The BSPR’s Sixteenth Conference
Creativity and Creation
4th – 6th September, 2025
Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford
Keynote Speakers:
Clare Carlisle (King's College London)
Jessica Frazier (Oxford)
Catherine Pickstock (Cambridge)
Michael Puett (Harvard)
The 2025 conference theme encompasses both human creativity and divine creation, across the full range of religious and philosophical traditions, theistic or otherwise. Presentations may focus on either human creativity or divine creation, or consider the relationship between the two. They may explore the metaphysics, ethics or phenomenology of creative acts (human or divine). We welcome philosophical reflection on the role of the arts in religious life and thought. We also want to consider the creative aspects of philosophical work itself. Conceptual and historical approaches are equally welcome, and attention to both practice and theory is warmly encouraged.
Questions addressed by the conference may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- What is the relationship between human creativity and divine creation?
- To what extent is philosophical thinking a creative activity?
- How can we think philosophically about the role of the arts in religious life?
- What is the connection between creativity and desire / knowledge / freedom / flourishing?
- What account of agency underpins our conceptions of creation and creativity?
- How do alternative models of theism (e.g. pantheism, panentheism, polytheism, classical monotheism) conceptualise creation?
