28th Annual Conference
Spirit and Intellect: Advancing Civilization

This conference simultaneously draws attention to the spiritual quality of the human intellect and the intellectual quality of the human spirit. “Before all else,” the Bahá’í Writings state, “God created the mind. . . .” Civilizations, in all their ever-changing diversity, are the expression of intellect and wisdom, and human happiness results from the upliftment of others achieved through the investigation of reality and the application of the knowledge obtained. Scholarship, then, is a spiritual, social, and scientific endeavor, through which individuals simultaneously realize their potential, foster all human potential, and create new understandings of physical, social, and spiritual reality.

Within the academy, there is currently little formal acknowledgement of the spiritual nature of scholarship. The very words of the conference theme can be problematic. Many in the natural sciences question the meaning of “spirit” and “intellect.” Those in the social sciences and humanities largely concur, and add further questions about the meaning and value of terms like “advancing” and “civilization,” given their recent associations with the injustices of nineteenth- century colonial expansion, twentieth-century totalitarian regimes, and increasingly destructive levels of consumption. Yet these very questions continually spur investigation into what can only be called matters of the spirit. However challenging such questions may be for the Bahá’í scholar, they stimulate a rigorous examination and exploration of Bahá’í texts as well as works of contemporary thought. The result can and should be a transformed understanding of both.

The theme particularly invites exploration of the definition of scholarship and the identity of the scholar; the importance of spiritual goals and motivations of the scholar; the importance of scholarship in aiding spiritual development; the integration of individual and social goals; the role of the scholar in civilization; the contested understandings of civilization, knowledge, and natural and social realities. Possible topics include the cultures and societies in which contemporary social and physical science emerged, and their assumptions about nature, society, and history; the rising need for interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary studies as traditional disciplines fail to address complex social and natural realities; ethical concerns raised by increased corporate influence in natural and health sciences; the growing need for and use of traditional indigenous knowledge; exploring different ways of thinking and the role of the imagination in science, including inductive, deductive, and reductionist reasoning, but also meditation, inspiration, and consultation; ongoing debates on the role of genes versus social and natural environments in determining human nature; and the increasing questioning of worldviews which separate humans and nature, the individual and society, and the natural and spiritual.