Seminar in Interreligious Relations
Cambridge Interfaith Programme convenes a regular seminar on Inter-Religious Relations, under the direction of Professor Esra Özyürek. The range of speakers includes visiting scholars, guests, and researchers from the Faculty of Divinity. All are welcome to attend.
Seminars during 2025–2026 will begin at 13:00 Cambridge-time, unless otherwise advertised.
Members of the University may also join us on site in the Lightfoot Room at the Faculty of Divinity, West Road, CB3 9DP. Due to ongoing works that impact building accessibility, we recommend any non-University guests contact us in advance about attending on site in Cambridge.
Some seminars are available to audit on Zoom.
Seminars last up to 90 minutes, including discussion time. To accommodate those with other commitments, it is possible to leave after one hour without disrupting the session.
Upcoming
The detail of upcoming seminars can be found in our event listings.
Speakers in 2025–26 include Prof Dr Yvonne zu Dohna-Schlohbitten (Gregorian Pontifical University), Dr Joseph Powell (Cambridge), Dr Tom Ovens (Cambridge), Dr Marietta van der Tol (Cambridge), and Dr Iman Dawood (LSE).
Advance registration is required for online attendees. We recommend that visitors also notify us that you plan to attend.
Please see specific contact details in the event listings for further information.
Past Seminars
2025
Philippe Thalmann (University of Cambridge) | Salafism and social change in post-oil Saudi Arabia
Dr Christian Anderson (University of Cambridge) | Spirit maps and warfare prayers: Pentecostalised evangelical engagements with Islam in the 1990s
Esra Özyürek & others (University of Cambridge) | Insights on Islamophobia
András Pap (Eötvös University, Budapest) | Race, ethnicity, nationality, religion & the law
Stacey Gutkowski (Kings College London) | Political violence and meaning making
Aden Cotterill (University of Cambridge) | Pluralistic robust realism
Jacob Lypp, Tobias Müller and Esra Özyürek (LSE & University of Cambridge) | Muslim and Christian masculinities
2024
Dániel Péter Biró (Grieg Academy in Bergen) |The Ethica Composition Cycle after Baruch Spinoza
Giles Waller (University of Cambridge) | Scriptural Reasoning workshop
Dr Alyson Wharton (University of Lincoln) | Ottoman-Armenian architects and interfaith relations
Yoav Schaefer (Princeton University) | Reconsidering Kant’s Critique of Judaism
Paul Hedges (S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU, Singapore) | Are Jews Black?
Kaleem Hussain (University of Birmingham) | Alternative paradigms towards peace
Jeremy Fogel (Tel Aviv University) | Between Tahiti and Jerusalem
Ankur Barua (University of Cambridge) | In Vino Veritas
Yasmin Ilkhani (Aga Khan University) | The cultural adaptation of death pollution
2023
Hina Khalid (University of Cambridge) | Cosmic Circuitries of Relationality: The Imperative of 'Imitatio Dei' in the Thought of Muhammad Iqbal and Rabindranath Tagore
Anastasia Badder (Cambridge) | Continuity, change, and sharedness: constructing feelings of community through language practices in Jewish Europe
Robert D. Miller II (Catholic University of America) | One Psalm across five traditions (joint seminar at the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology)
Tim Jenkins (University of Cambridge) | ‘First Contact’: communication and its limits
John Walker (Birkbeck, University of London, and Cambridge) | Humboldt, translation, and dialogue between the peoples of the book
Delvyn Case (Wheaton College, Massachusetts) | Binding Isaac with Music: screening & discussion
Ozan Zakariya Keskinkiliç (Humboldt University Berlin) | Fear, Shame and Anger: How it feels for Muslims in Germany to be made a Problem
Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya (Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London) | Portuguese intercultural interactions in Asia
Daniel Weiss (University of Cambridge) | Early Rabbinic Judaism’s non-rejection of Logos theology
2022
Marie Chabbert (University of Cambridge) | Contemporary French Thought and the Definition of Religion
Esra Özyürek (University of Cambridge) | Shouldering Guilt, Cultivating Empathy: Holocaust memory in Muslim belonging in Germany
Vanessa Paloma Elbaz (University of Cambridge) | Land, Voice, Nation: The performance of Jewish-Muslim encounters through music in Morocco
Naomi Richman (University of Cambridge) | Seminar: Gender, power and submission in Nigerian Pentecostalism
Aslı Iğsız (New York University) | Neo-Ottomanism: From an imperial model for co-existence to a call for Muslim internationalism
2021
Glen Milstein (CUNY) | The utility of the ineffable: Lifespan development and public mental health applications of religion
Michael Stausberg (University of Bergen) | Mumbai taxis as spaces of religious encounter
Derviş Hızarcı (Alfred Landecker Foundation, Berlin) | Jewish-Muslim Alliances Combating Antisemitism and Islamophobia
Judith Frishman (Leiden University) |Rabbi Dr Samuel Hirsch's Judaism: between particularism and universalism