Annual PhD conference - School of Religion and Theology

Morning – Plenary Session (location: HG-0C29 Aurora)

                          Join online using the Link

9:30-10:00      Walk in with coffee and tea

10:00-10:10     Introduction (August den Hollander)

10:10-10:30     Keynote: Dion Forster: 

                        ‘’Speaking from somewhere, listening across difference: Interculturality as scholarly practice?"

10:30-11:00     Panel Discussion 1: (Moderator: Mirjam van Veen)

                        Panel members:   Sharda Nandram (Diversity Officer), 

                                                      Dion Forster (keynote speaker),

                                                      Enoh Seba (director IBTS),

                                                      Carlton Turner (lecturer Queen's Foundation) 

11:00-11:20     Break with coffee and tea

11:20-11:50      Panel Discussion 2: (Moderator:  An-Ting Yi)

                         Panel members: PhD candidates - Ali Erginsoy, Michiel Bouman, Ingrid Alatriste, Eva Abel 

 11:50-12:05   Plenary Panel Discussion (Moderators Mirjam van Veen & An-Ting Yi)

 12:05-12:15    Closing of session (director of the Graduate School, August den Hollander) 

12:15-13:00     Lunch (In front of entrance to SRT on 15th floor) 

Afternoon - Various workshops

13:00-14:15     Plenary Workshop (Dion Forster) (HG-15A33) (Link)

                        Building on the morning lecture, this workshop explores interculturality not only as a feature of    

                        academic community, but as a challenge and resource for scholarly practice.  

                       (See below for further information)

14:15 - 15:00    Break  with Coffee and tea (SRT HG-15A99) 

15:00-16:15      Second round of simultaneous workshops/activities:

                              Workshop 1 - Mock Defence (HG-15A33 -  No online participations)

                         Tiago Melo Novais with the Early career scholars 

                              Workshop 2 (HG15A16) (Link) 

                         Working with AI - Dr Pieter Coppens, co-ordinator Research Design at the Graduate School and  

                         Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies

                              Workshop 3 (SRT HG-15A43) (Link)

                         Professsionalising your Dissertation layout - Jorik Groen, PhD candidate and Hebrew linguist

17:00-19:00    After conference social (SRT HG15A99)  

                         Please join us for drinks and snacks

Keynote -  Speaking from somewhere, listening across difference: Interculturality as scholarly practice?

Dion Forster, professor of Public Theology and Ethics at our School of Religion and Theology, VU

Abstract:

In Religion and Theology, we do not think, read, interpret, or speak from a neutral position. Our work is shaped by histories, traditions, languages, communities, and social locations that influence both what we are able to perceive and what may remain hidden from us. At the same time, scholarship calls us to move beyond the limits of our own formation. It demands attentiveness, intellectual humility, careful translation, and a willingness to be challenged through encounter with others across difference. The contexts in which we work shape the questions we ask, the sources we prioritise, the methods we employ, and the judgments we reach. Interculturality, then, is not simply a matter of accommodating diversity within the academy. It raises the deeper question of how scholarly inquiry is reshaped when differing epistemologies, interpretive traditions, moral visions, and religious imaginaries are brought into conversation.

Plenary Workshop - Building on the morning lecture, this workshop explores interculturality not only as a feature of academic community, but as a challenge and resource for scholarly practice  - 

Through guided reflection and discussion, participants will consider how their own histories, intellectual traditions, disciplinary assumptions, and social locations shape their research questions, methods, and judgments. The workshop will create space for self-critical awareness, careful listening across difference, and constructive engagement with other perspectives, while also attending to the importance of disciplinary clarity, methodological accountability, and scholarly rigour. The aim is to help PhD researchers and supervisors reflect on how interculturality may deepen research practice, widen interpretive horizons, and support more reflexive, responsible, and innovative scholarship in Religion and Theology.

Where the lecture frames interculturality as a methodological and hermeneutical question, the workshop invites us to work with that question more directly in relation to our own research and supervision. It asks what it means, in practice, to speak from somewhere, to listen across difference, and to pursue scholarship that is both intellectually rigorous and open to transformation through encounter.

Day 2 – May 22, 2026

The second day of the PhD conference is organized by the research teams of the School of Religion and Theology.  Please find a detailed description of the programme of each research team below. (The programmes of some of the research teams are not yet available, these will be added to this webpage shortly.)

PhD candidates are encouraged to participate in a programme of one of the research teams.

11:00 - 12:30  Lecture - organised by the Future of Academic Theology (FOAT) - (Venue HG-15A37)

                      Title: Metamodernity and the Future of Theology and Religious Studies - Dr Dave Vliegenthart

                      More information about Dr Vliegenthart can be found here

                      Please register for the lecture in the registration form for the conference here

                      Note that this lecture may also be followed online, but please do still register.

                      Microsoft Teams link:   Join the meeting now 

                                                                       ( Meeting ID: 329 712 984 468 8, Passcode: PC9WR94d)

12:30 - 13:00  Light lunch will be provided (SRT HG-15A99)

Research Teams

1. Contextual Biblical Interpretation and Theologies
2. Decolonizing Interreligious Studies
3. Digital Approaches to Sacred Texts
4. Future of Academic Theology/Religious Studies
5. Islamic Theology
6. New Testament and Christian Origins
7. Peace, Trauma and Religion
8. Reformed and Evangelical Theology
9. Religious History and Heritage
10. Strong Religion and Extreme Beliefs
11. Transformation of Religiosity

Research Groups:

New Testament/Early Christian Origins (NT) and Contextual Biblical Interpretation (CBI) 

Venue: HG 15A16 (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) 

Online: Microsoft Teams:https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/390227074697539?p=z4JhZ8f5Eb9pArmug7 Meeting ID: 390 227 074 697 539 Passcode: iH76kk98 

Programme

10:00am – 12:00pm 

Age Kramer (NT): “Michel Henry’s ‘Phenomenology of Life’ as a Horizon of Understanding for the Interpretation of the Gospel of John.” (30 min.) 

Eva Abel (CBI): “Contextual Bible Reading of Mark 5:25-34 with Women Who Have Recovered from Obstetrics Fistula in Kenya.” (30 min.) 

Ryanto Adilang (CBI): “Colonial Interpretation in Disguise: Mercusuar Book and Sangihe’s Literary Works.” (30 min.) 

William Wortman (NT): “A Narrative Critique of the Pericope Adulterae.” (30 min.) 

12:00pm – 13:00pm: Lunch Break (Lunch will be provided by the SRT) 

13:00pm – 14:00pm 

Crhistian Cardona (NT): “Paul and the Power of Meals: Overcoming Polarization in Roman Corinth.” (30 min.) 

Thomas Bergen (NT): “Recognizing Signs of Paul’s Traumatic Christophany through Terror Management Theory.” (30 min.)

Please feel very welcome to join for the next meeting of our Decolonizing Interreligious Studies research group on Friday May 22, from 09:30 – 11:00 a.m. You can join live in room 15A-43 of the main building, or online by using the Zoom link below:

https://miun-se.zoom.us/j/61387627016?pwd=m8iCuM7FZT6SMr25la8gfcP9uqY35R.1
Meeting-ID: 613 8762 7016
Password: 12345

During this meeting, we will discuss two texts:

• Lina Landström’s, PhD candidate in our group, will present her draft article “A Voice for the voiceless: public theology and queer refugees in Germany and Sweden”. Because it is a draft, you are kindly asked not to cite or circulate this version. The group is invited to provide Lina with constructive feedback.  Link to the article
• Esther McIntosh (2017). “’I met God, she’s Black’. Racial, gender and sexual equalities in public theology’”. In S. Kim and K. Day (eds.),  A Companion to Public Theology. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 298-324 [this version: 1-21). This text was suggested by Lina to read alongside her own work on public theology, we will be discussing the texts in tandem. Link to this article

Programme:

Venue:  HG 12A 92

Hybrid - please use the link below to join the meeting

Join: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/340378443548739?p=Gl0lGarMN4whBDimkt

Meeting ID: 340 378 443 548 739, Passcode: N9Uu3xV3

13.30–13.40 Introduction

13.40–14.00 Presentation by Willem van Peursen "The Contribution of Digital Scholarship in the Age of Generative AI" (abstract below)

14.00­–14.20 Discussion

14.20–14.30 Break

14.30–15.30 PhD research round table discussion, including some reflections on the go/no-go moment and the annual progress reports.

Abstract:

The contribution of digital scholarship in the age of generative AI

Willem van Peursen

In this paper, I will share some reflections on the changing role of computational analysis in light of recent developments in AI. This shift can be illustrated by the contrast between “From Question to Query” (a presentation I delivered in 2013) and “From Query to Question” (a presentation I delivered in 2026).

Since its foundation in 1977, the ETCBC has been built on the conviction that its linguistically annotated dataset of the Hebrew Bible (the BHSA) should encourage humanities researchers to approach texts in a more systematic and data-driven way. A central challenge in this endeavour has been the translation of research questions about the text into formal queries.

Recently, in one of our research meetings, Cody Kingham presented Context-Fabric, which facilitates the use of plain-language questions to execute queries. I have also observed that some of my BA students in my exegesis class use generative AI to write their SHEBANQ queries for them. It may be only a matter of time before natural-language commands yield results comparable to those produced by the queries we have been teaching our students for decades.

This development raises an important question: in this new constellation, what is the unique contribution of digital scholarship, if it no longer lies in translating humanities questions into computer-readable queries?

See information on lecture above

There will be no programme for this group

Research Groups:

New Testament/Early Christian Origins (NT) and Contextual Biblical Interpretation (CBI) 

Venue: HG 15A16 (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) 

Online: Microsoft Teams: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/390227074697539?p=z4JhZ8f5Eb9pArmug7 Meeting ID: 390 227 074 697 539 Passcode: iH76kk98 

Programme 

10:00am – 12:00pm 

Age Kramer (NT): “Michel Henry’s ‘Phenomenology of Life’ as a Horizon of Understanding for the Interpretation of the Gospel of John.” (30 min.) 

Eva Abel (CBI): “Contextual Bible Reading of Mark 5:25-34 with Women Who Have Recovered from Obstetrics Fistula in Kenya.” (30 min.) 

Ryanto Adilang (CBI): “Colonial Interpretation in Disguise: Mercusuar Book and Sangihe’s Literary Works.” (30 min.) 

William Wortman (NT): “A Narrative Critique of the Pericope Adulterae.” (30 min.) 

12:00pm – 13:00pm: Lunch Break (Lunch will be provided by the SRT) 

13:00pm – 14:00pm 

Crhistian Cardona (NT): “Paul and the Power of Meals: Overcoming Polarization in Roman Corinth.” (30 min.) 

Thomas Bergen (NT): “Recognizing Signs of Paul’s Traumatic Christophany through Terror Management Theory.” (30 min.)

There will be no programme for this group

There will be no programme for this group

There will be no programme for this group

Information to follow 

There will be no programme for this group