News

University To Host Premier World Interfaith Event

Media Release, Tuesday 21 August 2007

The University of Melbourne will play host to Melbourne’s premier interfaith event, the 6th Annual International Abraham Conference, with this years focus being ‘Shaping a Nation’s Values’.

The Governor of Victoria, Professor David de Kretser, will officially open the conference, which runs from 10am to 2pm on Sunday August 26 at the Sidney Myer Asia Centre.

The event is supported by a range if Jewish, Christian and Islamic communities as well as the University’s Centre for Islamic Law and Society. This year’s conference will address the issue of how to define core values in a modern society, in which a number of different religious and secular perspectives are upheld.

Dr Burhanettin Tatar, Associate Professor of Islamic philosophy at Ondokuz Mayis University, Samsun in Turkey is the keynote speaker of the conference. Having studied in both Turkey and the US, he represents an emerging new generation of Islamic intellectuals concerned with a wide range of contemporary issues, ranging from environmental problems to classical and modern Islamic and Western thought. He has also published widely on philosophical and political hermeneutics, Islamic thought, inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue, ethics and philosophy.

Constant Mews, from the Abraham Conference Organising Committee says it is time for Australia’s wider society to take a good look at its core values. “It is no longer sufficient to appeal to ‘Judaeo-Christian tradition’ as encapsulating the core values of Australian society.”

“The conference will look at ‘the Abrahamic tradition’ (as inherited by Judaism, Christianity and Islam) as articulating fundamental values of human dignity. It is highly relevant for a pluralist society that prides itself on respect for the rights of individuals to pursue their own cultures and religious traditions.”

Other speakers at the conference include Dr Danielle Celermajer, former Head of Indigenous Policy at the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, and Professor Veronica Brady Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia.

Full event details:
6th Annual International Abraham Conference
Carrillo Gantner Theatre
Sidney Myer Asia Centre
Swanston Street
University of Melbourne
Sunday 26 August
10.00am-2.00pm
Register at www.intercultural.org.au