The Toronto Mennonite Theological Centre (TMTC) is excited to join partners at the Doopsgezind Seminarium, Fresno Pacific University, the Institute of Mennonite Studies, and Pandora Press in the launch of the Anabaptists & Philosophy Roundtable.
The Anabaptists & Philosophy Roundtable is an occasional webinar series featuring scholars discussing Anabaptist life and thought in relation to philosophical themes, topics, and methods. Our events typically include a paper presentation and respondent, followed by open discussion among participants. We hold events online three to four times per year.
Our first event on February 16, 2022, featured Diane Enns (Ryerson University), who gave a paper entitled "The Reluctant Mennonite: Reflections on an Ambiguous Inheritance" with her colleague John Caruana (Ryerson University) providing a response. The event was well attended, drawing over 50 participants from across the globe.
Diane Enns is Professor of Philosophy at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, specializing in social and political thought, and Director of the Society for Women of Ideas. She is the author of Thinking Through Loneliness (2022); Love in the Dark: Philosophy by Another Name (2016); The Violence of Victimhood (2012); Speaking of Freedom: Philosophy, Politics and the Struggle for Liberation (2007); and co-editor of Thinking About Love: Essays in Contemporary Continental Philosophy (2015). She is currently working on two research projects, the first focused on community, and the second on women and power.
John Caruana is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ryerson University. His research is in the areas of phenomenology, continental philosophy of religion, and film-philosophy. In addition to publications on Adorno, Deleuze, Kierkegaard, Kristeva, and Levinas, he has published on the cinema of various filmmakers, including Bruno Dumont, Terrene Malick, and the Dardenne brothers. He is co-editor with Mark Cauchi of Immanent Frames: Postsecular Cinema between Malick and von Trier (SUNY Press, 2018). He is currently working on a manuscript that examines the emergence of the phenomenon of excarnation — Charles Taylor’s apt term for the disembodied modes of being that have increasingly replaced richer, more meaningful ways of being with one another — and the role that it plays in the erosion of embodied and communal social life, as well as the precipitous rise in feelings of isolation and alienation.
The presentations and Q&A session were recorded and we are pleased to make those available online.
We invite you to join us for our next Anabaptists & Philosophy Roundtable on 27 April 2022 with Dr. Maxwell Kennel.
