Berkley Center

José Casanova is one of the world's leading scholars in the sociology of religion and a senior fellow at the Berkley Center, where his work focuses on globalization, religions, and secularization. He is also professor emeritus at Georgetown University, where he previously taught in the Department of Sociology and the Department of Theology and Religious Studies. During 2017 he was the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the North at the U.S. Library of Congress' John W. Kluge Center, where he worked on 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 (University of Chicago Press, 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. Casanova is a member of the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Meghan J. Clark is associate professor of moral theology at St. John’s University, New York. She is author of The Vision of Catholic Social Thought: The Virtue of Solidarity and the Praxis of Human Rights (2014). Active in public theology, she is a columnist for U.S. Catholic magazine. Clark received her Ph.D. in theological ethics from Boston College in 2009.

Erin M. Cline is Paul J. and Chandler M. Tagliabue Distinguished Professor in Interfaith Studies & Dialogue at Georgetown University, where she is also a senior research fellow at the Berkley Center. Cline specializes in Chinese philosophy, Chinese religions, comparative philosophy and theology, and Ignatian spirituality. Her most recent book is Little Sprouts and the Dao of Parenting: Ancient Chinese Philosophy and the Art of Raising Mindful, Resilient, and Compassionate Kids (2020). Cline is also the author of Confucius, Rawls, and the Sense of Justice (2013), Families of Virtue: Confucian and Western Views on Childhood Development (2015), and A World on Fire: Sharing the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises with Other Religions (2018), as well as articles in such journals as Philosophy East and West, the Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Modern China, and Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy. She previously held a joint appointment in philosophy and religious studies at the University of Oregon. Cline earned her B.S. from Belmont University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Baylor University.

Mary Doak is an associate professor of theology and religious studies at the University of San Diego. Doak's research has focused on the intersection of Christianity and politics, particularly liberation and political theologies, theologies of democracy and religious freedom, the goal of human life and history from a Christian perspective, and theologies of the church. Her publications include Translating Religion (2013, co-edited with Anita Houck) and Reclaiming Narrative for Public Theology (2004), as well as various articles on public theology, eschatology, and ecclesiology. She is currently working on a book in public ecclesiology, addressing the specific challenges the twenty-first century raises for the mission of the church. She has an M.A. and a Ph.D. in theology from the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, and an Honors B.A. from Loyola University of Chicago.

Nader Hashemi is the director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and an associate professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is the author of Islam, Secularism and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies (2009). Hashemi is also co-editor of, among others, Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East (2017) and a four-volume study on Islam and Human Rights: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies (2023). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.

Linda Hogan is professor of ecumenics in the School of Religion at Trinity College Dublin. Her primary research interests lie in the fields of intercultural and interreligious ethics, social and political ethics, and human rights and gender. Hogan is author of many books including Keeping Faith with Human Rights and Feminist Catholic Theological Ethics: Conversations in the World Church (2014, edited with Agbonkhianmghe Orobator).

Rev. David Hollenbach, S.J., is the Pedro Arrupe Distinguished Research Professor in the Walsh School of Foreign Service; a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs; and an affiliated professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University. His teaching and research deal with human rights, religious and ethical responses to humanitarian crises, and religion in political life from the standpoint of Catholic social thought, theology, and the social sciences. His books include Human Rights in a Divided World: Catholicism as a Living Tradition (2024), Humanity in Crisis: Ethical and Religious Response to Refugees (2019), Driven from Home: Protecting the Rights of Forced Migrants (2010) The Global Face of Public Faith: Politics, Human Rights, and Christian Ethics (2003), and The Common Good and Christian Ethics (2002). He has taught often at Hekima University College in Nairobi, Kenya, and he collaborates with Jesuit Refugee Service. From 2020 to 2022 he is a distinguished research associate with the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Hollenbach is also a research associate with the Jesuit Center for Theological Reflection in Zambia. Hollenbach is a member of the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Dr. Pantelis Kalaitzidis is director of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies (Volos, Greece), and member of the Executive Committee of the European Academy of Religion (Bologna, Italy).