Alway/Emmanuel Symposium – Bridges and Boundaries: Religious Diversities in the 21st Century Classroom

When: January 12-14 2025
Where: Emmanuel College and the University of St. Michaels College – various locations

About the Symposium
Interreligious teaching and learning is happening both in classrooms (including in professional schools with a secular mission and in theological schools founded in a sectarian traditions), as well as outside of classroom contexts in social movements and activism circles. This conference investigates important questions that are related to interreligious teaching and learning both in and outside of classrooms. For example, what wise practices for bridging different identities and contexts have emerged in interreligious contexts? What boundaries remain important to observe, and what boundaries can be redefined? How do we practice interreligious teaching and learning in ways that promote social justice? Join an international gathering of educators and community leaders to consider these questions, through paper panels, workshops and poster sessions.

Free to attend, but registration is required. Click here to register.

Keynote – Nostra Aetate: What Has It Taught and Mistaught Us about Interreligious Dialogue?
Marianne Moyaert
Sunday, January 12, 7 pm
Location: Father Madden Hall (100 St. Joseph St), University of St. Michael’s College.

Marianne Moyaert specializes in the (comparative) theology of religions, interreligious hermeneutics, research into the religio-racial constellation and Jewish-Christian relations. She has a particular interest in the ritual and material dimensions of interreligious encounters.

Plenary Panel – Bridging Religious Boundaries in the University Classroom: Creating Spaces for Difficult Conversations
Randal Schnoor, Imtiyaz Yusuf
Monday, January 13, 7 pm
Location: Father Madden Hall (100 St Joseph St.), University of St Michael’s College

Randal F. Schnoor (York University, Toronto) teaches various topics in Religious Studies and Jewish Studies, including a popular course on “Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Canada.” Schnoor is co-author of Jewish Family: Identity and Self-Formation at Home (Indiana UP, 2017), and he serves as faculty advisor for the “Bridging the Gap” student dialogue initiative.

Imtiyaz Yusuf (ISTAC-IIUM, Kuala Lumpur) has taught in multireligious settings for over 30 years at universities and research institutes in the United States, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. Yusuf has published widely on Islamic theology and practice in Southeast Asia, and he is one of very few scholars worldwide who specializes in Islamic-Buddhist dialogue.

Click here to register for Keynote and/or Plenary Panel.

Institutional Sponsors: USMC Alway Symposium for Jewish, Christian and Muslim Dialogue, Emmanuel College Centre for Religion and Its Contexts