The Legacy of Wilfred Cantwell Smith A Symposium celebrating the Sixtieth Anniversary of McGill’s Faculty of Religious Studies
Friday, November 6, 2009
All are Welcome, no registration required
Location: Faculty of Religious Studies, William and Henry Birks Building, 3520 University Street, McGill University
8:00 a.m. Coffee and pastries available (Senior Common Room)
8:30 a.m.–10:30 a.m. Session I (Chair: Professor Katherine Young, in the Birks Heritage Chapel)
Panel
John Braisted Carman Wilfred Smith as an Academic Architect
Thomas B. Coburn Setting the Stage for the Emergence of ‘Contemplative Studies’: Reflections on the Work of Wilfred Cantwell Smith
C. Peter Slater "Wilfred Smith's Prophetic Sense of History and Proposal Regarding Verification."
Donald Swearer Towards a World Theology Revisited
10:30 a.m.–11:00 a.m. Coffee Break (Senior Common Room)
11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Session II (Chair: Professor Ian Henderson, in the Birks Heritage Chapel)
Panel
Purushottama Bilimoria The Meaningful End of ‘God’ and ‘Scripture’
Harvey Cox Belief is Not Faith Revisited
Joseph Prabhua The Interreligious Hermeneutics of Raimon Panikkar and Cantwell Smith
Robert C. Segal The Limits of Dialogue
1:00p.m.–2:00 p.m. Lunch: Provided for conference presenters, FRS faculty, and FRS graduate students; registration requested).
2:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m. Session III (Chair: TBA, in the Birks Heritage Chapel)
Panel
Thomas Faulkner The Prophet Muhammad & the Enigma of War
Jonathan R. Herman Who Cares if the Qur'an is the Word of God?
K. R. Sundararajan The Study of Religions as the Study of Persons: My Journey to Islam
4:00 p.m.–4:30 p.m. Afternoon Tea (Senior Common Room)
4:30 p.m.–6:30 p.m. Session IV (Chair: Dr. Jim Kanaris, in the Birks Heritage Chapel)
Panel
Amir Hussain Towards a hermeneutic of humanity: Wilfred Cantwell Smith and the study of Muslims
William A. Graham "Wilfred Smith and the "Orientalist" Traditions: Some Thoughts on the Smithian Critique of Modern Scholarship"
John Stratton Hawley Enabling Antimonies: Tensions and Tensile Strength in Wilfred Cantwell Smith
Diana L. Eck Title to Come
Note: Each paper will be about 20 minutes long; the papers in a session will be presented without break, with substantial time for discussion in each session.