Biodiversity Conservation and Animal Rights: Religious and Philosophical Perspectives ►21-22.03.2012

Centre of Jaina Studies

Various Speakers:	(see: Programme)
Date:	21 March 2012 Time: 10:00 AM
Finishes:	22 March 2012 Time: 5:00 PM
Venue:	Brunei Gallery Room: Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, London, UK
Type of Event:	Symposium
Organiser:	SOAS Centre of Jaina Studies
Contact:	Tel: 020 7898 4892/3

This symposium addresses the lack of public reflection on the value and the limitations of received religious paradigms and intellectual habits across cultures concerning the welfare of animals and plants by opening up a new dialogue between thinkers and activists from different religious and philosophical backgrounds on the global problem of biodiversity conservation and animal welfare.

The call for action countering the accelerating speed of human destruction of the natural conditions of humanity's own existence has become a common place. Equally familiar is the shrugging of shoulders that nothing can be done about it because destructive habits are rooted not only in industrially magnified greed but in culture if not in human biology and hence are difficult to change.

Yet, human feelings and attitudes towards animals and other forms of non-human life vary greatly across cultures and time and are changeable. The continuing cultural influence of religious and philosophical reflection on human behaviour cannot be underestimated, and is here, at the doctrinal roots of widespread habits and customs, that a fruitful debate on conditions and prospects for attitudinal change may be engendered. 

At this time of rapid globalisation, worldwide environmental destruction and palpable existential uncertainty, few universally oriented deliberations on practical ethics across religious and cultural boundaries are on record. To the contrary, the lamented process of universal self-destruction is defended in the name of a combination of pragmatic necessity and entrenched value orientations and habits.

This symposium provides a forum for discussion and dialogue between distinguished scholars, activists, ethical and philosophical thinkers reflecting on the potential of existing cultural, religious and philosophical resources contributing to new trans-cultural orientations towards the preservation of human and non-human forms of life.

The meeting is held at the Brunei Gallery Auditorium at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, during the first days of Spring 2012, and will be open to and accessible by the general public. It is organised by the Centre of Jaina Studies, Department of the Study of Religions, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H OXG.

Programme

12th Annual Jaina Lecture: Mahavira, Don Quixote and the history of ecological ethics and idealism

The keynote lecture will be given by Michael Tobias.

Date: 21 March 2012 Time: 6:00 PM
Finishes: 21 March 2012 Time: 8:00 PM
Venue: Brunei Gallery
Room: Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre

Admission/Making a Donation

The symposium on 22 March 2012 is a free event; operated on a first come, first served basis. By making a donation you are guaranteed a seat. Donations will help cover the costs of the symposium and ensure its continuing success.  A minimum donation is £5 is required. 

Enquiries

Please contact Centres & Programmes Office, or Tel: 020 7898 4892

Programme^[1]

Professor Emeritus Dr Marc Bekoff (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder)
Who lives, who dies, and why: ignoring and redecorating nature and specious speciesism

Professor Dr Christopher Chapple (Department of Theological Studies, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles)
Animals in early India: stories from the Upaniṣads, the Jātakas, the Pañcatantra, and Jaina Narratives

Professor Emeritus Dr Stephen R.L. Clark (Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool and Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Theology, University of Bristol)
Imaging the divine: how is humanity the reason for creation, and what is humanity?

Professor Dr Lu Feng (Department of Philosophy, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing)
Reflections on Confucian perspectives on the global environmental crisis

Dr Peter Flügel (Chair, Centre of Jaina Studies, Department of the Study of Religions, SOAS)
Rethinking animism: the Jaina doctrine of non-violence from the perspective of comparative ethics

Professor Dr Andrew Linzey (Director, Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics)
Can Christianity become good news for animals?

Dr Sarra Tlili (Assistant Professor of Arabic, Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures, Gainesville, University of Florida)
If it got worse, it can get better: Muslims' attitudes toward animals between the past and the present

Dr Emma Tomalin (Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Leeds)
Religious discourses about the environment: resources for sustainable development or a modern-day myth?

Professor Dr Paul Waldau (Chair, Anthrozoology, Canisius College & Barker Lecturer in Animal Law, Harvard Law School)
Animal studies is the key of animal rights

Professor Dr Michael Zimmermann (Professor for Indian Buddhism, Head Asien-Afrika Institut, Hamburg University)
Anthropocentrism in the guise of an all-inclusive ethics? Buddhist attitudes to the natural world