Dorianne Laux’s fifth collection, The Book of Men, was awarded The Paterson Prize. Her fourth book of poems, Facts About the Moon won The Oregon Book Award and was short-listed for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Laux is also the author of Awake; What We Carry, a finalist for the National Book Critic’s Circle Award; Smoke; as well as a fine small press edition, The Book of Women. She is the co-author of the celebrated text The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. Laux teaches poetry in the Program in Creative Writing at North Carolina State University and is a founding faculty member of Pacific University's Low Residency MFA Program. Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected, was released by W.W. Norton in early 2019.
Peter Laurence
Dr. Peter Laurence is executive director of the Education as Transformation Project at Wellesley College. He was the founder and director of the Westchester Interfaith Council in Westchester County, New York; executive director of the Temple of Understanding; national interreligious program officer for the National Conference of Christians and Jews; and developer of the U.S. Chapter for the World Conference on Religion and Peace. He has served as chair of the Board of the North American Interfaith Network and was a member of the Assembly of Religious and Spiritual Leaders for the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1993 and 1999. He was an advisor in the initial stages of those two Parliaments and in the formation of United Religions Initiative. Peter has written and edited numerous books, including Education as Transformation: Religious Pluralism, Spirituality, and a New Vision for Higher Education in America (2000). He serves on the editorial boards of the Religion and Education journal and the Journal of College and Character.
Phil Lane Jr.
Phil Lane Jr. is an enrolled member of the Yankton Dakota and Chickasaw First. National Indian Magazine named Phil named a Modern Indian Sports Great for his record-breaking accomplishments in track and wrestling in 1977. For 44 years, he has worked with Indigenous peoples in North, Central and South America, Micronesia, South East Asia, India, Hawaii, and Africa. For 16 years he taught at the University of Lethbridge, in Alberta, Canada. With elders from across North America, Phil co-founded the Four Worlds International Institute (FWII) in 1982.
Today he chairs the Four Directions International, an indigenous-owned economic development company incorporated in 1996, focusing on the importance of culture and spirituality in development. Phil is an award-winning author and film producer, whose credits include “Images of Indians, “Walking With Grandfather,” and “Healing the Hurts.” He has been honored by Indigenous elders as Hereditary Chief through a traditional headdress ceremony. He was the first indigenous person to receive the Windstar Award, and has been honored by the Foundation for Freedom and Human Rights, in Switzerland, and the Center for Healing Racism in Houston.
Yehezkel Landau
Yehezkel Landau is associate professor of Interfaith Relations at Hartford Seminary. After earning an A.B. from Harvard University (1971) and an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School (1976), Landau made aliyah (immigrated) to Israel in 1978. A dual Israeli-American citizen, his work has been in the fields of interfaith education and Jewish-Arab peacemaking. He directed the OZ veSHALOM-NETIVOT SHALOM religious peace movement in Israel during the 1980s. From 1991 to 2003, he was co-founder and co-director of the OPEN HOUSE Center for Jewish-Arab Coexistence in Ramle, Israel. He lectures internationally on Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations and Middle East peace issues, has authored numerous journal articles, co-edited the book Voices from Jerusalem: Jews and Christians Reflect on the Holy Land (Paulist Press, 1992), wrote a Jewish appraisal of Pope John Paul II’s trip to Israel and Palestine in 2000 for the book John Paul II in the Holy Land: in His Own Words (Paulist Press, 2005), and authored a research report entitled “Healing the Holy Land: Interreligious Peacebuilding in Israel/Palestine” for the United States Institute of Peace in 2003. At Hartford Seminary, Prof. Landau directs an interfaith training program for Jews, Christians, and Muslims called “Building Abrahamic Partnerships.”
Jerusha T. Lamptey
Jerusha T. Lamptey is Assistant Professor of Islam and Ministry at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. Her research focuses on theologies of religious pluralism, comparative theology, and Muslima theology.
Dr. Lamptey earned a Ph.D. in Theological and Religious Studies with a focus on Religious Pluralism at Georgetown University in 2011. She also received an M.A. in Islamic Sciences at the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, and an M.A. in Theological and Religious Studies at Georgetown University. Before joining the Union faculty in July of 2012, she was Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Theology at Georgetown University.
Dr. Lamptey’s first book, Never Wholly Other: A Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism (Oxford University Press, March 2014), explores the Qur’anic discourse on religious ‘otherness’. In this book, she draws upon feminist theology and semantic methodology to re-interpret the Qur’anic discourse and challenge notions of clear and static religious boundaries by distinguishing between and illuminating the complexity of multiple forms of religious difference.
Her current book project focuses on comparative feminist theology. In this project, she aims to articulate a comparative Muslima (Islamic feminist) theology in conversation with various Christian feminist theologians. While Islamic feminism has typically distanced itself from other ‘feminisms’ due to their entanglements with colonialism and imperialism, in this project she argues that comparative theological engagement is essential to the development of a Muslima theology that moves beyond exegetical and legal reformulation and toward constructive theology.
Her other publications focus on religious pluralism, Muslima theology, ecumenical relations, Vatican II, and African traditional religions. include “Embracing Relationality and Theological Tensions: Muslima Theology, Religious Diversity, and Fate” in Between Heaven and Hell: Islam, Salvation, and the Fate of Others (Oxford Univ. Press, 2013); “Lateral and Hierarchical Religious Difference in the Qur’an,” in Understanding Religious Pluralism (forthcoming 2013); “John Paul II and Islam” in The Interfaith Theology of John Paul II (forthcoming 2013); “From Sexual Difference to Religious Difference: Toward a Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism” in Muslima Theology: The Voices of Muslim Women Theologians (Peter Lang, 2013); “‘Mapping’ the Religious Other: The Second Vatican Council’s Approach to Protestantism,” (Journal of Ecumenical Studies 45:4 [Fall 2010]); and “Mysticism in African Thought” in New Dictionary of the History of Ideas (Scribner & Sons, 2004).
Suzy Lamoreaux
Suzy Lamoreaux is a recent graduate of Rutgers University. She became interested in religion, interfaith dialogue, and the role religions play in societies through her studies of history and French culture. Her undergraduate honors thesis researched the history of North African immigration in 1970s and 80s France, the effects of which have contributed to contemporary French Islamophobia. She gained first-hand knowledge of the issue as a mentor of Maghrebi youth in Paris. In her spare time, Suzy enjoys baking, playing and watching hockey, doing crossword puzzles, and running.
Gary Laderman
Gary Laderman is the chair of the Department of Religion, Emory University, professor of American Religious History and Cultures, and the editor of the publication Sacred Matters. Dr. Laderman is the author of Sacred Matters: Celebrity Worship, Sexual Ecstasies, the Living Dead, and Other Signs of Religious Life in the United States (2010). He is the author of two books on death in America: The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-1883 (1999) and Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America (2003). He has co-edited two encyclopedias, Religion and American Cultures: An Encyclopedia of Traditions, Diversity, and Popular Expressions (2003) and Science, Religion, Societies: Histories, Cultures, Controversies (2006). Laderman has been interviewed on topics ranging from death and funerals to horror films and televangelists in a variety of media, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and other newspapers and television programs. He writes for various publications, including Huffington Post.
In addition to serving as chairperson of the department, Laderman is a founder of the online religion magazine, Religion Dispatches. He is continuing to research, write, and teach on the sacred in American life generally, and is currently working on a book project exploring American religious history from a global perspective. He has received funding from the Lilly Endowment, Center for Theology and Natural Sciences, and the Ford Foundation. And he has organized numerous conferences at Emory University.
Fr. James Kurzynski
Fr. James Kurzynski is a priest of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin and a hobby astronomer. Originally from the small town of Amherst in rural central Wisconsin, Fr. James completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, majoring in Applied Music (Saxophone, Voice, and Composition). After graduating from UW-SP, Fr. James worked at the University of Nebraska at Kearney as a Hall Director and pursued an M.S.Ed. in Group Counseling. After a year at UNK, Fr. James left his position to attend the University of Saint Mary of the Lake - Mundelein Seminary to discern his priestly vocation. He was ordained in 2003 and is currently the pastor of Saint Joseph Parish in Menomonie, Wisconsin and Saint Luke Parish in Boyceville, Wisconsin. In addition to these assignments, Fr. James is also the Chaplain of StoutCatholic, a student outreach organization to the students of the University of Wisconsin–Stout, and teaches Philosophy for the Diocese of La Crosse’s Permanent Deaconate Program.
Tom Krattenmaker
Tom Krattenmaker is a Portland-based writer specializing in religion in public life and author of the award-winning Onward Christian Athletes (2009), on Christianity in professional sports. Krattenmaker’s second book, The Evangelicals You Don’t Know (2013), was released in April 2013.
Krattenmaker writes regularly for USA Today’s op-ed page as a member of the newspaper’s editorial Board of Contributors. His column-writing was honored by the American Academy of Religion in its 2009 Journalism Awards program, receiving praise for challenging popular misconceptions about evangelicals “and showing that something new, something more complex and subtle is going on — a great goal for religion commentary.” His work has also appeared in recent years in Salon, the Los Angeles Times, the Oregonian, Beliefnet, the Huffington Post, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. His numerous media appearances include National Public Radio, the New York Times “Idea of the Day” website, and ESPN’s “Outside the Lines.”
Krattenmaker was a presenter at the 2010 and 2013 “Q” gatherings and the 2010 conference of the American Humanist Association. Named the 2009 Mendenhall Lecturer at DePauw University, Krattenmaker has also spoken at college campuses including Georgetown, Baylor, Lewis & Clark, Willamette University Law School, the University of Portland, Portland State University, Missouri State University, and Springfield, Swarthmore, and Haverford Colleges. He was a recipient of the 2009 “Friend of MET” award from the Portland-based Muslim Educational Trust and, this year, the Hunderup Award for religious education from the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon.
Jennifer Kogan
Jennifer Kogan is a clinical social worker and writer who helps parents identify and create what is meaningful to them so they can feel more connected and joyful. She offers individual, couple, and family counseling and support in her Washington DC practice. Jen is a mom of two school-age children and is one half of an interfaith couple herself. Check here for more about her work and writing.
Paul F. Knitter
Paul F. Knitter, Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture at Union Theological Seminary since 2007, is a leading theologian of religious pluralism. He holds a licentiate from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and a doctorate from the University of Marburg, Germany. Knitter’s journey into interfaith dialogue began in 1964 when he was a seminarian in Rome and experienced the Second Vatican Council firsthand, as the Roman Catholic Church declared its new attitude towards other religions.
Most of Dr. Knitter’s research and publications have dealt with religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue. Since his ground-breaking 1985 book, No Other Name?, he has been exploring how the religious communities of the world can cooperate in promoting human and ecological well-being. This is the topic of One Earth Many Religions: Multifaith Dialogue and Global Responsibility (1995) and Jesus and the Other Names: Christian Mission and Global Responsibility (1996), and his critical survey of Christian approaches to other religions:Introducing Theologies of Religions(Orbis Books, 2002). In 2005, Knitter edited a multifaith exploration titledThe Myth of Religious Superiority(Orbis Books). His latest publication is Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian: A Personal Journey of Passing Over and Passing Back(Oneworld Publications, 2009).
Steven Knapp
Steven Knapp became the sixteenth president of the George Washington University in August 2007. His priorities include enhancing the university’s partnerships with neighboring institutions, expanding the scope of its research, strengthening its worldwide community of alumni, enlarging its students’ opportunities for public service, and leading its transformation into a model of urban sustainability.
Dr. Knapp serves on the boards of the Economic Club of Washington; the Greater Washington Board of Trade; the Greater Washington Urban League; the World Affairs Council-Washington, DC; the National Symphony Orchestra; the Washington National Cathedral Foundation; and Al Akhawayan University in Ifrane, Morocco. He is chair of the Atlantic 10 Conference Council of Presidents. He also serves on the executive committee of the Council on Competitiveness, and the jobs committee of the Federal City Council.
A specialist in Romanticism, literary theory, and the relation of literature to philosophy and religion, Dr. Knapp taught English literature at the University of California, Berkeley before serving as dean of arts and sciences and then provost of Johns Hopkins University. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Modern Language Association. The author of three books and numerous articles, he earned his doctorate and masters degrees from Cornell University and his Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University.
Kimberly King
Kimberly King is a visionary, humanitarian, and global change agent who believes in the “beauty of dreams.” Projects in strategic development, communications, and interfaith dialog have taken her around the world supporting community projects in Africa, Asia, India, South America and Australia. She focuses on womens and girls empowerment, educational campaigns for global issues, forging community partnerships, and social entrepreneurship. Kimberly serves on numerous boards. Her client list includes Fortune 500s, NGOs, city governments, broadcast media, and the United Nations. She is chair of the Women’s Forum and the Religion and Peacebuilding Forum for the Alliance for Peacebuilding, and is a member of the Global Leadership Council for the Women, Faith and Development Alliance. She is co-author of The Power of Team and Wake up and Live Your Best Life and a recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Global Humanitarian Award in honor of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Andrew Kille
Rev. Dr. Andrew Kille is an American Baptist clergyman with a doctorate in psychology and biblical studies from Graduate Theological Union. He has been involved with interfaith dialogue for 30 years in a career combining pastoral assignments, writing, editing, teaching, church music, administration, and managing websites, including his own. He has taught at Holy Names College and Santa Clara University. He is the editor of The Bible Workbench and a trustee of Interfaith Center at the Presidio, whose Bay Area Interfaith Connect he edits. He is author of Psychological Biblical Criticism (2001) and numerous articles. Andy has been particularly active in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, co-founding the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council in 2011 and establishing San Jose, California, as a Parliament of the World’s Religions Partner City.
Billy Doidge Kilgore
Billy Doidge Kilgore is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He is a native Southerner, book hoarder, and coffee connoisseur. After graduating from Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia he served congregations in Tennessee, Virginia, and Indiana. Billy lives with his wife, Cara, and their two sons in Nashville, Tennessee. Follow him on Twitter @billydkilgore.
Mark Kellner
Mark A. Kellner, a national reporter for the Deseret News, has written about issues of faith and freedom since 1983, including 11 years of editorial work for the Seventh-day Adventist Church world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. From 1991 to 2014, Mark also wrote for The Washington Times, both on personal technology and also matters of faith, with a weekly column called "Higher Ground." He is the author of "God on the Internet," as well as a book in the "For Dummies®" series.
David King Keller
David King Keller is CEO of Keller Business Development Advisory Group He is a former Catholic seminarian, was active in civil rights and Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign. David spent a year in the U.S. organizing press events to bring awareness to the starving children in Biafra. He has been on the boards of many non-profit organizations and one public corporation and brought The Course of Miracles into San Quentin. He has an MBA from Pepperdine, and is pursuing a PhD in East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he was a former trustee. David coaches and speaks on the subject of business development to law firms and other businesses with one award winning book on the subject and a “Rainmaker” book about to be released by the American Bar Association. David speaks regularly on the neuroscience of stress reduction and productivity, and practices daily meditation.
Alan Kelchner
Alan Kelchner is the VP for Advancement at the nation's largest and most comprehensive center for graduate study in religion. The GTU includes 2 Catholic and 6 Protestant seminaries, plus academic centers for Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Greek Orthodox. More than 1000 students including over 200 PhD students in religion.
Victor H. Kazanjian
Victor H. Kazanjian Jr. is the executive director of the United Religions Initiative (URI). Prior to joining URI in October 2013, Victor served as the dean of Intercultural Education and Religious and Spiritual Life, co-director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program, and director of the Peace Studies Program in India at Wellesley College, in Wellesley, Massachusetts USA. In addition he is the co-founder and co-president of Education as Transformation Inc., an international organization that works on issues of religious diversity and spirituality in higher education. Victor is also a visiting faculty member and Fulbright Scholar at the Malaviya Center for Peace Research at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India, where he served as Fulbright Professor of Peace & Justice Studies.
Victor’s work at Wellesley College and through Education as Transformation is widely acknowledged as the catalyst in the national and international movement to include religion and spirituality as core issues in higher education, and has led to interfaith and intercultural growth and understanding. Specializing in inter-religious dialogue and conflict transformation, diversity and democracy, and peace building, Victor is a recognized thought leader and the author and editor of numerous books and articles.
Rev. Kazanjian is an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church and was trained as a community organizer working to address the systemic causes of poverty and injustice through the support of religious and community-based groups. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is a graduate of Harvard University.
Mansfield 'Kasey' Kaseman
Mansfield ‘Kasey’ Kaseman is the Interfaith Community Liaison for the Office of Community Partnerships in Montgomery County, Maryland. Since his student days he has been engaged in ecumenical and interfaith ministries aimed at creating the beloved community. The model he implemented for Theological Education in the Urban Setting was adopted by Harvard, Boston University, and Weston Divinity Schools. His engagement in the Civil Rights Movement included providing security for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., establishing non-profits such as the Blue Hill Christian Center in Roxbury, Massachusetts and helping to implement Racial Justice Now.
In a decade of service with United Church on the Green in New Haven, Connecticut Rev. Kaseman formed partnerships with Yale, New Haven Foundation, Chamber of Commerce, AFL-CIO, state and municipal officials, and religious organizations in founding nonprofits and changing policies that impacted public education, urban renewal, anti-poverty programs, civil rights, affordable housing and healthcare. In establishing a new church in Tallahassee, Florida he simultaneously formed a statewide network for impacting the state legislature and implemented a budget committing 50 percent to mission and social justice.
Since 2006 Kasey has served as senior vice president of CTIS (philanthropy, community service and health disparities), and vice president of Van Eperen & Company (strategic planning, marketing and corporate social responsibility).
He has degrees from Westmar College, Andover Newton Theological School, and Yale Divinity School and serves on numerous boards. He and his wife, Dianne, have three adult children and seven grandchildren.