Building Bridges Seminar

Ahmet Alibašić is assistant professor in the Faculty of Islamic Studies at the University of Sarejevo, where he teaches Islamic culture and civilization courses. His doctorate, completed at the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Sarajevo, focused on Islamic opposition in the Arab world. He is the director of the Center for Advanced Studies, Sarajevo, a senior associate of the Democratization Policy Council, and chairman of Gazi Husrev-bey Library. He is one of the editors of Yearbook of Muslims in Europe (2009–2013) and Journal of Muslims in Europe. From 2003 to 2007 he served as deputy president of the Association of Islamic Scholars in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Dr. Angela Berlis is Professor in History of Old Catholicism and General Church History at the University of Bern. Together with Douglas Pratt, she initiated and organized the Interreligious and Ecumenical Issues conference series in Bern between 2011 and 2018 and co-edited several issues of IKZ-bios (Bern Interreligious Ecumenical Studies) and Thematic Studies in Interreligious Dialogue between 2014 and 2021.

Dr. Reinhold Bernhardt is a Professor of Systematic Theology and Dogmatics at the University of Basel. He has previously spoken at the Theological Forum Christianity – Islam. His most recent publications include: Jesus Christus – Repräsentant Gottes. Christologie im Kontext der Religionstheologie (2021) and Monotheismus und Trinität. Gotteslehre im Kontext der Religionstheologie (2023).

Dr. Clarissa Breu is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department for New Testament Studies at the University of Vienna. She is an ordained pastor of the Protestant Church in Austria and earned her Ph.D. at the University of Vienna. She is interested in intersections between Cultural Analysis and New Testament Studies and has participated in a student-organized conference on Jewish-Christian-Muslim dialogue.

Dr. Friedmann Eissler is an ordained minister in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg, Germany. He studied Protestant Theology and Islamic Studies at the University of Tübingen and Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. Since 2021 he has served as a Representative for the Christian-Islamic Dialogue in the Wuerttemberg Protestant Church in Stuttgart, Germany.

Revd. Lucy Gardner is a tutor in Christian doctrine at St. Stephen's House, University of Oxford, where she has taught since 1993. She was ordained priest in the Church of England in June 2013, following her ordination as deacon in 2012. She studied theology at St John’s College, Oxford, and Bonn University, and her research interests include Schleiermacher, Balthasar, and feminist theology.

Dr. Katharina Heyden is a Professor of the Ancient History of Christianity and Interreligious Encounters at the University of Bern. She is the founding director of the Interfaculty Research Cooperation titled “Religious Conflicts and Coping Strategies.” She has established an international research initiative on “Interactive Histories, Co-produced Communities: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam” in collaboration with Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Study.

Rev. Daniel Madigan, S.J., is the Matteo Ricci Professor of Interreligious Theology and director of the Loyola Institute at Australian Catholic University. He is also rector of Newman College at the University of Melbourne. From 2008 to 2021 he was the Jeanette W. and Otto J. Ruesch Family Associate Professor in Georgetown University’s Department of Theology and Religious Studies; he continues to be a faculty fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and associate professor emeritus at Georgetown. He has been involved with the annual Building Bridges Seminar since 2003 and in 2012 was appointed chair. His interests include Qur’anic studies, interreligious dialogue, and comparative theology, with a special focus on Muslim-Christian relations. Madigan previously taught in Rome (2000-2007), where he was the founder and director of the Pontifical Gregorian University's Institute for the Study of Religions and Cultures. He is the author of The Qur’an’s Self-Image: Writing and Authority in Islam’s Scripture (2001) and co-editor of The Routledge Companion to the Qur’an (2022). Madigan holds a B.A. from Monash University, B.D. from Melbourne College of Divinity, and M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University.