Faculty members of All Hallows College chosen to preside at Americal Academy of Religion annual meeting

The annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) was held in Montreal from 6th- 10th November 2009. The AAR is the largest gathering of its kind in the world.
All Hallows College is proud to announce that Dr Bernadette Flanagan, Director of Research, and Dr Michael O’Sullivan, Head of Theological Studies at All Hallows were chosen to preside at separate sessions of the conference. This is the first time in the history of the Academy that such an honour has been bestowed on two Irish people working in Ireland, and at the same third level college.

Both Dr Flanagan and Dr O’Sullivan are also on the Governing Board of the International Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality, the most prestigious society of its kind in the world. To date, only one other European has ever been elected to this board. Dr O’Sullivan is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Christian Spirituality Study Group of the American Academy of Religion. 

At the AAR meeting in November, Dr O’Sullivan  presided at a session entitled: Pedagogical Engagements: The Arts and Spiritual Transformation.  This was a joint session between the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality and the Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies.  He was also the co-organiser of this session. 

Dr Flanagan  presided at a session entitled: Spiritual Traditions: Dead or Alive?  She was also  chosen to write the article on the academic study of spirituality in Ireland for the first issue of Spiritus that will be dedicated to developments in Europe.  Spiritus is the journal of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality, and is one of the two leading journals of its kind in the world.