LECTURERS / PANELISTS

The composition of the tables at the conference will be as follows:

KEYNOTE SPEAKER:

Mario Sergio Cortella graduated in Philosophy from Our Lady Mediatrix Philosophy College, has a Master’s in Education from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Moacir Gadotti and a PhD in Education from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Paulo Freire. He is a professor at the Department of Fundamentals of Education and Graduate Programs in Education (Curriculum) of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, where he has served for 35 years, having spent 30 of those years at the Department of Theology and Religious Sciences. He has also been Municipal Secretary of Education of São Paulo.

1st Table - MEDIA

Lourival Sant'Anna is a journalist, documentarian and international affairs analyst. He has a master's degree in journalism from the University of Sao Paulo. In addition, he has worked with Brazil’s major newspapers.

Prof. David Perlmutter can not participate due to some unforeseen personal and professional reasons.(02/03/2016)

David Perlmutter is Dean of the Faculty of Media and Communications at Texas Tech. He is the former Director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and a professor at the University of Iowa. He received his BA (1985) and MA (1991) from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. (1996) from the University of Minnesota.

Sevgi Akarçeşme received her B.A. in Political Science and Public Administration from Bilkent University in 2001 with a full scholarship. She holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from Istanbul Bilgi University and another M.A. in Political Science from Temple University, where she attended the PhD program with scholarship and worked as a teaching assistant. Following her graduate studies in Philadelphia, she joined the Turkey Project at CSIS in Washington D.C in 2005.

Upon returning to Turkey, she worked at the Office of the President from 2008 till the end of 2010, where she gained invaluable government experience. After working as an advisor at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs’s Center for Strategic Research from Dec 2010 to July 2011 she moved to her hometown Istanbul. Currently, she is the editor in chief of daily Today’s Zaman and a columnist for Turkish daily Zaman. Along with the academic awards, she is the recipient of Hollings Center journalism grant in 2014.

Sevgi Akarçeşme’s Master’s thesis was published as a book in 2010 entitled Military or Civilian Supremacy in Turkey? The New Framework of Civil-Military Relations in the Post- Feb 28 Era. In addition to academic articles she co-authored in International Journal and Europe’s World, she has published articles and commentaries on Quartz, Al Jazeera English and appeared on CNN International, BBC World.

Samira Adel Osman is Associate Professor of History of Asia History course at UNIFESP and the Graduate Program in the History UNIFESP. Graduated and degree in History from the University of São Paulo (1990), MA in Social History from the University of São Paulo (1998) and a PhD in Social History from the University of São Paulo (2007). It has experience in the area of History mainly working on the following topics: Arab Immigration; Immigration and Return; Oral History of Families, Islam, Middle Eastern history, the Arab World and Islam. She has authored several articles on Arab Immigration and book Arab immigration in Brazil: Life stories of Muslim and Christian Lebanese.

2nd Table - Intellectuals

Jose Renato Nalini is Secretary of Education of the State of São Paulo, President of the Court of São Paulo, former President of the Paulista Academy of Letters and university professor. Author, among others, of the books: the Ethics of Magistrates (2nd ed.), The Rebellion of Toga (2nd ed.) And Environmental Ethics (2nd ed.). Natural Jundiaí, was born in 1945 and graduated in 1970 from the Law School of the Catholic University of Campinas. The judiciary took office in 1976 and was nominated for the 13th Judicial Circuit, headquartered in Barretos.

Peter Demant is a historian and professor of International Relations, specializing in Middle East issues, the Muslim world and Islam-West relations. MSc (1981) and doctorate (1988) in Modern and Contemporary History by the Universiteit van Amsterdam, Netherlands; Teaching Contemporary History from the University of São Paulo since 2007. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of History at USP, also teaching at the Institute of International Relations (IRI-USP) and especially searching the themes: the Middle East, Islam and Islamism, Israel-Palestine conflict, and the hegemony of the West and its defense.

Kerim Balcı

Turkish writer, journalist and academician Kerim Balci (b. 1971) is recently the editor in chief of Turkish Review, a bimonthly journal published by Zaman Media Group of Turkey. Balci is a frequent columnist in Today’s Zaman and Zaman dailies, both the largest circulating newspapers in their boulevards, and correspondents to several local and international TV channels on issues related to the Middle East.

Kerim Balci studied Physics and Political Science and International Relations in the Bosporus University of Turkey. He has an MA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the city where he served as the representative of Zaman Turkish Daily for eight years. Balci is currently a PhD candidate at the Durham University of the UK on linguistic philosophy.

Apart from his professional job in journalism, Balci works with interfaith dialogue groups in Europe to promote multiculturalism in Europe. He served as the President of the London based Dialogue Society for two and a half years before his current assignment in Istanbul. He has edited a book named Whose War? in Turkish dealing with the Iraqi War and published an album called Ottoman Jerusalem in Photographs (IRCICA, Istanbul, 2009, Published in Turkish, English and Arabic.) and another album with modern photographs of the city called Kutsallığın Başkenti Kudüs [Jerusalem: Capital of Sanctity] (TİMAŞ, Istanbul, 2011). Balcı published several articles in academic and popular books and encyclopedias, mainly about the Middle East, Turkish Politics, US Policy in the Middle East, and interfaith dialogue.

Eric Brown is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute where he conducts research on Middle East and Asian affairs, strategic issues, governance and civil society, and long-range geopolitical futures. He is also the editor, with Dr. Hillel Fradkin and Ambassador Husain Haqqani, of the review Current Trends in Islamist Ideology. He has worked across Eurasia to assess how different societies are coping with complex security problems and how to assist them. A focus of his current research is on the causes of state weakness and on international strategies to aid vulnerable countries and foster public security.

3rd Table - Religions

Rev. Dirk Ficca has twenty years of experience in global interreligious movements, having worked as Executive Director of the World Parliament of Religions Council. Before working with the Parliament of Religions, he was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Benton Harbor. He received the Fethullah Gülen Prize for Peace and Dialogue by the Niagara Foundation in 2012.

Don Julio Endi Akamine is Auxiliary Bishop of São Paulo. He began his studies in 1975 at the Seminary of the Society of the Catholic Apostolate (Pallottines) in Londrina, Paraná. He studied Philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University (PUC), 1981-1983, and theology at the "Studium Teologicum Claretianum", 1984-1987, at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Curitiba. He was ordained deacon by the laying on of the hands of Don Luciano Mendes de Almeida on 25 January 1987 in the parish Eucharistic Heart of Jesus and Santa Marina, Carrao village, Episcopal Region Bethlehem and was ordained by the laying on of the hands of Don José Maria Maimone on January 24, 1988 in Santo Antonio Parish, in Cambe, Paraná. He obtained a Masters in theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome (1993-1995) and PhD at the same university (2001-2005). In the period from 1996 to 2001 and 2005 to 2011 was a professor of theology at the Studium Theologicum, Curitiba, where he taught the General sacramental theology matters, the Sacraments of Christian Initiation, ecclesiology, Trinity, Introduction to Theology and fundamental theology. Since 2008, Provincial Rector of the Pallottine Province St. Paul the Apostle, based in this city until it was appointed auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of São Paulo, on May 4, 2011 and was ordained bishop on July 9, 2011.

Michel Schlesinger holds a BA in law from the University of Sao Paulo. He completed his rabbinical studies and his master’s in Jerusalem at the Schechter Institute. In the United States, he has worked at the Jewish Camp Ramah in New England, and was trained to give support to patients and their families at the Jewish Pastoral Care Institute in New York City.

Samir Boudinar was born in 1975 in the city of Oujda in Morocco. He studied elementary, middle and high school in Oujda. He studied at the Mohammed V University . He received his master and PhD degrees here again. He had his doctorate on Political Sociology. He works as a lecturer at the Muhammad V University Department of Sociology.He is also the General Manager of the Social Science Research Center which is a major civil research center located in Oujda.He has lectured Political Science, History of Islamic Thought, Islam Civilization, Dialogue of Civilizations and Sociology at many universities in Morocco and abroad. He presented papers at many international symposiums. He participated in TV programs.Besides Arabic as mother tongue, speaks English and French languages.

Suleyman Eris is the founding President of Respect Graduate School in Pennsylvania, USA. The school currently offers the Master of Arts in Islamic Studies (MAIS) degree. President Eris received his BA in Turkey, from Uludag University Theology Faculty. He also received his MA from University of Georgia with a thesis on Sufism. Presently, he is a PhD candidate at Temple University in Philadelphia. He has published a book called “Islam: A Brief Guide on Belief and Practice.” and a number of academic articles.