Events

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Michel Chambon, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

PROGRAMME

ABSTRACT

Since the publication of Mother Teresa’s personal writings in the 2000s, an increasing number of scholars affiliated with various academic disciplines are engaged in ‘unpacking’ her complex personality to better understand her religious role and international aura. Notwithstanding the tensions between disciplinary ‘purists’ and ‘trespassers’, the growing Mother Teresa scholarships is testimony to the benefits of employing a multidisciplinary approach. Having acknowledged the welcome contribution of recent studies in areas like theology, philosophy, psychiatry, psychology, media studies and celebrity studies, Alpion focuses on the contribution that Sociology, especially Sociology of Religion, can render in throwing light on aspects of Teresa’s life and spirituality that, to this day, are mostly perceived as a ‘monopoly’ of theology. Focusing on Teresa’s interrelated ministry and spiritual darkness, he explores their causality by employing both ‘sociological imagination’ and a biographical approach in the context of an array of interrelated personal, familial and ethno-spiritual milieus. Reassessing her impact on world Catholicism and global geopolitics, Alpion argues that Teresa’s formative years determined her choice of vocation and every decision thereafter, including the current features of the religious order she generated, the Missionaries of Charity.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Gëzim Alpion has a BA from Cairo University and a PhD from Durham University, UK. He is currently Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Birmingham, UK. Alpion’s main publications include Vouchers: A Tragedy (2001), Foreigner Complex: Articles and Short Stories about Egypt (2002), Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity? (Routledge 2007), Madre Teresa: Santa o Celebrità? (Salerno Editrice 2008), If Only The Dead Could Listen (Globic Press 2008), Encounters with Civilizations: From Alexander the Great to Mother Teresa (Routledge 2017), and Mother Teresa: The Saint and Her Nation (Bloomsbury Academic 2020), winner of the Association of Catholic Publishers (ACP) Excellence in Publishing Award 2023 for biographies. Alpion is considered ‘the most authoritative English-language author’ on St Teresa of Calcutta and ‘the founder of Mother Teresa Studies’.

Alan Chong is Senior Fellow in the Centre for Multilateralism Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. He has published widely on the notion of soft power and the role of ideas in constructing the international relations of Singapore and Asia. This has branched into the theoretical investigation of small states’ foreign policies. His publications have appeared in The Pacific Review; Contemporary Southeast Asia; South East Asia Research; Cambridge Review of International Affairs; Armed Forces and Society; Journal of Strategic Studies; and Review of International Studies. He has co-edited a volume with Pham Quang Minh titled Critical Reflections on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (Cham: Springer Nature under the imprint of Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). His latest book titled Asian Military Evolutions: Civil Military Relations in Asia, is co-edited with Nicole Jenne and was published by Bristol University Press in March 2023.

Bubbles Beverly Asor is currently Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology and Behavioral Sciences and the academic coordinator of the Initiative for the Study of Asian Catholics (ISAC) at De La Salle University Manila. She received her PhD in Sociology at the National University of Singapore. Her research interests include religious organisations, migrant integration, urban diversity, border studies, everyday life, international migration to South Korea, and Philippine migration. She also holds a research fellow position with the Border Studies Cluster, Faculty of Humanities at the Airlangga University, Surabaya, Indonesia. She is the editor-in-chief of Philippine Sociological Review, the flagship journal of the Philippine Sociological Society.

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this hybrid talk has been sent out to registered attendees. Please write to ziqi@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the event.