The Forum on Religion was brought to being by the following individuals, who comprise its 'steering committee'.
Professor Eileen Barker is the Professor Emeritus of Sociology with special reference to the study of religion. Her main research interest over the past 30 years has been, and continues to be, 'cults', 'sects' and new religious movements - and the social reactions to which they give rise; but since 1989 she has spent much of her time investigating changes in the religious situation in Eastern Europe. She is also the Chair and Honorary Director of Inform, an NGO based at LSE which supplies information on minority religions. See INFORM| for more information.
Professor Kevin Featherstone is the Director of the Hellenic Observatory at the European Institute. His research interests cover the politics of the European integration process and contemporary politics in Greece. He has a keen interest in the relationship between religion and policymaking in the UK and in Europe. He has recently headed a new research project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the UK, examining the position of the Muslim/Turkish minority in Western Thrace in the 1940s.
Dr Effie Fokas is the Director of the Forum on Religion and a Visiting Fellow to the European Institute. Her research interests include the relationship between religion, national identity and nationalism; immigration and the welfare system; and the sociology of religion in a European perspective, with a special focus on Islam. She is co-editor (with Aziz al-Azmeh) of Islam in Europe: Diversity, Identity and Influence (2007, CUP), and co-author (with Peter Berger and Grace Davie) of Religious America, Secular Europe? A theme and variations (2008, Ashgate).
Very Reverend Alexander Fostiropoulos is the Orthodox chaplain of the University of London. He studied architecture at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London in the 1970s and was ordained a priest in 1985 since when he has served as a parish priest and chaplain in London. Fr. Alexander maintains an active presence in the academic life of the LSE as well as of King's College London. He is also an active participant in interfaith events and maintains close contact with leaders of a broad range of faith communities.
Professor Conor Gearty is the the Rausling Professor of Human Rights Law in the Department of Law. He has published widely on terrorism, civil liberties and human rights. His books include Terror (Faber, 1990) and two books with K D Ewing, Freedom under Thatcher (1989) and The Struggle for Civil Liberties (2000). One of his more recent books, Principles of Human Rights Adjudication, is a study of the place of the Human Rights Act in Britain's constitutional order. His Hamlyn lectures in 2005, Can Human Rights Survive?, have been published by Cambridge University Press. His publications include Civil Liberties (OUP, 2007) and Essays on Human Rights and Terrorism (Cameron May, 2008).
Dr Simon Glendinning is the Director of the Forum for European Philosophy and a Reader in European Philosophy at the European Institute. His research focuses on the philosophy of Europe. His latest publications explore the rootedness of European secularity in Christian conceptual resources. He is interested in both the naivety of the classical secularisation thesis and the exaggeration in the idea of the revival of religion. Under the auspices of the Forum on European Philosophy he was closely involved in the organisation of a recent series of talks at LSE on secularism.
John Madeley is a lecturer in the Government Department. His principal research interests and expertise relate to church-state relations in Europe and the relationship between religion and politics. His publications include the reader Religion and Politics (Ashgate, 2003), Church and State in Contemporary Europe: the Chimera of Neutrality (co-edited with Z Enyedi, Cass, 2003) and Religion, Politics and Law in the European Union (co-edited with Lucien Leustean, Routledge, 2009).
The Revd Dr James Walters is the LSE's Anglican Chaplain and Faith
Advisor. His research interests include systematic theology, political
theory and continental philosophy. He is an Executive member of the
Society for the Study of Theology and is particularly interested in the
interface between theology and secular disciplines. He has various roles
in religious education and interfaith dialogue at LSE and beyond.