Speakers, Faculty and Participants: Cengiz Aktar, Giuliano Amato, Karen Barkey, Shaul Bassi, Seyla Benhabib, Homi Bhabha, Jacqueline Bhabha, Enrico Biale, Murat Borovalı, Giancarlo Bosetti, Alessandra Bucossi, Marina Calloni, José Casanova, Alessandro Ferrara, Pasquale Ferrara, Pasquale Gagliardi, Simon Goldhill, Ahmet İnsel, Volker Kaul, Jonathan Laurence, Tiziana Lippiello, Stephen Macedo, Liav Orgad, David Rasmussen, Massimo Raveri, Antonio Rigopoulos, Tatjana Sekulić, Federico Squarcini, Nayla Tabbara, Francesca Tarocco, Diego von Vacano, Pei Wang, Ogan Yumlu, Ida Zilio Grandi.

Cengiz Aktar is adjunct professor of political science at the University of Athens and a Senior Scholar at Istanbul Policy Center. He used to be one of the leading advocates of Turkey’s integration into the EU. More recently in December 2008, he developed the idea of an online apology campaign addressed to Armenians and supported by a number of Turkish intellectuals in Turkey.  Aktar works on policies of memory regarding ethnic and religious minorities in Turkey, on history of political centralism and as a former director at the United Nations on international refugee law.  He has published ten books and numerous articles in Turkey and abroad. His latest book in Turkish is a handbook on decentralization (2014).  He is a member and/or advisor to the French periodical La Revue du Mauss, the Turkish ecological NGO Buğday, the Hrant Dink Foundation and the Aladin Project. He is also a reviewer for the European Commission, DG Research.

Giuliano Amato is a Judge of the Constitutional Court of Italy, since September 2013. He served as Secretary of the Treasury in Italy and was the Italian Prime Minister in 1992-93 and in 2000-01. From 2006 to 2008 he served as the Minister of the Interior. He was the vice-chairman of the Convention for the European Constitution. He has chaired the Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani and the Center for American Studies in Rome. A Professor of Law in several Italian universities and abroad, he has written books and articles on the economy and public institutions, European antitrust, personal liberties, comparative government, European integration and humanities. He has served as the Chair of Reset-DoC’s scientific committee from 2003 to 2013.

Karen Barkey is Professor of Sociology and Haas Distinguished Chair of Religious Diversity at Berkeley, University of California. She got a M.A. degree from The University of Washington and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Karen Barkey has been engaged in the comparative and historical study of the state, with special focus on its transformation over time. She has focused on state society relations, peasant movements, banditry, opposition and dissent organized around the state. Her work Empire of Difference (,2008) is a comparative study of the flexibility and longevity of imperial systems. Karen Barkey is now engaged in different projects on religion and toleration. She has written on the early centuries of Ottoman state toleration and is now exploring different ways of understanding how religious coexistence, toleration and sharing occurred in different historical sites under Ottoman rule. She published an edited book, Choreography of Sacred Spaces: State, Religion and Conflict Resolution (with Elazar Barkan) (2014) that explores the history of shared religious spaces in the Balkans, Anatolia and Palestine/Israel, all three regions once under Ottoman rule.

Shaul Bassi is associate professor of English literature. He graduated from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, studied at Berkeley and Liverpool, and earned his Ph.D. from the Universities of Pisa and Florence. His research, teaching and publications are divided between Shakespeare, postcolonial theory and literature (India and Africa) and Jewish studies. He has taught at Wake Forest University-Venice, Venice International University, Harvard-Ca’Foscari summer school and has been visiting professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He is the founder of the international literary festival Incroci di civiltà. He is the director of the International Center for the Humanities and Social Change at Ca’Foscari.

Seyla Benhabib is Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University and Director of its Program in Ethics, Politics and Economics and serves as the current President of Reset DOC’s Scientific Committee. She has been awarded with the Ernst Bloch Prize in Ludwigshafen, one of Germany’s most distinguished philosophical honors. . She has been awarded the Ernst Bloch Prize in 2009 and the Meister Eckhart Price in 2014. Her research ranges from discussions of communicative ethics, to democracy and difference, to identities, allegiances and affinities, and gender, citizenship and immigration. Among her recent publications are The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era (2002), The Rights of Others. Aliens, Citizens and Residents (2004) and Another Cosmopolitanism: Hospitality, Sovereignty and Democratic Iterations, with responses by Jeremy Waldron, Bonnie Honig and Will Kymlicka (2006), Politics in Dark Times. Encounters with Hannah Arendt (2010), Dignity in Adversity. Human Rights in Troubled Times (2011) and forthcoming Exile, Statelessness, and Migration: Playing Chess with History from Hannah Arendt to Isaiah Berlin.

Homi Bhabha is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of English and American Literature and Languages, Director of the Mahindra Humanities Center, and Senior Advisor to the President and Provost at Harvard University. He is the author of numerous works exploring postcolonial theory, cultural change and power, contemporary art, and cosmopolitanism, including Nation and Narration, and The Location of Culture, which was reprinted as a Routledge Classic in 2004. His forthcoming books: A Global Measure,The Right to Narrate, and a book on contemporary art. His honours include the Padma Bhushan award, a prestigious award from the Republic of India that recognizes outstanding contribution in literature and education (2012); the Humboldt Research Prize (2015), and honorary degrees from Université Paris 8, University College London, and the Free University Berlin. Professor Bhabha is a member of the Academic Committee for the Shanghai Power Station of Art, and the Mobilising the Humanities Initiating Advisory Board (British Council). He is an advisor on the Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives (C-MAP) project at the Museum of Modern Art New York, a Trustee of the UNESCO World Report on Cultural Diversity, and the Curator in Residence of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Jacqueline Bhabha is a Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is also the Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School, and Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is the Director of Research at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard’s only university wide Human Rights research center. From 1997 to 2001 Bhabha founded and directed the Human Rights Program at the University of Chicago. Prior to 1997, she was a practicing human rights lawyer in London and at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. She has published extensively on issues of transnational child migration, refugee protection, children’s rights and citizenship. She is the author of Child Migration & Human Rights in a Global Age (2014), the editor of Children Without A State (2011), and of Human Rights and Adolescence (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014). Her current research focuses on adolescents at risk of violence, social exclusion or discrimination. She is actively engaged in several research projects in India, examining the factors that drive access of low caste girls from illiterate families to higher education, and that transform gender norms among children and adolescents. She also works on similar issues within the Roma community in Europe.  Bhabha serves on the board of the Scholars at Risk Network, the World Peace Foundation and the Journal of Refugee Studies.Homi Bhabha is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of English and American Literature and Languages, Director of the Mahindra Humanities Center, and Senior Advisor to the President and Provost at Harvard University. He is the author of numerous works exploring postcolonial theory, cultural change and power, contemporary art, and cosmopolitanism, including Nation and Narration, and The Location of Culture, which was reprinted as a Routledge Classic in 2004. His forthcoming books: A Global Measure,The Right to Narrate, and a book on contemporary art. His honours include the Padma Bhushan award, a prestigious award from the Republic of India that recognizes outstanding contribution in literature and education (2012); the Humboldt Research Prize (2015), and honorary degrees from Université Paris 8, University College London, and the Free University Berlin. Professor Bhabha is a member of the Academic Committee for the Shanghai Power Station of Art, and the Mobilising the Humanities Initiating Advisory Board (British Council). He is an advisor on the Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives (C-MAP) project at the Museum of Modern Art New York, a Trustee of the UNESCO World Report on Cultural Diversity, and the Curator in Residence of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Enrico Biale is the senior scientific coordinator of ResetDOC and Research Fellow at the Department of Humanities of the University of Piemonte Orientale. His research interests are normative democratic theory, multiculturalism, and justice in immigration. On these topics he published on many international journals, among which Res Publica and Critical Review of International, Social and Political Philosophy. He recently edited with Anna Elisabetta Galeotti and Federica Liveriero Democracy and Diversity (Routledge 2019). He teaches Political Philosophy at the University of Piemonte Orientale and Political Sociology at the University of Genova.

Murat Borovali is Professor of Politics at the Department of International Relations at Istanbul Bilgi University and member of the advisory board of Reset DOC. He holds a PhD in political philosophy from University of Manchester. Among his recent publications are ‘Turkey’s “liberal” liberals’ in Philosophy and Social Criticism (2017), “Turkish Secularism and Islam: A Difficult Dialogue with the Alevis”, in Philosophy & Social Criticism (2014), “Islamic Headscarves and Slippery Slopes”, in Cardozo Law Review (2009), “A Legitimate Restriction of Freedom? The issue of the headscarf in Turkey,” in E. F. Keyman (ed.), Remaking Turkey: Globalization, Alternative Modernities and Democracy (2006), ‘John Rawls ve Siyaset Felsefesi’ (John Rawls and Political Philosophy, 2003). 

Giancarlo Bosetti is the Director and one of the founders of Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations. He is the editor-in-chief of the online journal www.resetdoc.org and of Reset, a cultural magazine he founded in 1993. He was vice-editor-in-chief of the Italian daily L’Unità. He is currently a columnist for the Italian daily La Repubblica and has taught at University La Sapienza and University Roma Tre. Among his books La lezione di questo secolo (a book-interview with Karl Popper, 2001), Cattiva maestra televisione (with essays by Karl Popper, John Condry and Pope John Paul II, 2002), Il Fallimento dei laici furiosi (2009). He edited the volume Omnia mutantur. La scoperta filosofica del pluralismo culturale (2013).

Alessandra Bucossi is tenure-track assistant professor of Byzantine Civilisation at the Department of Humanities of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. From 2001 to 2005 she worked on her doctoral thesis at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Prof. Elizabeth Mary Jeffreys. In 2005 she discussed her doctoral thesis with Prof. Paul Magdalino as external examiner. In 2006 she attended a master funded by the ESF, organized by Sviluppo Italia in collaboration with SDA Bocconi, in management of local development and territorial marketing, which allowed her to work for two years at a local development agency, where she managed cultural European projects. From 2007 to 2008 she was a Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, Research Library and Collection – Trustee of Harvard University in Washington, D.C. From 2008 to 2011 she was research fellow in Sweden, Stockholms Universitet, as a core member of the interdisciplinary project entitled Ars edendi, funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. In 2009 she obtained the Diploma in Greek Paleography at the Vatican School of Greek Paleography. From 2011 to 2014 she was research and teaching fellow at King’s College London (GB), where she taught four courses (Greek Paleography and textual criticism, History of the Church, History of the Byzantine presence in Italy, Introduction to Byzantine Studies). Since 2014 she is the principal investigator of a research project funded by the Italian Ministry of Education (Futuro In Ricerca 2013) at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, where she teaches Byzantine History and Greek Paleography.

Marina Calloni is Professor of Social and Political Philosophy at the State University of Milano-Bicocca and member of the advisory board of Reset DOC. Before she was professor at the universities of Bremen, Vienna and Lugano as well as senior researcher at the London School of Economics and Fulbright distinguished chair at the University of Notre Notre Dame (USA). Since 2007 she is a component of the Inter-ministerial Committee for Human Rights (CIDU), based at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome. From 2007 to 2010 she was member of the management board of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (based in Vienna) as representative for Italy and director of the «International Network for Research in Gender». Her research interests are human rights, a critque of violence and theories of democracy. Among her last books: A. Saarinen & M. Calloni (eds.), Women Immigrants as constructers of a New Europe. Gender Experiences and Perspectives in European Trans-regions (2012), Y.Galligan, S.Clavero, M.Calloni, Gender Politics and Democracy in Post-socialist Europe (2008).

José Casanova is a professor in the Departments of Sociology and Theology at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Berkley Center, where his work focuses on globalization, religions, and secularization. He is also member of the advisory board of Reset DOC. During 2017 he is the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the North at the U.S. Library of Congress’ John W. Kluge Center, where he is writing a book manuscript on Early Modern Globalization through a Jesuit Prism. He has published works on a broad range of subjects, including religion and globalization, migration and religious pluralism, transnational religions, and sociological theory. His best-known work, Public Religions in the Modern World (1994), has become a modern classic in the field and has been translated into several languages, including Japanese, Arabic, and Turkish. In 2012, Casanova was awarded the Theology Prize from the Salzburger Hochschulwochen in recognition of his life-long achievement in the field of theology.

Alessandro Ferrara is Professor of Political Philosophy and Director of the Center for the Study of Post-Secular Society (CSPS) at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, as well as former President of the Italian Association of Political Philosophy. He is also member of the advisory board of Reset DOC Recently he has published Rousseau and Critical Theory (2017) and The Democratic Horizon. Hyperpluralism and the Renewal of Political Liberalism (2014). Among his recent articles: “Can political liberalism help us rescue ‘the people’ from populism?”, in Philosophy & Social Criticism (2018); “Deconstructing the Deconstruction of the Law”, in D.Owen (ed.), Law and Violence. Christoph Menke in Dialogue (2018); “Exemplarity in the Public Realm”, in Law & Literature (2017); “Constitution and Context”, in Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies (2016). He has also published on topics as judgment and exemplarity as sources of normativity, critical theory, the relevance of reflective judgment in political philosophy, expanding the Rawlsian paradigm of political liberalism, religion in a post-secular society.

Pasquale Ferrara is an Italian diplomat with vast experience (at the moment, he is the Ambassador of Italy in Algeria). Since 1984, he engaged in both bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, having served in the US, Brussels (EU), Greece and Chile. He was also Secretary General of the European University Institute in Florence.  His areas of specialization are Theory and Practice of Contemporary Diplomacy, Negotiation and Mediation, Religions and International Relations, Mediterranean Studies, European Integration and Peace Studies. He teaches various courses on Diplomacy and Negotiation at LUISS (Rome) and at the University Institute “Sophia” near Florence. As Director of the Policy Planning at the MFA, he launched a new program on Religion and International Relations. His latest books are on “Global Religions and International Relations” and on Pope Francis’ international profile.

Nina zu Fürstenberg is the founder and Chair of Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations Foundation. She has been focusing for years on the study of Islam and on the promotion of intercultural dialogue, both working as a journalist for the cultural magazine «Reset». She edited Euro-Islam. L’integrazione mancata by Bassam Tibi,  Lumi dell’Islam. Nove intellettuali musulmani parlano di libertà and Europa laica e puzzle religioso with Krzysztof Michalski. She is the author of Chi ha paura di Tariq Ramadan. L’Europa di fronte al riformismo islamico, translated in German version (2008).

Patrizio Fondi has been Ambassador of the European Union to the United Arab Emirates since 06/09/2015. Amb. Fondi has a 30 years experience serving different roles in the Italian diplomacy. Previously he was Ambassador of Italy to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and  Diplomatic Advisor of the Italian Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities. He also served as Deputy Permanent Representative of Italy to UNESCO and BIE (Bureau International des Expositions) in Paris. He worked as well in the Italian  Diplomatic Missions  in Tirana, New York ( United Nations) and Stockholm. At the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome he served in the Directorate General for Cultural Promotion and Cooperation, in the Directorate General for Political Affairs and in the Department for Development Cooperation. He was decorated with the Official Knight of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy (2004), with the Order of the Polar Star of the Kingdom of Sweden (2008) and with the Grand Cordon of the Order of Istqlal of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan ( 2015).

Pasquale Gagliardi is Secretary-General of Cini Foundation since 2002. Since 1986 he has been Professor of the Sociology of Organizations at the Faculty of Political Sciences at the Catholic University, Milan. Gagliardi has contributed to the international spread of the use of cultural and social anthropology in studying the issues faced by companies and contemporary institutions. On this subject he has published articles, essays and books both in Italy and abroad; the best-known is Le imprese come culture (1986). He is a member of the editorial board of Organization and Organization Studies, and a member of the scientific committee of AICIS- Åland International Institute of Comparative Island Studies.

Simon Goldhill is the director of CRASSH, Professor in Greek Literature and Culture and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. His appointment in 2011 coincided with the Centre’s move to the Alison Richard Building and its 10th anniversary. Simon’s research interests include: Greek Tragedy, Greek Culture, Literary Theory, Later Greek Literature, and Reception. His latest book is Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity: Art, Opera, Fiction, and the Proclamation of Modernity. He directs the ERC-funded project: the Bible and Antiquity in Nineteenth-Century Culture.

Ahmet İnsel is a former faculty member of Galatasaray University in Istanbul, Turkey, and Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne University, France. He is Managing Editor of the Turkish editing house Iletisim and member of the editorial board of the monthly review Birikim. He is a regular columnist at Cumhuriyet newspaper and an author who has published several books and articles in both Turkish and French. His latest book in French: La Nouvelle Turquie d’Erdogan? Du rêve démocratique à la dérive autoritaire (2017).

Volker Kaul is Research and Teaching Fellow at the Center for Ethics and Global Politics at LUISS University in Rome and lecturer at the CEA Rome Center. Moreover, he works as scientific coordinator of the Istanbul/Venice Seminars for Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations. His work focuses on the possibility of emancipation. In this regard, he works on the concepts of identity, agency, autonomy, self-knowledge, recognition and culture. He published together with Seyla Benhabib a book entitled Toward New Democratic Imaginaries – Istanbul Seminars on Islam, Culture and Politics for Springer. Together with David Rasmussen and Alessandro Ferrara he is editing the yearly special issues of Philosophy & Social Criticism on the Istanbul Seminars since 2010. He is currently also editing together with Ananya Vajpeyi a book on Populism and Minorities based upon the Venice-Padua-Delhi Seminars 2014 and with Ingrid Salvatore a volume on What is Pluralism? The Question of Pluralism in Politics for Routledge in its book series “Ethics, Human Rights and Global Political Thought”.

Jonathan Laurence, Associate Professor of Political Science at Boston College and member of the advisory board of Reset DOC, researches and writes about European politics, transatlantic relations and Islam in the West. Currently on sabbatical from Boston College, he is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution (Washington, DC) and Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations (New York City). He was the Daimler Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin in Fall 2012 and guest researcher at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin. Laurence is the author of The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims (2012) and the co-author of Integrating Islam (2006).

Tiziana Lippiello, is Vice Rector of Ca’ Foscari University and Professor of Classical Chinese, Religions and Philosophy of China at the Department of Asian and North African Studies, Ca’ Foscari University. She is also member of the advisory board of Reset DOC. She has been Head of the Department of Asian and North African Studies (2011- 2014) and Head of the Department of East Asian Studies (2009- 2011) at Ca’ Foscari University. From 2008 to 2011 she has been Delegate for the relations with the International Institutions in Venice and from 2006 to 2011 Member of the Board of Directors of Venice International University. Amongst other she published the book Il confucianesimo (2010) and Auspicious Omens and Miracles in Ancient China. Han, Three Kingdoms and Six Dynasties (2001) and “Why was Shen Yue so Fond of Auspicious Signs” in S. Katz, “Divination and the Strange” (forthcoming). Professor Lippiello is also Director of the Series La fenice, Classici cinesi, Marsilio Editore Venezia, Director of the Series Sinica venetiana, Edizioni Ca’ Foscari and in the Academic Board of the Collegio Internazionale Ca’ Foscari. She is also Coordinator of the Project RobinBA (The Role of books in non bibliometric areas), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Macerata University, University of South Brittany, sponsored by ANVUR.

Stephen Macedo is Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. He is also member of the advisory board of Reset DOC. From 2001-2009, he was Director of the University Center for Human Values. He writes and teaches on political theory, ethics, public policy, and law, especially on topics related to liberalism, democracy and citizenship, diversity and civic education, religion and politics, and the family and sexuality. He recently published Just Married: Same-Sex Couples, Monogamy, and the Future of Marriage (2015). As vice president of the American Political Science Association, he was first chair of its standing committee on Civic Education and Engagement and principal co-author of Democracy at Risk: How Political Choices Undermine Citizen Participation, and What We Can Do About It (2005). His other books include Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy (2000); and Liberal Virtues: Citizenship, Virtue, and Community in Liberal Constitutionalism (1990)

Liav Orgad is the Director of the ‘Global Citizenship Law’ Project at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute (EUI); the Head of the Research Group ‘International Citizenship Law’ at WZB Berlin Social Science Center, and Associate Professor at Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, Israel. In recent years, Orgad was a Fellow-in-Residence at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, a Visiting Professor at Columbia Law School, a Marie Curie Fellow at Freie Universität Berlin, a Fulbright Scholar at NYU Law School, and a Jean-Monnet Fellow at the EUI. He is a Member of the Global Young Academy, where he heads the Working Group ‘Global Migration and Human Rights,’ the author of The Cultural Defense of Nations: A Liberal Theory of Majority Rights (2016), and the recipient of the Eric Stein Prize for ‘best scholarly article’ by the American Society for Comparative Law (2011). His research project funded by an ERC Starting Grant on ‘Global Citizenship Law’ advances the establishment of a new subfield in international law—International Citizenship Law (ICIL)—which would regulate nationality law; it explores the idea of ‘blockchain membership’ and matching algorithm for citizenship and invites us to challenge our understanding of citizenship in the age of global economy, technology, and mobility.

Massimo Raveri is Professor of East Asian Religions and Philosophies at Ca’ Foscari University. Anthropologist, he specialized in the field of Japanese Religions at the Research Institute for Humanistic Studies of the University of Kyoto and at the Institute of Social Anthropology of the University of Oxford. From 1976 onwards, in different years, he did his researches in Japan. He studied the Shinto tradition, focusing his analysis on the communal rituals connected with rice culture. He studied also the ideas of death and the visions of afterlife in Asian shamanic practices and the ascetic search for immortality in the Buddhist esoteric tradition. More recently, he is doing research on the new forms of faith and the media languages in contemporary society. From 2013 the has organized and directed two European Research Projects, on The Intercultural Education through Religious Studies and on The Study of Religions against Prejudices and Stereotypes. His most recent publications are: Il pensiero giapponese classico, Einaudi 2015, and Death and Desire in Contemporary Japan, edited with A. De Antoni (2017).

Antonio Rigopoulos (Ph.D. University of California, Santa Barbara) is Full Professor of Indology at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy. His main fields of research are: the ascetic and devotional traditions of medieval and modern Maharashtra (with special focus on the Datta-sampradaya); annotated translation of Sanskrit texts on renunciation and bhakti; the guru institute; termite mound mythologies; modern Hindu hagiographies and hagiographers. Among his publications are: The Life and Teachings of Sai Baba of Shirdi (1993); Dattātreya: The Immortal Guru, Yogin, and Avatāra. A Study of the Transformative and Inclusive Character of a Multi-Faceted Hindu Deity (1998); Hindūismo (Queriniana, Brescia, 2005); The Mahānubhāvs (2005); Guru. Il fondamento della civiltà dell’India (2009); “The Construction of a Cultic Center through Narrative: The Founding Myth of the Village of Puttaparthi and Sathya Sāī Bābā,” History of Religions 54, no. 2 (2014): 117-50. He has authored the entries Maharashtra, Dattātreya, Vibhūti, and Shirdi Sai Baba in the Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism, vols. 1, 5 (2009, 2013).

David Rasmussen is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College and Honorary President of the Center for Ethics and Global Politics of LUISS University. His fields of interest are contemporary continental philosophy, social and political philosophy. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of Philosophy & Social Criticism. His books include: Reading Habermas; Universalism vs. Communitarianism in Ethics; Handbook of Critical Theory; Jürgen Habermas: The Foundations of the Habermas Project; Jürgen Habermas: Law and Politics; Jürgen Habermas: Ethics; Jürgen Habermas: Epistemology and Truth; Critical Theory Vol. I-IV. He currently prepares a book on John Rawls. He is a member of the advisory board of Reset DOC.

Tatjana Sekulić is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Milan-Bicocca, where she taught Political Sociology of Europe and Sociology of Education. Main fields of her research: European integration in polycentric perspective; new wars and contemporary conflicts; crimes of war and genocide studies; democratic transition of post-totalitarian regimes and new forms of totalitarianism; political culture; higher education structural and institutional transformation. Director of the International Summer School “Rethinking the Culture of Tolerance” (1° edition 2014-2016; 2° edition 2017-2019). Member of the Doctoral Program URBEUR-Urban Studies, University of Milan-Bicocca. She published several studies as “Constituting the social basis of the EU. Reflections from the European margins”, PACO Volume 9(2) 2016. “Harmonization in Turbolent Times: Western Balkans’ Accession to the European Union” Sarajevo Social Science Review, Vol. 5, n.1-2/2016. “Rethinking the culture of tolerance”, Dijalog – Journal for Philosophy and Social Theory Vol. 1-2/2016. Sekulić T. “Bosnia Erzegovina, l’Unione Europea e l’arte di vivere insieme. Sul ventennio degli Accordi di Dayton” in Motta G. (2017) Balcani e Europa a vent’anni dagli Accordi di Dayton, Roma: Aracne editrice.

Federico Squarcini (PhD. in ‘Social and Historical Studies of Religions’ from the University of Bologna), is Associate Professor of ‘South Asian Religions and Philosophies’ and ‘Indology’ at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. At the same University he is directing the ‘Master in Yoga Studies’ program. He has been teaching History of Religions at the University of Florence, Indology at the University of Bologna and Indology at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’. He is author and editor of different volumes, like Patanjali Yogasutra (2015), Forme della norma (2012), Il trattato di Manu sulla norma (2010), Tradition, Veda and Law (2008), Yoga. Fra storia, salute e mercato (2008), Ex Oriente Lux, Luxus, Luxuria. Storia e sociologia delle tradizioni religiose sudasiatiche in Occidente (2006) and Boundaries, Dynamics and Construction of Traditions (2005).

Kazuko Suzuki (Ph.D. Princeton) is currently a Visiting Associate Professor of Sociology at Yale University and is an affiliated faculty member in the Program of Ethnicity, Race and Migration. She is also an Associate Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University. Previously, she lectured at the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute  at Columbia University. She specializes in International Migration, Race and Ethnic Relations, Gender and Sexuality, and East Asian (Japanese) Studies. Her research interests include: modes of incorporation and immigrant adaptation from an international comparative perspective; historical and regional analysis of ‘race’ beyond the Western paradigm, as well as cross-disciplinary analysis of ‘race’; human trafficking in women to the U.S. and Japan; and gender and sexuality in Japanese popular culture media. Her recent publication includes: Divided Fates: The State, Race, and Korean Immigrants’ Adaptation in Japan and the United States (2016), A Critical Assessment of Comparative Sociology of Race and Ethnicity (Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 2017), and Reconsidering Race: Social Science Perspectives on Racial Categories in the Age of Genomics (2018, coedited with Diego von Vacano).

Nayla Tabbara is the director of the Institute of Citizenship and Diversity Management at Adyan Foundation and the vice chair of Adyan Foundation, recipient of the Niwano Peace Prize of 2018. She holds a doctorate in Religious studies from the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Sorbonne, Paris) and Saint Joseph University (Beirut, Lebanon) and is a university professor of religious and Islamic studies. She has published in the fields of Islamic theology and other religions; education on interreligious and intercultural diversity; and Qur’anic exegesis and Sufism. In addition, she works on curricula development (formal and non-formal) for multifaith education and intercultural citizenship. Her publications include Divine Hospitality: Christian and Muslim Theologies of the Other (2011, co-author with Fadi Daou; in Arabic and French, 2013, English and German in 2016 ); What About the Other? A Question for Intercultural Education in the 21st Century (editor, 2012); and the UNESCO publication, Christianity & Islam in the Context of Contemporary Culture (2009, co-editor with Dimitri Spivak). Dr. Tabbara has also participated in numerous research projects and gives frequent interviews for numerous international media outlets, both print and television.

Francesca Tarocco obtained her PhD in Chinese History and Buddhist Studies at SOAS, University of London. She was a Leverhulme Fellow and Lecturer in Buddhist Studies at the University of Manchester and an Associate Professor of Buddhist Cultures and affiliated faculty of the Center for Global Asia at NYU Shanghai. She is the author of The Cultural Practices of Modern Chinese Buddhism, Routledge 2011 [2008], and of the forthcoming The Re-enchantment of Modernity, Buddhism, Photography and Chinese History.  She has published, among other topics, on media and visual culture, materiality, sacred space, and the genealogy of the term religion in China and East Asia. She recently edited the special issue “Buddhists and the Making of Modern Chinese Societies” for the Journal of Global Buddhism (2017) and serves as China editor for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Tarocco is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies (China) at Cà Foscari University of Venice and a Visiting Associate Professor of Buddhist Cultures at NYU Shanghai.

Diego von Vacano is the Editor of the Oxford University Press book series Studies in Comparative Political Theory. During 2017-2018 he is Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University on a Presidential Visiting Fellowship. He has been a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He was also a Member of the School of Social Science of the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, NJ, during 2008-2009. He is the author of The Color of Citizenship: Race, Modernity and Latin American/Hispanic Political Thought (2012) and The Art of Power: Machiavelli, Nietzsche and the Making of Aesthetic Political Theory (2006), as well as of various articles, including a piece on “The Scope of Comparative Political Theory” for the Annual Review of Political Science in 2015. He received his doctorate in Politics from Princeton University and his master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University. He also studied in the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan University. Von Vacano’s teaching and research interests are in political theory, political philosophy and the history of political thought. He works mainly in Comparative Political Theory (modern Latin American and European political thought) and also in immigration ethics and race & ethnicity. The authors he focuses on are Machiavelli, Las Casas, Nietzsche, Bolivar, and Vasconcelos.

Pei Wang is a Postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. She graduated from the department of philosophy in Tsinghua with a joint Ph.D at Université Paris I. Dissertation Title: “A Study of Eros and individuation in Levinas’ Early Philosophy”. Published several essays on Levinas, political philosophy, and intellectual history in Chinese and English.

Ogan Yumlu is a lecturer at the Department of International Relations, Istanbul Bilgi University. He received MA and PhD degrees in Political Science from Uppsala and Istanbul Bilgi University respectively. His research interests include contemporary political philosophy, normative democratic theory, constitutionalism and legitimacy of judicial review.

Ida Zilio-Grandi teaches Arabic Language and Islamology at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. She is the author of Il Corano e il male (2002); Una corrispondenza islamo-cristiana sull’origine divina dell’Islam (2004); Il Viaggio Notturno e l’Ascensione del Profeta nel racconto di Ibn ʿAbbās (E2010); and of the complete translation of the Qur’an (Il Corano, Mondadori, 2010). She is the editor of the Italian edition of the Dictionnaire du Coran by M. A. Amir-Moezzi (2007). From 2015, she is member of the Committee of Islam in Italy, at the Interior Ministry, Rome.