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Our 'Irrational' Past - Interdisciplinary Seminar Series

About

Welcome to the webpage for the Our ‘Irrational’ Past: Theological, Religious, and Superseded Heritage of Academic Disciplines. The series brings together a number of interdisciplinary scholars in order to reflect on the history, misconceptions, and presuppositions that underlie the state of academic disciplines as they exist today. The aim of the series is to challenge the commonly accepted narratives regarding how our disciplines developed into their present shape. We will also investigate how theories and worldviews of the past which we would not longer accept still play a role of unquestioned presuppositions within contemporary science and academia.

The talks will take place in hybrid or online only format (via Microsoft Teams), and are opened to all regardless of academic level or disciplinary background. They will consist out of a 45 minutes presentation, followed by a 45 minutes Q&A.

The series is organised by Dr Dino Jakusic (University of Warwick - Institute of Advanced Studies) as a part of his Pathways to Knowledge Fellowship project entitled Investigating Theological Bias and Theological Heritage in the Academic Disciplines (more details here).

Upcoming Talk

Religion in a Communist Setting: The Curious Case of Yugoslavia

  • Speaker: Andrej Bukovac-Mimica, University of Zagreb/Helsinki, Theology
  • Location: C0.02, Institute of Advanced Studies, Zeeman Building, University of Warwick [map linkLink opens in a new window]
  • Time & Date: 17:30-19:00 GMT, 28 Nov 2024, Thursday Week 9, Term 1.
  • Meeting Link:
    Please register here to receive the link.Link opens in a new window
  • Abstract

    The notion that Communist political systems aggressively suppress religious thinking and expression is a commonplace we scarcely pause to consider. While this notion may be true for the USSR, and only for certain periods of its nearly-70-year history, in reality, it is a generalization that reduces a highly complex and evolving relationship to a simple slogan. This objection especially applies to former Socialist Yugoslavia, which not only developed its particular flavour of Socialism, but also a particular relationship with its religious citizens and the institutions they belonged to.

    The country itself defies most generalizations, being essentially a patchwork of peoples of various ethnicities and religious affiliations, with major segments of the population belonging to either Catholic, Orthodox, or Muslim communities, along with a plethora of other minority religious groups. The two largest Christian communities, the Catholic and the Serbian Orthodox church, saw themselves, and were seen by others, as bearers of national identities. These two forms of Christianity provided the backbones of the ethno-nationalist mythologies of Serbia and Croatia that had developed during the late 19th century. Therefore, the government's "ideological struggle" against religion, inspired by an effort to keep this patchwork intact, had much more to do with suppressing nationalism than religion itself. On the other hand, smaller religious communities, unrelated to national identities, were often treated quite benevolently, with some enjoying much more freedom than they had before the World War II.

    In short, Yugoslavia's attitude and conduct towards religious communities was the product of complex internal and external policy considerations that evolved over time and varied across republics. Although the regime did nominally consider religion as something superfluous and archaic, that fact could be considered a consequence, rather than the cause of its strained relationship with certain religious groups.

Speaker photo - Andrej Bukovac-Mimica

Annual Talk Schedule

NB: it is possible that some dates/times/modalities might change or for presentations to get cancelled. Any changes will be communicated on this website.

Term 1 (Oct-Dec 2024)

Week Date Speaker Affiliation Title Modality
W4

24 Oct 2024 (Thu)

17:30-19:00 BST

Matyáš Moravec

Queen’s University Belfast - Philosophy

The Spooky Origins of Hypertime

Hybrid
W7

14 Nov 2024 (Thu)

17:30-19:00 GMT
[please note the change in time-zone]

Stephen Connelly University of Warwick - Law

Philo on Lawfulness and Conscience

Hybrid

W9

28 Nov 2024 (Thu)

17:30-19:00 GMT

Andrej Bukovac-Mimica University of Zagreb / University of Helsinki - Theology

Religion in a Communist Setting: The Curious Case of Yugoslavia

[Registration link]

Hybrid

Term 2 (Jan-Mar 2025)

Week Date Speaker Affiliation Title Modality
W2

16 Jan 2025 [Thu]

17:30-19:00 GMT

Steve Fuller Warwick - Sociology TBA Hybrid
W4

30 Jan 2025 [Thu]

17:30-19:00 GMT

Claire Blencowe

Warwick - Sociology

TBA Hybrid
W6

13 Feb 2025 [Thu]

17:30-19:00 GMT

Bogdana Stamenković Jajčević University of Belgrade - Philosophy

Understanding the Evil in Nature Through Malthus' Principle of Struggle for Existence

Online only
W7

17 Feb 2025 [Mon]

17:30-19:00 GMT
[Please note different day of the week]

Curie Virág Warwick - Philosophy

Becoming like Gods: Models of Mind and Self-perfection in Early China

Hybrid
W8

27 Feb 2025 [Thu]

17:30-19:00 GMT

Andrew Huddleston Warwick - Philosophy TBA Hybrid
W10

13 Mar 2025 [Thu]

17:30-19:00 GMT

Chris Oldfield The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion TBA Hybrid

Term 3 (Apr-May 2025)

Week Date Speaker Affiliation Title Modality
W1

24 April 2025 [Thu]

17:30-19:00 BST

[please note the change in time-zone]

Manuela Marai

  TBA Hybrid
W2

01 May 2025 [Thu]

17:30-19:00 BST

Robert Pasnau

University of Colorado Boulder – Philosophy

What is Voluntarism? Online only
W3

08 May 2025 [Thu]

11:00-12:30 BST
[please note the change in starting time]

Peter Harrison

Queensland / Notre Dame, Australia – History/Philosophy

Divine Voluntarism and the Origins of Scientific Naturalism"

Online only
W4

15 May 2025 [Thu]

17:30-19:00 BST

Sophie Mann

Warwick – History

TBA Hybrid

Past Talks

Matyáš Moravec

Queens University Belfast
Philosophy
24 Oct, 2024

The Spooky Origins of Hypertime

Hypertime is a theory that postulates that time has two or more dimensions. Much of the groundwork underlying current theories of hypertime in analytic philosophy is generally attributed to discussions in the second half of the 20th century—either in connection with the objection against the passage of time or as a means to resolve problems in the philosophy of time travel. This paper demonstrates that the historical roots of hypertime extend much further back. I will demonstrate that sophisticated theories of multi-dimensional time, hitherto neglected by historians of philosophy, were developed by philosophers decades before the interest in time travel took off. These early pioneers of hypertime were working on “psychical research,” the study of psychical phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, or ghosts, widely popular towards the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. They developed multi-dimensional time as a tool to resolve various problems with precognition, the purported ability to see the future. I will conclude by indicating the pitfalls of neglecting this important chapter in the history of the philosophy of time.

Stephen Connelly

University of Warwick
School of Law
14 Nov, 2024

Philo on Lawfulness and Conscience

In his Allegories of the Laws, Philo of Alexandria sets himself against the Hellenistic philosophers of his time (early 1st century CE). The ‘pride’ of these philosophers, Philo claims, consists in having made pure reason the governor of the soul, and the philosopher governor of the rational city. Yet Philo’s aim is to justify his faith using the tools of Greco-Roman thought, and so, this talk will argue, rather than casting aside the prevailing ‘prideful’ conceptualisation of soul, Philo reconfigures the soul by internalising within it ethical ‘humiliation’. The paper examines a likely key source for this notion of humiliation, and follows through the consequences for Philo’s moral and legal theory.