Invited speakers

INVITED SPEAKERS

JOSTEIN BØRTNES is professor of Russian literature, University of Bergen. He was formerly University lecturer in Slavonic studies and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and associate professor of Comparative literature at the University of Oslo. He is the author of Visions of Glory: Studies in Early Russian Hagiography (1988) and Polyphony and Carneval (1993), and coeditor of Cultural Discontinuity and Reconstruction: the Byzanto-Slav Heritage and the Creation of a Russian National Literature in the Nineteenth Century (1997), with I. Lunde, and of Gregory of Nazianzus: Images and Reflections (2006), with Tomas Hägg. He is at present working on the metaphoricity of theological discourse.

DAVID E. COOPER is professor of philosophy at Durham University and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka. He has been Chair of the Aristotelian Society, the Mind Assocation, the Friedrich Nietzsche Society, and the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. He is editor of the Ashgate Publisher’s World Philosophies series and is on the editorial board of three journals. His philosophical interests include aspects of the history of philosophy (western and eastern), aesthetics, environmental ethics, and the philosophy of language. He has published widely, including the books A Philosophy of Gardens (2006), Meaning (2003) and The Measure of Things; Humanism, Humility and Mystery (2002).

PAUL MENDES-FLOHR is professor of modern Jewish thought at The University of Chicago Divinity School and until recently the director of the Franz Rosenzweig Research Centre for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research interests are moderen Jewish intellectual history, philosophy and religious thought and German intellectual history. He is in the editorial board of numerous professional journals in Israel, the U.S.A. as well as Europe and the editor and author of several books. Some selected publications: From Mysticism to Dialogue. Martin Buber and the Transformation of German Social Thought (1989), Divided Passions. Jewish Intellectuals and the Experience of Modernity (1990),German Jews: A Dual Identity (1999).

BARBRO RAEN THOMASSEN is an artist, educated at Ecole des Beaux Arts in Angers, France (1977-79) and The Art Academy in Bergen (1979-1982). She works with different media such as sculpture, installation, land art, drawing and photography. She has participated in several exhibitions, among them Statens Høstutstilling in Oslo, sculputural biennals in Budapest and Toyamura in Japan, the drawing biennal in Györ (Hungary) and the Nordic drawing triennial in Sweden. Among her work is the land art “Earth to earth” for Genius Loci (2000), the installation ”From Ash” in the Gallery Lista Fyr (2004), and cooperation with the poet Paal-Helge Haugen around the exhibition “Lighter than air – stronger than death” in the Cotton Factory Art Hall, Arendal (2003) and “Like a feather through cosmos – like a stone” in the Inselgalerie in Berlin (2005). Another significant work to be mentioned is her Vanitas version ”As for Man his days are as grass” in Sørlandets Art Museum, Kristiansand (2005/06).

MOIRA VON WRIGHT is professor of education in Örebro University and guest professor of Humanities Studies in Pedagogy at the University of Oslo. Her educational interests include philosophy of education and educational theory and her current research deals with transformations of knowledge and meaning, and the conditions for genuine participation in communicative situations. Selected publications: “Where am I when I am at ease? Relocating the notion of activity in education in Nordisk Pedagogik 27:3 (2007), Affiniteten mellan pragmatism och pedagogik (2007) and Vad eller vem? En pedagogisk rekonstruktion av G H Meads teori om människors intersubjektivitet (2000).

HENNY FISKÅ HÄGG is associate professor, Department of Religion, Philosophy and History, University of Agder. She has published several articles and books, including Clement of Alexandria and the Beginnings of Christian Apophaticism (2006) and Language and Negativity: Apophaticism in Theology and Literature (ed.) (2000). Her research interests include theology and society of the Early Church, especially the theology of the Greek Fathers.

ASLAUG KRISTIANSEN is professor of education at University of Agder. She is the author of Tillit og tillitsrelasjoner i en undervisningssammenheng: Med utgangspunkt i tekster av Martin Buber, Knud Løgstrup, Anthony Giddens og Niklas Luhmann (2005), as well as several articles on topics such as the educational philosophy of Martin Buber, dialogue, ethics and the role of the teacher.

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