The School of Religious Studies is welcoming to McGill, and to the Birks Building, several visiting professors and scholars during the 2018-19 academic year. We are grateful for their willingness to join us, and for their contributions to the life of the unit’s teaching and research activities.
Professor Carla Canullo
Carla Canullo, Associate Professor in Philosophy of Religion at the Università degli Studi di Macerata,is appointedVisiting Researcher in Philosophy of Religion at the School of Religious Studies forthe Fall 2018 term. She is the author of four major books, including the influential 2004 work entitledLa fenomenologia rovesciata. Percorsi tentati in Jean-Luc Marion, Michel Henry e Jean-Louis Chrétien, eight edited books, twenty important translations of leading figures in her research circle in contemporary French phenomenology, thirty articles and fifty book chapters. We appreciate her return to the School.
Professor Douglas Hedley
The School of Religious Studies appointed Douglas Hedley (Professor of the Philosophy of Religion and Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge) as Visiting Professor of the Philosophy of Religion for the Fall term, 2018. Professor Hedley will teach a graduate seminar in Philosophy of Religion, and will lead a Reading Group, that includes faculty members as well as graduate students, on F.W.J. Schelling’s Die Weltalter. Professor Hedley is making these contributions after having been in residence during Summer 2018, for hisAHRC grant collaboration with Professor Torrance Kirby, also of the School of Religious Studies, on“The Cambridge Platonists at the Origins of Enlightenment: Texts, Debates, Reception (1650-1730). We thus hope that our appointment of Professor Hedley will lead to further and more extensive collaborations.
Professor Ray L. Hart
The School of Religious Studies has appointed Ray L. Hart, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy of Religion at Boston University, as Visiting Researcher. The long-time President of the American Academy of Religion, and Editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (JAAR), he is the namesake of anational award given annually (since 1993) as “The Ray L. Hart Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Academic Study of Religion in America” by theAAR.His publications range from the field-defining Unfinished Man and the Imagination from 1968 to his most recent God Being Nothing (Chicago, 2017).Professor Hart was last Dean of Boston University School of Theology, where he served also as Chairman of the Department of Religion, and Director of the Graduate Division of Religious and Theological Studies. While at McGill, he will write a chapter for a Festschrift, consult with graduate students, and participate in a journée d’étude. We are honoured to host him.
Professor Pia- Maria Niemi
Pia-Maria Niemi earned a Ph.D. from the University of Helsinki Faculty of Educational Sciences in 2017, after having completed her B.A. and M.A. Degrees in Theology. She currently serves as University Lecturer in Didactics of Religious Education at the University of Helsinki. Already well-published in the area of religious education in the Finnish context, Dr. Niemi’s post-doctoral grant project will allow her to investigate Quebec state-sponsored religious education programs.She is also a member of a four-year grant team supported by the Finnish Academy, led by the principal investigator Professor Arniika Kuusisto (University of Stockholm, Sweden & University of Helsinki, Finland) and advised by Associate Professor Liam Gearon (University of Oxford).This project ("Growing up radical? The role of educational institutions in guiding young people's world view construction”) is closely aligned with work being done in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE) and the Faculty of Education, and by Professor Ratna Ghosh. So in addition to the affiliation with the School of Religious Studies, Dr. Niemi has been invited to collaborate with Professor Ratna Ghosh’s research team during her stay.We are glad to host her important interdisciplinary research.