Interreligious Dialogue
Speaking, Listening, Understanding - Patricia Maulden
Patricia Maulden from the Dialogue and Difference Project at George Mason University.
Interreligious Dialogue: Speaking, Listening, Understanding - a booklet on facilitative leadership, conflict assessment, and interreligious dialogue.
IS ‘INTERRELIGIOUS’ SYNONYMOUS WITH ‘INTERFAITH’? THE ROLES OFDIALOGUE IN PEACEBUILDING - Sarah Bernstein
Additional reading referenced by Dr. Maulden
(1) From, Less than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others. 2011.David Livingstone Smith. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
‘In this book, I will argue that dehumanization is a joint creation of biology, culture, and the architecture of the human mind. Grasping its nature and dynamics requires that we attend to all three elements. Excluding any of them leaves us with a hopelessly distorted picture of what we are trying to comprehend.’ (p. 4)‘It is clear from these considerations we need a vocabulary to express conceptual distinction between appearing human and being human.’ (p. 5)‘…this also gives me an opportunity to introduce a key theoretical idea that will play an important role later on in the book: the notion of essence.’
(2) From, Ethical Loneliness: The Injustice of Not Being Heard. 2015. Jill Stauffer. Chichester:Colombia University Press.
(discussing reparative retribution in transitional justice and reconciliation) ‘…what will matter in many settings is whether people who listen will, while paying attention to what is said, also watch out for what is being heard. It will be important for those who listen to reflect on the limits to what they already know and how that affects whether they are able to hear. Perhaps when people and the institutions they design will be able to listen for their own failures – and thus begin to live up to what justice after complex complicit or long standing injustice demands.’ (p. 8)‘Ethical loneliness is the experience of being abandoned by humanity compounded by the experience of not being heard….We tell ourselves stories all the time about the kinds of selves we are...Where do these stories come from?’ (pp. 9-10)‘If we misunderstand what autonomy its and what conditions it successful exercise requires, we may fail to comprehend how the selves and the worlds of some human beings can be destroyed by other human beings. That might mean that we will have no idea how to listen to those who survive such harrowing loss. And, because we don’t hear, we fail to learn something about the limits of our own autonomy and, more important, simply don’t understand what conditions make successful recovery or reconciliation more or less likely after world-destroying events.Finally, we won’t see how very unjust its to believe, in some circumstances that we are responsible only for what we’ve done and intended.’ (p. 11)
(3) From, Dignity: The Essential Role it Plays in Resolving Conflict. 2011. Donna Hicks. New Haven: Yale University Press.
‘The ten essential elements of dignity: acceptance of identity; inclusion, safety,acknowledgement, recognition, fairness, benefit of the doubt, understanding, independence,accountability.’ (p. 25)
‘Approach people as being neither inferior nor superior to you. Give others the freedom toexpress their authentic selves without fear of being negatively judged. Interact withoutprejudice or bias, accepting the way in which race, religion, ethnicity, gender, class, sexualorientation, age, and disability may be at the core of other people’s identities. Assume thatothers have integrity.’ (p. 35)
