2025 Annual Conference
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
ETHICS IN DIVERSITY – INTERCULTURAL AND INTERRELIGIOUS ETHICS
Societas Ethica’s 61st Annual Conference 2025
August 21–24 2025, Hofgeismar, Germany
The registration is closed.
Ethics in Diversity – Intercultural and Interreligious Ethics
Over the last decades, the awareness of the plurality of human understandings of the world and of the self as well as of cultural and religious diversity has increased significantly. In the current era of global divergences and transformations, the encounters with a multiplicity of convictions, beliefs, and ways of life present both profound opportunities and significant ethical challenges.
Societas Ethica’s 61st conference seeks to explore the multifaceted dimensions of intercultural and interreligious ethics.
In pluralistic societies, diverse cultural perspectives and lifestyles are a reality which can lead to tensions especially in the political realm, as they raise questions about how to live well together and can challenge traditional power structures and concepts of sovereignty and identity. Intercultural ethical analysis and ethical theories need to consider cultural differences theoretically while also providing a framework for relating to different cultural perspectives.
Simultaneously, critical theory and post-colonial studies challenge hegemonic power structures globally, both in thought and in practice. They point to the richness of non-Western intellectual traditions and (self-)critically reflect on the European-Western tradition and Eurocentric forms of ethics – raising the question of whether entirely new versions of ethics are necessary.
Which methodologies are suitable and what role does ethics play concerning the influence of past experiences and their narratives in diverse contexts? What are the differences and communalities between interreligious and intercultural ethics considering that interreligious ethics do not only pertain to an ethics for interreligious dialogue? For interreligious ethics, hermeneutical questions alongside comparative perspectives on applied ethical questions are also of relevance.
The conference on “Ethics in Diversity: Intercultural and interreligious ethics” aims to expand the views and perspectives of participants’ cultural and (non-)religious standpoints in collaboratively reflecting on the ways in which ethics is developed in a world where intercultural and interreligious encounters have become commonplace and where migration and digital interconnectedness form an integral part of daily life. It discusses conceptual and methodological challenges to ethics in diverse societies and in a diverse world. How can we address ‘glocal’ problems in a dialogical, non-essentialising, and fair manner? What can interreligious and intercultural ethics offer for the diverse political contexts in Europe?
Keynote-Speakers and Panellists (among others):
Angela Roothaan (Associate Professor, Faculty of Humanities, Philosophy, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Anne Hege Grung (Dean of Research for Interreligious, Studies Faculty of Theology , Oslo University)
Azza Karam (Affiliate Professor, Ansari Institute for Religion and Global Affairs University of Notre Dame, IL)
Ruth Nattermann (Associate Professor, Leipzig University)
Mahmut Arslan, Professor of Business Ethics and Human Resource Management, Ibn Haldun University.
Nico Koopman, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the Department of Social Impact, Transformation and Personnel, Stellenbosch University.
Thomas-Andreas Põder, Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy of Religion, Institute of Theology of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church and University of Tartu.
Associate Prof. Dr. Angela Roothaan
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Moving Horizons – Towards a truly Intercultural Ethics of Dialogue
Angela Roothaan is an Associate Professor whose research focuses on Intercultural and African philosophy, criticism of modernity, spirituality, and spirit ontologies. Her methodological approaches include critical theory, postcolonial theory, hermeneutics, deconstructivism, and pragmatism.
She supervises PhD candidates working on projects in African and Intercultural Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, and Philosophy of Race. Since 2020, she has coordinated the Graduate Winter Course at VU University on Intercultural Philosophy and Postcolonial Theory. At the Master's level, she teaches Social and Political Philosophy, Environmental Humanities, and Philosophy of Culture and Governance (from a perspective of Race Theory). At the Bachelor's level, she teaches Intercultural Philosophy (Diversifying), the Bachelor Thesis Seminar, and Intercultural Philosophy for non-philosophy students.
Beyond her research and teaching, Roothaan seeks to bring philosophy out of the ivory tower by maintaining a blog, delivering public lectures, and engaging with philosophers and philosophy students worldwide through social media.
Prof. Dr. Anne Hege Grung
Oslo University
Gender and Interreligious Dialogue
Anne Hege Grung is Dean of Research and Professor in Interreligious Studies at the Faculty of Theology University of Oslo. Her research fields are Feminist hermeneutics in Muslim-Christian relations, Women and interreligious relations, Plural chaplaincy and spiritual care. Grung is presently leading the Master program “Leadership, Ethics and Counselling”, she is chair of the European Society for Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies (ESITIS), and member of the steering group for the program unit Interfaith and Interreligious Studies in the American Academy of Religion. In 2021 she was elected chair of The Norwegian Association for Women’s Rights.
Prof. Dr. Azza Karam
University of Notre Dame (IL)
International Politics and Ethical Challenges in a Multicultural World
Azza Karam is a member of the United Nations’ Secretary General High Level Advisory Board on Multilateralism, an Affiliate Professor at the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana, and has served for many years as a Secretary General Emerita of Religions for Peace International.
She served for nearly two decades in the United Nations (in UNDP and UNFPA), where she Coordinated the Arab Human Development Reports, co-founded and Chaired the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Religion – with over 20 UN system bodies – and founded and convened its Multi Faith Advisory Council, as part of the 750 global NGO database she coordinated. Apart from the work in the United States, she has worked with other intergovernmental and international organisations such as the OSCE, the EU, and International IDEA in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and East and Central Asia, where she created and managed global programmes on Women and Politics, Democracy and/In the Middle East, and Applied Research on Democracy.
She has lectured and taught in various universities, including West Point Military Academy (from 2002 to 2018). She has published widely, and was translated into several languages (on political Islam, gender and women’s rights, Human Rights, democracy, conflict, peacemaking, and education).
She has received multiple awards, including for her work on/in the United Nations, as well as in/on Interfaith work and Culture. She was awarded an honorary Degree by John Cabot University in 2022. Born in Egypt, Azza is also a citizen of the Netherlands.