Remember remember - the first of September

Hooray, it’s the first Monday of September. I guess it’s the start of the Academic Year at all of the six RRE institutions. Well, at least it is in Lund. So, it took me some effort to come out of bed at an early time this morning. (And I can tell you that I consider everything before 9 AM ‘early’ after quite a long holiday…)

I started with reading a book for my course on the Religions in Contemporary Perspective: ‘Abraham’s Children – Jewish Christians and Muslims in Conversation’ by Solomon, Harries and Winter. (T&T Clark, 2005.) The concept of the book is special: it was born out of the so-called ‘ Oxford Abrahamic Group’. In this group, Jewish, Christian and Islamic scholars came together twice a year. Three scholars would present a paper on an aspect of one of the three religions, followed by a discussion. Because of the personal beliefs of the scholars, the discussions did not only have an academic, but also a personal dimension and contributed to mutual understanding, even if the discussions were sometimes heated. This book is a collection of the presented papers and the discussion that took place in this group.

Personally, I think that this is very interesting approach and it provides definitely for different reading than other academic books I have read before. When read that Harries thanked his wife Jo “who has provided hospitality for the group, with its variety of dietary requirements”, I had to smile. However – out of the 15 contributors to the book only two are women and that made my smile a little smaller.

So, fourth cycle – what do you think about the concept of this book? And what about the ‘lack’ of female contributors? Am I making fuss about nothing? ;-)

I guess I should get back to reading in the meantime…
/PD