Please save the date for the 2024 January DCM Conference:
Friday & Saturday 26-27 January 2024 (2nd week of Hilary Term)
Here is an example of the Conference Program from 2023:
Friday 27 - Saturday 28 January 2023
Hosted at Ship Street Conference Centre, Jesus College, Oxford
What does our calling to be disciples of Christ mean for our academic life, whether temporary as students or longer term as a career? What are some of the promises and pitfalls of the scholarly life? How can academics and postgraduate students serve and relate to the wider body of Christ, the church? Christianity and the Life of the Mind examines these questions and more.
Join other Oxford postgrads, postdocs, and faculty as we explore integrating our faith with our academic life through this conference. The event will include lectures by academics including Donald Hay (Economics), Ard Louis (Theoretical Physics), Stephen Blundell (Physics), Elaine Storkey (Sociology), Kate Kirkpatrick (Philosophy), and Christopher Wadibia (Theology). There is also plenty of time for discipline based discussion. Registration includes discussion group dinners hosted by faculty around Oxford on the Friday evening.
Past speakers include Alister McGrath (Theology), Katherine Blundell (Astrophysics), Simon Horobin (English) and Michael Lloyd (Theology).
*Early-bird Registration extended to 20th January 2023: £15 and meals are included
*General Registration closes 20th January 2023: £20 and meals are included
*DCM Alumni Registration closes 20th January 2023: DCM alumni that can attend in-person and can arrange their own accommodations are encouraged to offer a donation towards their conference fee.
**Please note our eligibility criteria: This event is for University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes postgraduates, postdocs, academic staff and DCM Alumni. If you do not fit this criteria, please complete this form and we will review your request **
PROGRAMME 2023
FRIDAY 27 JANUARY
This program is subject to change, please watch this space for updates:
1:45 p.m. Registration, coffee & tea
2:15 p.m. Welcome & introduction
2:20 p.m. The discipleship of the mind: reflections on integrating faith and scholarship - Donald Hay (Economics)
This lecture outlines the intellectual challenges for Christian scholars and researchers implicit in our calling 'to seek the shalom of the modern university'. It explores why we need to develop a systematic understanding of Christian thought; how that can relate to how we set about research and study; and how we evaluate the wider significance of the our work.
3:10 p.m. Discussion
3:50 p.m Coffee & tea
4:25 p.m. The calling of Christian postgrad students and academics - Ard Louis (Theoretical Physics)
Based on his own academic career and experience with postgraduate ministry in several countries, Professor Ard Louis will discuss the main themes of the conference in the light of questions such as: What does our calling to be disciples of Christ mean for our academic vocation (whether temporary as students or longer term as a career)? What are some of the promises and pitfalls of the scholarly life? How can academics and postgraduate students serve and relate to the wider body of Christ (the Church)?
5:15 p.m. Prayer
5:30 p.m. Drinks reception
7:00 p.m. Dinner and discussion with faculty hosts
Dinner will be with your discussion group and will be hosted by various faculty members within their homes or colleges throughout Oxford.
SATURDAY 28 JANUARY 2023
9:00 a.m. Light breakfast, coffee & tea
9:30 a.m. What is our response to creation? - Stephen Blundell (Physics)
The aim of science, as usually practiced, is to try to understand, model, and control nature, the “created order”. But does our particular understanding of that created order have any bearing on the way we do science? Or how we think about nature? Or how we respond to creation? And what difference does that, or should it, make?
10:30 a.m. What does it mean to be human? - Elaine Storkey (Philosophy and Sociology)
This lecture discusses how the Christian understanding of the human being steers a course between individualism and collectivism, between fatalism and personal freedom, between materialism and ‘idealism’; and how its personal and communitarian understanding of the human being is grounded in the Trinitarian God.
11:20 a.m. Coffee & tea
11:50 a.m. Discussion
12:30 p.m. Sartre and Sin - Kate Kirkpatrick (Philosophy)
Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the twentieth-century's most famous philosophers—and one of its better-known atheists. Yet Sartre's early philosophy, Kirkpatrick argues, is indebted to the Christian doctrine of original sin. Focusing on Being and Nothingness, Kirkpatrick explains that Sartre's concept of 'nothingness' has a Christian genealogy which has been overlooked in philosophical and theological discussions of his work. Tracing this line to Saint Augustine and his interpreters, Kirkpatrick asks how Sartre's reception of the doctrine of sin can illuminate our thinking about human life today.
1:25 p.m. Lunch
2:30 p.m. Understanding Christian eschatology: myths, truths, and God's ultimate plan for creation - Christopher Wadibia (Theology)
For many Christians, the subject of eschatology (generally defined as how events will play out during the end times, final judgment, and God's establishment of the New Creation) brings to mind feelings of confusion, anxiety, and even fear. However, this talk explains why the eschatological visions outlined in the Bible should instead fill Christians with joy, excitement, and confidence in Christ. The purpose of this talk will be to point out popular myths that Christians unknowingly associate with biblical eschatological ideas, and to explicate why the Christian's career and professional life in this world matters in light of the new world to come.
3:20 Discussion
4:00 Coffee & tea
4:20 p.m. Panel discussion: Faith and scholarship – Session chaired by Mary Louis (Senior Fellow in Management Practice, Said Business School) and panelists include
John Durodola (Mechanical Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University)
James (Jimmy) Kim (Professor for Graduate School of Education, Harvard)
Elaine Storkey (Consultant and lecturer in Social Science, Philosophy and Theology; Former Senior Research Fellow, Wycliffe Hall, University of Oxford)
Lionel Tarassenko (President of Reuben College, AI & Machine Learning, Lead; Professor of Electrical Engineering)
5:20 p.m. Prayer
5:30 p.m. Day closing