15. International conference of the ESWTR

28 August - 1 September 2013 in Dresden, Germany

New horizons - resistance and visions

The ESWTR’s international conference takes place in the historical city of Dresden, Germany, from 28 August to 1 September 2013. The topic "New Horizons - Resistance and Visions” connects with former conferences, which in the face of deep societal concern and social challenges vividly searched for new feminist, gender sensitive and queer liberation theologies. In our world coined by globalisation and neoliberalism a commodification of the whole life has emerged. In consequence poverty, (hetero-)sexism, homophobia, racism, fundamentalism and nationalism (including rightwing extremism) are producing violent exclusions instead of inclusive ideas of community. What answers can theological perspectives of different religions offer to sustainably decrease economic and epistemic violence?

Experiences of resistance and vision shall be brought into conversation with current counter discourses from the globalisation critical and the recent "occupy wallstreet" context. To deepen emancipatory theological perspectives, it shall be discussed how current approaches deconstructing violence could be used even better in theologies and critiques of religions.

The particular contribution of theological approaches is to address and appropriate the dimension of what is transcendent to humanity, the uncontrollable, other wordly yet deeply meaningful. Theologians make use of their religious forms, practices, texts and traditions to achieve this. Especially in intersectional, feminist, gender sensitive, queer, postcolonial and post-secular approaches theologian’s struggles and research prove to have a specific sensitivity to manifestations of violence on deep levels of social, global, textual orders, and of course in theological and religious forms of speech.

Place of the Conference

With the chosen context of East Germany, the political and theological power of Eastern European dissidence, which led to the peaceful revolutions of 1989, shall bear fruit in the current search of living together in solidarity in the "one world". Numerous resisting political, religious and arts mobilisations imagined an open and radically democratic society not only beyond real existing socialism but also beyond capitalism. They had their roots in women’s, peace- and environmental movements and not least in the ecumenical process.

Conference venue:

Haus der Kirche
Hauptstraße 23
01097 Dresden-Neustadt

Programme

Detailed Programme

Programme Flyer

Plenary Sessions with the following speakers:

Prof. Dr. Ulrike Auga
Prof. Dr. Musa Dube
Dr. Dr. Sr. Teresa Forcades i Vila
Prof. Dr. Janet Jakobsen
Prof. Dr. Anne-Marie Korte
Prof. Dr. Kwok Pui-Lan
Prof. Dr. Jörg Rieger
Prof. Dr. Mayra Rivera Rivera

Panels

New Forms of Resistance - and Society
New Forms of Resistance - and Biopower
New Forms of Resistance - and Politics
Resistances and Ethical Discourses
Queer Visions and Biopower
Visions and Interreligious Discourses
Visions, Arts and Aesthetics
Visions and Translations

Subject Groups and Groups of Young Researchers

Panel Discussion with Contemporary Witnesses "Dissidence in the GDR and Eastern Europe"

City Tours and Film Screenings

Public Lecture
Occupy heaven: Are God, Religion and Politics beyond Rescue?
Prof. Dr. Kwok Pui Lan & Prof. Dr. Jörg Rieger

Organizing Committee

Prof. Dr. Maria Häusl, Technische Universität Dresden
Prof. Dr. Ulrike Auga, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Prof. Dr. Silke Petersen, Universität Hamburg
Katharina Friebe, Evangelische Frauen in Deutschland e.V.
Prof. Dr. Hildegard König, Technische Universität Dresden
Dr. Aurica Nutt
Kerstin Menzel
Cornelia Mügge

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Maria Häusl
Philosophische Fakultät
Institut für Katholische Theologie
TU Dresden
01062 Dresden

Registration

Here you find the registration form as Word-Document and as Pdf-Document. From July 1st, registration is possible only for the conference, not for accomodation.

The conference is supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.