Previous events

Towards a Philosophy of Life Conference

The Association's first international conference has announced its presence on a global scale. The conference - ‘Towards a Philosophy of Life: Reflecting on the Concept of Life in Continental Philosophy of Religion’ – took place on June 26th – 28th 2009 at Liverpool Hope University.

It was organised by Patrice Haynes (pictured right) assisted by Steven Shakespeare and Charlie Blake.

An edited volume of papers and a special issue of the journal Angelaki are now being prepared on the conference themes.

Keynote speakers

Hope was able to play host to some of the most prestigious and talked about philosophers of religion in the world.

Pamela Sue Anderson (Oxford, pictured left), a pioneer of feminist approaches to the field, spoke to the title ‘Only Life Explains the Thinker’: Deleuze on Spinoza and Le Doeuff', affirming the vitality and boldness required to do philosophy.

 John Milbank (Nottingham, pictured right with Don Cupitt) has had an immense and unavoidable impact in theology and philosophy. His Radical Orthodoxy movement has set the terms of debate for how faith and reason relate to one another. He offered ‘The Habit of Living: Immanence or Transcendence’, a brilliant reading of Ravaisson's thought and a challenge to self-enclosed secular philosophy.

John Caputo (Syracuse, pictured left), as well as being a personal friend of Derrida’s and one of his most influential interpreters, is a hugely significant constructive thinker in his own right. He spoke on ‘Bodies Without Flesh: The Soft Gnosticism of Incarnational Theology', offering a challenge to the otherworldiness of supposedly incarnational approaches.

 Don Cupitt (Cambridge, pictured right) has been writing radical theology for four decades. He has been at the forefront of those introducing continental perspectives into UK scholarship. He spoke on 'Two Philosophies of Life', a provocative call to a naturalistic religiosity of ordinary life.

The invitation was also accepted by Jean-Yves Lacoste (Paris), one of the world’s leading phenomenologists. Unfortunately, illness forced him to withdraw in the week leading up to the conference. We were very grateful to Philip Goodchild (Nottingham, on the right of the group pictured), one of the most innovative younger scholars in this area, for stepping into his place. Philip's address wove together different voices in exploring the promise and limits of philosophy as a spiritual exercise.

The keynote speakers were uniformly excellent, offering provocative and rigorous analyses from a variety of standpoints.

2. Delegates

Including the main speakers, around 70 people attended the conference. Participants from the conference came from many countries, including the USA, Canada, Hong Kong, Italy, France, Germany and Belgium. There was also a very good selection of delegates from across the UK, representing some of the strongest concentrations of scholarship in this field. The papers given by delegates represented the current state of play in continental thinking in its most advanced state. From Agamben’s politics to animality, from Michel Henry’s phenomenology to the debates over materialism, immanence and transcendence, these were the subjects that matter. 

3. Networking

The conference atmosphere was very positive, with many new friendships and conversations beginning. The Association was launched at a wine reception. Pamela Sue Anderson and John Caputo have agreed to join the Association’s board of advisors. They have been joined by George Pattison, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford University. These names, and the positive reaction already received, are testimony to the timeliness and potential importance of the Association.

The same event saw the launch of Steven Shakespeare’s book, Derrida and Theology, an example of the research and publication Hope scholars are engaged in. John Caputo described it as ‘the most important book on Derrida and religion to come across my desk in a very long time’.

Other conference and colloquium activity

The Association held a successful colloquium in April 2009, leading to a book contract with Continuum for a volume edited by Charlie Blake, Claire Molloy and Steven Shakespeare, entitled Beyond Human: From Animality to Transhumanism.

The Association was invited to convene three panels at the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture conference 'Attending to the Other: Critical Theory and Spiritual Practice', 23-26 September 2010 at St Catherine's College, Oxford. The three panels addressed the general theme of 'Reason, Spirituality and Materialism in Recent Continental Philosophy of Religion' under the headings of 'Theological Materialism', 'Phenomeneology and Deconstruction' and 'Political Theology'.

 The Association was also invited to convene a panel at the fourth Postmodernism, Culture and Religion Conference, 'The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion', held at Syracuse, April 7-9 2011. The panel was entitled 'Spectral Materialsims: Deconstruction, Speculative Realism and the Void'. The speakers were Katharine Moody, Steven Shakespeare and Daniel Whistler, and it was moderated by Anthony Paul Smith.

Research Seminars

The following research seminars were held during 2009 - 2010:

And in 2010-11: