Sunday, March 29, 2026
10:45 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. (GMT+03:00) Doha
We tend to think of conversion in individual, religious terms–as a radical shift in worldview and way of life. But the idea of moral and spiritual regeneration and reorientation is relevant for societies and all of humanity, given the existential threats we face. What examples of collective, political conversions might we point to? What cultural and spiritual resources might promote a global shift away from destructive power competition in the direction of greater cooperation in the face of shared challenges?
Participants
Ranjit Hoskote
Ranjit Hoskote is an Indian poet, theorist, and curator whose influential work centers on the complex history and presence of cultural pluralism from the local to the global. He has authored eight books of poetry—including Icelight (2022), Jonahwhale (2018), and a translation of a fourteenth-century Kashmiri mystic-poet, I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Dĕd (2011)—and the acclaimed book Confluences: Forgotten Histories between East and West (2012, with Ilija Trojanow). Hoskote has curated more than 50 showcases of Indian and global art over the past three decades, including India’s first national pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
Rev. Antonio Spadaro, S.J.
Rev. Antonio Spadaro, S.J., is the undersecretary for the Vatican's Dicastery for Culture and Education. Before that he served as the editor in chief of the Jesuits’ biweekly review, La Civiltà Cattolica, a post he assumed in 2011. Since entering the Society of Jesus in 1988, he has worked in a variety of capacities, including joining the review’s community in 1998. Fr. Spadaro considers his work to be part of the new cybertheology–“thinking faith in the Internet age.” He has also served on the Georgetown University Board of Directors.
Kamila Shamsie
Kamila Shamsie is the author of six novels, most recently Home Fire (2017) and A God in Every Stone (2014), which was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, as well Burnt Shadows (2009) and In the City by the Sea (1998). Her novels have been translated into more than 25 languages, and three have won awards from the Pakistan Academy of Letters. In 2013 Shamsie was named one of Granta’s “Best of Young British Novelists.” She grew up in Pakistan, studied in the United States, is based in London, and is now serving as writer in residence at Georgetown University in Qatar.
Thomas Banchoff
Thomas Banchoff is vice president for global engagement at Georgetown University, where he also serves as professor in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service and director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, which he founded in 2006. His books include The Jesuits and Globalization: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Challenges (2016, with Jose Casanova); Embryo Politics: Ethics and Policy in Atlantic Democracies (2011); Religious Pluralism, Globalization, and World Politics (2008); and Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism (2007). His essays have appeared in Commonweal, The Tablet, The Washington Post, and other outlets.
Accessibility
Please email globaldialogues@georgetown.edu by March 25 with any accessibility requests. A good-faith effort will be made to fulfill all requests made after this date.