On June 27th, 2022, James W. Heisig, emeritous professor of the Nanzan Institut for Religion and Culture (Nagoya, Japan) and honorary researcher of the Centre for Aesthetics, Religion and Contemporary Culture, participates in a conversation about his latest book, Of Gods and Minds (Chisokudo, 2019).

The conversation will take place on the 27.06.2022 from 4:00PM to 6:30PM in the room 23.103 at the Mercè Rodoreda Building (Ciutadella Campus). The activity is free and open to the whole university community.

Professor Raquel Bouso coordinates this conversation, in the framework of the Mushin'en International Research Group in Intercultural Philosophy (http://www.mushinen.com/activities/).

Of Gods and Minds is composed by five lectures given by Heisig in the Boston College during 2019 as the Duffy Lectures in Global Christianity. The author argues from the following standpoint: if the Christian God must have global meaning, Christianity may not simply accept cultural and religious diversity and retire from its mission regarding the universal conversion into its own form of thinking about God. Conversion to tolerance and hospitality towards other forms of belief and practice is a turning point for Christianity, but only as a transition to reassess its past facing global concerns: taking care of a land mistreated by human civilization and despised by organized religion. The author addresses this matter from a wider reflection about the origins and functions of gods in the minds and, from this point onward, he suggests that metaphors of the divine and their relationship to the natural world may be founded on the nothingness beyond being and becoming.