The Voice of Faith and Public Reason: Raimond Gaita

Scott Stephens is the religion and ethics editor for ABC Online. He is the editor/translator of the selected writings of the philosopher Slavoj Zizek, and is currently working on books with theologian John Milbank and literary critic James Wood. He is a regular commentator on ABC Radio National and ABC TV.

Before joining the ABC in 2010, Scott Stephens taught theology and ethics for many years. He also trained for the priesthood and served for several years as a lay parish minister in the Uniting Church.

A writer for ABC Online, Eureka Street, the Times Literary Supplement and a number of academic journals, Scott also edited and translated (with Rex Butler) the bestselling two volumes of selected writings of Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek.

He is currently working on a book with theologian John Milbank on theology and civil society, and with New Yorker literary critic James Wood on a book on literature and the presence/absence of God.

Susan Neiman is the director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, just outside Berlin. At the interface of eastern and western Europe, it is one of Europe’s most important centres of intellectual and cultural innovation outside the university framework.

Neiman studied philosophy at Harvard and the Free University of Berlin, and taught philosophy at Yale and Tel Aviv Universities. She is the author of Slow Fire: Jewish Notes from Berlin, The Unity of Reason: Rereading Kant, Evil in Modern Thought and Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists – a passionate plea on behalf of Reason in support of morality and political idealism, named among the New York Times‘ notable books of 2008.

Her books have earned critical acclaim from within the academy and outside of it, and prizes from PEN, the Association of American Publishers and the American Academy of Religion.

Shorter pieces have appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Globe and Mail, and Dissent. In Germany, Nieman has written for Di Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Freitag, amongst other publications.

Raimond Gaita has published widely to academic and non- academic audiences. In 2009, the University of Antwerp awarded Gaita the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa ‘for his exceptional contribution to contemporary moral philosophy and for his singular contribution to the role of the intellectual in today’s academic world’.

His books, which have been widely translated, include: Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception, the award-winning Romulus, My Father, which was nominated by the New Statesman as one of the best books of 1999 and was made into a prize winning film starring Eric Bana, Frank Potente and Kodi Smit-McPhee; A Common Humanity: Thinking About Love and Truth and Justice, which was nominated by the Economist as one of best books of 2000; The Philosopher’s Dog, shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Award and the Age Book of the Year, Breach of Trust: Truth, Morality and Politics and, as editor and contributor, Gaza: Morality, Law and Politics; Muslims and Multiculturalism. His latest book is After Romulus.

Gaita is Professorial Fellow in the Melbourne Law School and the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne and Emeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy at King’s College London.

Asma Barlas is a distinguished scholar and an outspoken and esteemed public intellectual, recognised as such in Europe and the US. She has written and spoken eloquently against Western misreadings of the Qur’an, and passionately against Islamic misreadings that would appear to justify the oppression of women.

Barlas was born and raised in Pakistan, where she was one of the first women to join the foreign service. However, she was dismissed on the orders of the country’s military ruler for her criticism of him, and eventually received political asylum in the US.

Barlas is a professor of politics and director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity at Ithaca College, New York. In 2008, she also held the Spinoza Chair in Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. Her degrees attest the breadth of her interests: she has a PhD in International Studies, an MA in Journalism and a BA in English Literature and Philosophy.

She writes about Qur’anic hermeneutics, Muslim women’s rights and Western representations of Islam and Muslims. Her best-known book is ‘Believing Women’ in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an.

Bernadette Tobin is one of the most original and respected voices in Catholic Health Care Ethics. She is Director of the Plunkett Centre for Ethics, a joint centre of Australian Catholic University and St Vincents & Mater Health Sydney, and Reader in Philosophy at Australian Catholic University.

Tobin is honorary ethicist at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead in Sydney, conjoint associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of New South Wales and conjoint associate professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Sydney.

Her areas of research include ethical issues in health care, philosophical issues in moral development and philosophical issues in religious belief. Her interests include the philosophy of religion, bioethics and the philosophy of education.