Will van den Hoonaard, Professor of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick, has been announced as Balyuzi Lecturer for the Association for Bahá’í Studies conference taking place in Toronto, Ontario, from 16 to 19 August 2007.
A native of the Atlantic region of Canada, van den Hoonaard will be the 25th Balyuzi Lecturer. His research extends into the fields of cartography, human rights, multiculturalism, qualitative research, history, social movements, and research ethics. He served recently as a consultant to the World Health Organization on ethics and qualitative health research, and earlier in February he received the University of New Brunswick President’s Gold Medal for his career work at the university.
Van den Hoonaard’s six book-length publications include The Origins of the Bahá’í Community of Canada, 1898-1948. His most recent book, coauthored with his wife, Deborah, last year is The Equality of Women and Men: The Experience of the Canadian Bahá’í Community.
The Memorial Lecture is named in honour of Hasan M. Balyuzi, a distinguished historian of the Bahá’í Faith. Lecturers are selected by the Executive Committee of the Association for Bahá’í Studies, based on nominations from the organization’s membership.
This year’s conference will focus on the theme of “Scholarship and Community Building” and explore the contributions that scholars and communities can make to each other’s advancement.
New to the conference this year will be three special programs scheduled for the opening day. The programs will allow for close consultation on, respectively, opportunities open to students of the Bahá’í Faith, areas of exploration relevant to Bahá’í faculty, and issues directly related to the conference’s theme.
Speaking in plenary sessions at the conference will be Haleh Arbab, Director of the Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity at the Bahá’í World Centre in Haifa, Israel; Augusto Lopez-Claros, Chief Economist of the World Economic Forum; and Thomas Homer-Dixon, Director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto.
Homer-Dixon’s latest book, The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization, looks at the converging energy, environmental, and political-economic stresses that are eroding national and global order and suggests some opportunities for social reform that might alleviate them.
Proposals for presentations are being accepted by the Association for Bahá’í Studies until 15 April 2007.
For more information, please visit the Association for Bahá’í Studies website.