About Engaging Particularities

The doctoral students and candidates in Comparative Theology at Boston College welcome you to our annual Engaging Particularities conference! It is the longest-running, student-run conference dedicated to theology/religious studies in the Northeastern sector of the United States. It seeks to foster, at the level of graduate and post-graduate inquiries, the possibility of interreligious enrichment and cooperation.

In 2003, under the graduate student leadership of Tracy Tiemeier, Dan Joslyn-Siemiatkowski, and Adrianne Nagy, and with the advisement of Francis X. Clooney, S.J., the conference aimed to fulfill the vision of the 1995 General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, particularly Decree 5 on mission and interreligious dialogue. It remains dedicated space for the development of graduate students and young scholars refine their comparative methodologies and test comparative categories, due to the support of the Theology Department and the U.S. Jesuit Assistancy for Mission and Interreligious Dialogue,

This conference is not addressed exclusively to students of Christian theology. Numerous participants from previous conferences are scholars non-affiliated, non-associated, non-identified with a religious community/tradition. Furthermore, this conference is continuously enriched with the participation of non-Christian students of religion.

For an in-depth account of this history and an assessment of the prospects for Engaging Particularities in 2017, see Tracy Tiemeier’s keynote address: "Looking Back, Moving Forward: The Place of The Engaging Particularities Conference series and The Future of Comparative Theology."