dialogue. He is author of The Dice-Playing God (UPA, 1992) and Compassion, A New Philosophy of the Other, (Rodopi, 2002) and Compassionate Thinking, An Introduction to Philosophy, (Kendall/Hunt, 2006) Krieglstein’s Webpage is www.perspectivism.com.

GOTTFRIED KÜENZLEN was born in 1945 and holds the degrees of Dr.rer.soc. and Dr.phil. habil. He is a University Professor and chair of Protestant theology and social ethics (University of the Federal Army, Munich). His main elds of interest in the areas of Protestant theology, sociology and philosophy are: The secular and religious culture in the Modernity, social ethics, Max Weber’s sociology of religion. He has numerous publications, including: Die Religionssoziologie Max Webers (Berlin 1980); Der Neue Mensch. Zur säkularen Religionsgeschichte der Moderne (München 1995; Neuau age Frankfurt 1997); Die Wiederkehr der Religion (München 2003).

MISLAV KUKO, Ph. D., was born in Split, Croatia, 1952, and is a senior research associ- ate at the Institute of Social Sciences “Ivo Pilar” – Center Split. He currently teaches Social Philosophy, Philosophy of Techics, and History of Social Theories at the University of Zagreb and University of Split. He is president of the Croatian Philosophical Society and co-director of the international course: Future of Religion at the Interuniversity Centre, Dubrovnik, Croatia. He conducted sub-regional UNESCO research program “Post-communism and Multiculturalism”; held lectures at the Loyola University, New Orleans, Universität der Bundeswehr, München, Sapporo University, Japan; and was a Visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC. He is the author of Fate of Alienation; Enigma of Post-communism; Critique of Eschatological Reason (in Croatian). He also is a co-author of Inter-disciplinary Dictionary: Education for Human Rights and Democracy (in Croatian); and co-editor of Ukraine & Croatia: Problems of Post-communist Societies.

AURELIA MARGARETIC received her academic education at the school of the Ursulines in Bielefeld and at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. She studied German literature with Frau Professor Dr. Bennholdt-Thomsen and Protestant Theology with Professor Helmut Gollwitzer and Professor W. F. Marquardt. Particularly from Professor Gollwit- zer, she learned about a humanistic and ecumenical Christianity. After completing her Master’s thesis on Karl Philipp Moritz, who where a friend of J. W. v. Goethe, she