Lives and Voices / Contemporary Dialogues

Lecture-Debate Cycle (January-June 2011)

Last Tuesday of each month / Santa Clara Gallery - Coimbra, 21H15

This cycle intends to promote and discuss, in a panoramic, and simultaneously analytical, controversial and educational, perspective, with the widest public, the lives, works and choices of authors - thinkers, scientists, politicians, theologists, writers, artists - with a relevant intervention on the processes of understanding, representing and critically reviewing the contemporary world.

In each session, two participants will focus on two authors, if possible comparing them. This will be followed by a debate.

February 22nd
Hans Küng / by Anselmo Borges
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza /  by Teresa Toldy

Hans Küng (1928- ) is a Swiss theologian, philosopher, theology teacher, writer and catholic priest, being very controversial within the Church. He was ordained on 1954 and holds a Doctoral Degree from Sorbonne, with a dissertation on Karl Barth. In 1960, Küng became theology teacher at Tubinga, Germany. Together with his colleague, Joseph Ratzinger (who would be Pope Benedict XVI), he was nominated by Pope John XXIII as theological consultant at the Second Vatican Council. By the end of the 1960's, Küng started a reflection refusing the Papal infallibility dogma, publishing the book "Infallible? An Inquiry" in 1970. As a result, he was prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church to officially teach theology in its behalf, but remained a priest. Küng defends the end of the clerical celibacy, a greater lay and female participation within the Catholic Church and the return of the theology based on the Bible's message. Two volumes of his trilogy on the world's three monotheistic faiths are translated into Portuguese: "Islão - Passado, Presente e Futuro" ["Islam: Past, Present and Future"] (Edições 70) and "O Cristianismo - Essência e História" ["Christianity: Essence, History, Future"] (Círculo de Leitores). The other volume is entitled "Judaism: Between Yesterday and Tomorrow".

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (1938 - ) is one of the main female theologians and Biblicist at the international level. She was born in Romania into a German family and was raised in Germany. She was one of the first Catholic women to graduate in theology, with a Doctoral Degree in Biblical Studies from the Münster University, in Germany. She lives in the United States since 1970, where she teaches feminist biblical exegesis/interpretation at the Divinity School of the Harvard University, having also taught in other countries.  Throughout her life, Schüssler Fiorenza has been developing a wide methodology of critical and liberating feminist biblical interpretation. Her work "In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins", of 1983, is widely known. Her most recent publications include: Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation 2000; Wisdom Ways, 2001; The Power of the Word: Scripture and the Rhetoric of Empire (2007).

Biographic notes of the lecturers:

Anselmo Borges was ordained by the Missionary Society of Boa Nova in 1967. He studied Theology (Gregorian University, Rome), Social Sciences (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Paris) and Philosophy (University of Coimbra and Tubinga). He taught Philosophy and Theology at the Portuguese Catholic University and the Maputo Major Seminary. He lectures Philosophy at the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, being in charge of the courses of Philosophical Anthropology, Philosophy of Religion and Ethics and teaching a seminar on Women and Religions at the Master's and Doctoral Degrees in Feminist Studies. He has several published works, namely: Janela do (In)visível [The window of the (Invisible] (3 editions), Religião: Opressão ou Libertação? [Religion: Oppression or Liberation?], Morte e Esperança [Death and Hope] (sold out), Corpo e Transcendência [Body and Transcendence] (sold out), Deus no século XXI e o futuro do cristianismo [God in the 21st century and the future of Christianity] (Coord.), Janela do (In)finito [The Window of the (In)finite] (2 editions), Religião e Diálogo Inter-Religioso ]Religion and Inter-Religious Dialogue] (sold out). He writes a column on the Diário de Notícias newspaper about religious themes.

Teresa Toldy holds a Doctoral degree in Theology (field of Feminist Theology) by the Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen (Frankfurt). She holds a Master's Degree and an Undergraduate Degree in Theology by the Portuguese Catholic University. At the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra (CES), she concluded a Post-Doctoral Degree with the project: "Secularization, human rights and feminisms". She is Associate Professor at the Fernando Pessoa University, where she lectures in the areas of Ethics, Citizenship and Gender Studies. She is a Researcher at the Centre of Cultural Studies, Language and Behaviour at that University, as well as Associate Researcher at CES.

Chair: Isabel Caldeira

Organização: Research Group on Humanities, Migration and Peace Studies