NEW ROCHELLE, NY (May 2011) Iona College will host the 57th Annual Convention of the College Theology Society (CTS), June 2-5. The theme will be “They Shall Be Called Children of God: Violence, Transformation and the Sacred.” This marks the first time that Iona will host this thought-provoking convention.
Founded in 1953 as a Roman Catholic organization, the CTS is comprised of more than 900 college and university theology professors throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. While maintaining its roots in the Roman Catholic tradition, the Society is increasingly ecumenical in its membership and concerns.
The convention will feature four plenary sessions and 57 break-out sessions organized by 22 topic areas in theology and religious studies. The plenary sessions, which will be presented by prominent theology professors, are:
Violence, Religious and Secular: Questioning the Categories
William Cavanaugh
Senior Research Professor
Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology
De Paul University, Illinois
God among the Ruins: Companion and Co-Sufferer
M. Shawn Copeland
Associate Professor of Systematic Theology
Boston College, Massachusetts
James T. Logan
Associate Professor of Religion
Director, African and African American Studies
Earlham College, Indiana
Theology as Gospel Mimesis: Lessons from a Conflict Zone
Todd Whitmore
Associate Professor of Theology
Fellow, Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
University of Notre Dame, Indiana
Alive Man Walking: One Person’s Story of Exoneration from Death Row
Shujaa Graham
Witness to Innocence Project
Pennsylvania
In addition, Dr. Brad Hinze of Fordham University and President of CTS will present the bi-annual Presidential Award to Margaret and Peter Steinfels, two prominent Catholic intellectuals and journalists. Both were editors of Commonweal: a Review of Religion, Politics and Culture. In addition, until recently, Mr. Steinfels wrote the ‘On Religion’ column for the New York Times.
Thanks to a generous grant from the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning, the program will also feature a teaching workshop, The Gift and Challenge of Difference in the Classroom, for CTS members. The workshop directors are Dr. Maureen O’Connell of Fordham University and Dr. Laurie Cassidy of Marywood University.
Dr. Elena G. Procario-Foley, Chair of Iona’s Religious Studies Department, Driscoll Professor of Jewish-Catholic Studies and Associate Professor of Religious Studies, said: “Iona College is very honored to host this year’s College Theology Society’s convention. It will feature some of today’s prominent theological thinkers for what will surely be thought-provoking sessions.”
Dr. Margaret Pfeil, Assistant Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, stated: “This convention will probe the role of peacemakers a world fraught with systemic violence. The featured speakers and participants will explore the emerging practices, rituals, conceptions, and frameworks that can help transform such profanities as wars, racial and ethnic division, environmental disasters, border tensions, suicide bombings, and abuses within ecclesial communities.”
Dr. Tobias Winwright, Assistant Professor of Theology at Saint Louis University, added: “The sessions will look at how the experience of violence can transform our understanding of the sacred and also explore these questions: Are violence and the sacred mutually exclusive? Can they be mutually transformative?”
