Associate professor Zilka Spahić Šiljak, PhD

She holds a PhD in Gender Studies, MA in Human Rights and BA in Religious Studies. Her scope of work includes addressing cutting edge issues involving human rights, politics, religion, education and peace-building with more than fifteen years of experience in academic teaching, and work in governmental and non-governmental sectors. From 2006-2011 she held Religious Studies Program at the University of Sarajevo and in the period from 2011 to 2019 she was a lecturer and visiting scholar at Harvard University and Stanford University in the US. She is a director of Transcultural Psychosocial Educational Foundation (TPO) in Sarajevo with a focus on gender equality, intercultural and interreligious education and peacebuilding. She is a guest lecturer at the Roehampton University in London and she teaches at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zenica. Her publications include:

  1. Sociology of Gender: Feminist Critic, Sarajevo: TPO Foundation, 2019.
  2. Bosnian Labyrinth: Culture, Gender and Leadership, Sarajevo: Buybook, 2019.
  3. Living Values: Global Ethos in Local Context of B&H, Sarajevo: TPO Foundation, 2018.
  4. Shining Humanity. Life Stories of Women in B&H, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014.
  5. Contesting Female, Feminist and Muslim Identities. Post-socialist contexts in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, CIPS University of Sarajevo 2012);
  6. Women, Religion and Politics, IMIC, TPO, CIPS University of Sarajevo, 2010.
  7. Monotheistic Three Voices: Introduction to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Rabic d.o.o. Sarajevo, 2009.
  8. Women Believers and Citizens, TPO Foundation Sarajevo, 2009.

 

 

mr.sci Alen Kristić

Sarajevo, 1977) earned a master’s degree in Theology at the Franciscan Theology in Sarajevo. He is one of the founders and editors of the international theological magazine “Concilium” for Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is also the editor of the “Status – A Magazine for Political Culture and Society Issue” from Mostar and “Bobovac” Magazine from Vareš. He has published four books: “Religion and Power” (Rabic, Sarajevo 2009), “Women Peacemakers – Social and Political Engagement of Female Nobel Peace Prize Winners ” (TPO Foundation, Sarajevo 2012), „The Tyranny of Religious – Essays of Religious Atheism” (Rabic, Sarajevo 2014), „Banished into Oblivion – Fragments of the Positive Potential of Religious (Synopsis, Sarajevo/Zagreb 2015).

He is also an editor of many publications, including “A Global Ethic: Documents – the foundation – the application” (TPO Foundation, Sarajevo 2015), “A Global Ethic Under the School Roof: A Guide for the Integration of a Global Ethic in Teaching Processes” (TPO Foundation, Sarajevo 2015), which he translated from German. He also translated from German the following works: “Ethics” by D. Bonhoeffer (Ex libris / Synopsis, Rijeka/Sarajevo 2009) and “Gnosis and Christianity” Ch. Markschies (Ex libris, Rijeka 2013). Focus area of his research is: peacemaking and religions, global ethos, dialogue between Christianity and Islam, political theology, the configuration of the religious on the ruins of socialism, the position and role of women in the religious sphere, liberation theology, postmodern philosophy as a challenge to Christian thought and practice, etc.

He has been promoting and contextualizing the global ethos in Southeastern Europe, with an emphasis on Bosnia and Herzegovina, since 2005. As a doctoral student at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Zagreb, he was a guest of the Institute of Pastoral Theology and Psychology of the University of Graz (2013-2014). Starting from the concepts of “weak thought” and its closely related concept of “weak Christianity” of the postmodern Christian philosopher G. Vattimo, Kristić questions the transformations of the religious in the post-war transitional context, searching above all for a new form of Croatian Catholicism that would, beyond Croatian political Catholicism, be able to adequately respond to the post-war and transitional traumas of society resulting from the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

 

mr.sci Azra Nezirić

She holds an MA degree in Comparative Literature. She graduated in 2017 from the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo. Her master’s thesis was entitled: “Literary Iterology in Tvrtko Kulenović’s Work”. She wrote book reviews and critiques in Oslobođenje (B&H), Behar (Croatia) and “prometej.ba”. She won a special award at the First International Literary Festival “Bookstan” (B&H). She was part of several student exchange programs: Erasmus+ (Italy), Travel to Europe Project by The Robert Bosch Stiftung (Germany) and Cultural Heritage Without Borders (Albania).

Elma Softić Kaunitz, MA

She received a master’s degree in Religious Studies from the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Sarajevo. She has worked as a philosophy teacher and as a trainer of educational programmes for children and youth. She is also a trainer of SAPERE programme in B&H.

She has published two books “Sarajevo Days and Sarajevo Nights”, and “Sarajevo Days, Sarajevo Nights – Letters and Diaries 1992-1994”, which was performed at theatres in Toronto, Atlanta and Chicago. She is a co-author with her husband Paul Kaunitz of the comic book “Nira” and the collection of stories “All We (Don’t) Want to Know” which were published by TPO Foundation. She is a general secretary of the Jewish Community in Sarajevo and of the Jewish cultural and educational humanitarian society “La Benevolencija”.

Prof. dr. Nezir Halilović

For over fifteen years of work experience and professional training, he has worked as a teacher of Islamic religious studies, primary school teacher, professor of Islamic science and senior assistant in the subject of Methodology of Islamic religious education at the Islamic Pedagogical Faculty of the University of Bihać. He is an initiator and consultant on many educational projects and currently works as a university professor at the Islamic Pedagogical Faculty of the University of Zenica and as a head of the Department for Islamic religious studies at the Riyasat of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

 

Sedžida Hadžić, MA

She is a professor of philosophy and sociology in the Third Gymnasium in Sarajevo. She holds a master’s degree in Religious Studies. She has been teaching and coaching for many years. Sedžida is a coordinator of the Education Center for Democracy and Human Rights of B&H (CIVITAS BiH) in Sarajevo Canton, an associate of ETOS Initiative of TPO Foundation and co-organizer and the first president of the Women’s Trade Union League in B&H. She has organized and conducted a lot of trainings for adults and young people, with more than several thousand participants. She got professional trainings in the USA, Great Britain, Hungary, Croatia and B&H. She has published several papers in the field of democracy and human rights and religious studies and received several awards for her work.