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Keynote speakers
Associate Professor Philip Cam, Philosophy, University
of New South Wales
Associate Professor Cam is currently President of the Asia-Pacific
Philosophy Education Network for Democracy. Philip Cam has written
several books related to philosophical inquiry for children, some
of which have been widely translated, and he is the author of
many articles on related aspects of education. He has edited a
series of books for UNESCO. His latest collection is Philosophy,
Democracy and Education (UNESCO, 2003). He has also published
in philosophy of mind, with reference to the work of Dennett,
Fodor, and Searle.
Professor Susuan Mendus, Political Philosophy, University
of York, UK
Susan Mendus was Morrell Fellow in Toleration at York from 1985
to 1988, and from 1995 to 2000 she was Director of the Morrell
Studies in Toleration Programme. She was elected a fellow of the
British Academy in 2004. Her areas of interest include contemporary
and historical problems in political philosophy; theories of toleration;
feminist theory; political integrity, political philosophy and
literature. Her publications include: ‘Innocent before God:
Politics, Morality and the Case of Billy Budd’ in Philosophy
(2006); ‘Choice, Chance and Multiculturalism’,
in Paul Kelly (ed.) Multiculturalism Reconsidered, Polity
Press (2002); and ‘Tolerance and Recognition: Education
in a Multicultural Society’, Journal of Philosophy of
Education (1995) 29(2). Professor Mendus delivered the 2007
Freilich Foundation lectures on the theme of “Religious
Toleration in an Age of Terrorism”.
Professor James T. Richardson, Professor of Sociology
and Judicial Studies, University of Nevada, USA James
T. Richardson is Director of the Judicial Studies Program, a faculty
member of the Interdisciplinary Social Psychology Doctoral Program
and Professor of Sociology at the University of Nevada, Reno.
His research interests include all aspects of new religious and
other social movements, including particularly recruitment and
participation, but also organisational and defensive strategies,
and religion and social control. His latest book is Regulating
Religion: Case Studies from Around the Globe (Kluwer, 2004),
and some of his most recent publications are ‘The Sociology
of Religious Freedom’ (Sociology of Religion, 2006)
and ‘Religion, Constitutional Courts, and Democracy in Former
Communist Countries’ (The Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science, 2006). He also published
on treatment of minority religions in Australia and New Zealand. |
Conference
themes
In Intolerance, the Ecoli of the Mind, Donald Akenson
argues that the education system was one of the main institutional
structures that maintained sectarian intolerance within Ireland.
According to Akenson, the creation of a secular education system
was one of the great social experiments designed to break down
these social divisions. One of the elements was administrative,
involving non-denominational, or mixed, schools, and the other
involved a centralised curriculum that had been approved by major
religious groups and promoted civic virtue. Is a secular, non-denominational
education system the best means of breaking down intolerance?
Does this involve the provision of an environment that is free
from all religious symbolism and doctrine? State education systems
centralise curriculum. This may be considered a form of justified
paternalism in relation to education, but may it be equally considered
an imposition of a specific form of materialism?
In 2004, France banned students from wearing headscarves and
other markers of religious identity in public schools. According
to the French authorities, this was justified on the grounds that
state institutions should be secular. On one interpretation, freedom
of religion and state tolerance merely requires that religious
groups are not persecuted. On another interpretation, however,
freedom of religion requires that the state provide exemptions
for religious groups that enable religious observance (Bou-Habib,
2006). What is the difference between the state using religious
symbols, and its citizens using them? Should state schools be
rigorously secular? If so, should they provide opportunities for
religious education and worship, or is this a private, parental
responsibility? Does the failure to provide facilities for religious
worship within public schools and universities create unreasonable
barriers to equal access to education?
Recently the Australian Federal Minister of Education announced
that the role of religion in Australian history would become part
of the school curriculum. What is the role of teaching the history
and study of comparative religions in promoting tolerance and
liberal freedoms? Does the teaching of comparative religion lead
to the idea that moral values are relative to culture and religion,
and does relativism promote tolerance or undermine it? Is the
point of comparative religion an exercise in providing students
with a means of comparing and evaluating different value systems,
and hence promoting individual choice and autonomy? Alternatively,
is the point of teaching comparative religion to dispel prejudices
that are the basis of intolerance?
Liberal toleration is not a form of relativism because it requires
'a ranking of ultimate values that supports the authority of peace,
freedom, and public reasonableness' (Macedo, 1993: 625). Moreover,
toleration has its limits; it cannot tolerate the intolerant.
According to Stephen Macedo, 'for a religious toleration and political
co-operation to be stable, our shared values and aims must be
more important than our disagreements' (626). Should the promotion
of tolerance as a 'civic virtue' be a minimum requirement for
public funding of religious schools? If tolerance is a virtue
can it be taught as a topic within the curriculum or does teaching
it involve a kind of modelling or some other educational method
for behaviour modification?
How responsive should schools be to community pressure about
the curriculum? The issues that this question raises are highlighted
by the debates over creationism within the school curriculum.
Darwin's ideas on the evolution of the species were of significant
popular interest and debate immediately upon publication. The
first edition of the book, in 1859, sold out the same day it was
published. Within seven years it had been translated into every
major European language, sixteen thousand copies had been sold,
and there had been 265 reviews. The theory of evolution gained
immediate widespread currency in academic circles. However, there
was also significant religious controversy over the book because
it challenged the literal interpretation of Genesis. Darwin had
"dethroned" God, and his ideas were condemned by clerics
throughout Britain. In 1919, the World Christian Fundamentals
Association was founded to oppose the teaching of evolution in
American public schools, and local schools and state boards of
education were pressured to reject text books which included the
theory. A ban on the teaching of evolutionism was considered in
more than 20 state legislatures. It was not until 1968 when the
U.S. Supreme Court found that state laws against evolutionism
being taught were unconstitutional and that government powers
could not be used to advance religious beliefs, that such laws
were overturned. Since then, anti-evolutionists have sought creationism
to be taught along side evolutionary theory as an alternative
theory. There have also been calls for creationism to be taught
in Australian schools. Should local schools be responsive to local
pressure groups about what is included in the curriculum, and
if so, should local groups be able to ban certain subjects from
being taught? Should school teachers have academic freedom? Can
the debate be resolved by defining the nature of scientific method,
or by schools being less focussed on teaching content, and more
focussed on teaching methods of critical analysis? |
Previous Negotiating the Sacred
conferences
Previous conferences on this the theme of Negotiating the Sacred
have been on Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society
(2004) and Blasphemy and Sacrilege in the Arts (2005) and Religion,
Medicine and the Body (2006). An edited collection from the first
conference was published by ANU E-press in 2006. See:
http://epress.anu.edu.au/nts_citation.html
A book proposal for Blasphemy and Sacrilege in the Arts has recently
been submitted (co-editors Elizabeth Burns Coleman and Maria-Suzette
Fernandes-Dias) to ANU E-press, and the Religion, Medicine and
the Body volume is currently being prepared by for submission.
Requests for further information
should be directed to:
Elizabeth Burns Coleman
Monash University
P: 03) 9905 4224
M: 0405 494 446
Email: elizabeth.coleman@arts.monash.edu.au
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