The Power of Compassion in Solidarity: Social and Societal Vistas
This lecture focuses on the multifaceted nature of compassion, examining it both through the lens of human-to-human interactions and from a broader societal perspective. Key questions include: How does compassion transform groups and organizations? What role does it play in fostering psychological safety? And, more societally: How is compassion connected to wider solidarity, and what contributions can it make toward building safe societies? The lecture will also explore the role of religious communities and spaces in promoting, as well as threatening, compassion.
Anne Birgitta Pessi
Anne Birgitta Pessi is a Professor of Church and Social Studies, at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Theology since 2012. She is a member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters since 2012. Pessi is a true believer and explorer of altruism and compassion.
She holds the title of ‘Docent’ both in Theology, in Church and Social Studies (University of Helsinki) and in empirical and welfare sociology (University of Eastern Finland).
Pessi’s research interests cover particularly compassion, altruism, meaningfulness, volunteering, civil society, togetherness, church social work and experiences of a good life, as well as individualized religiosity and experiences of the sacred. Her publications include, for instance, over 40 referee journal articles, and over 200 titles. Currently Pessi works, together with her two research teams, on analysis of the power of compassion in corporate business and the public sector as well as on content and reader experiences of self-help literature and the construction of self in this genre.
Pessi directed a vast multidiciplinary project called ‘CoPassion, The Revolutionary Power of Compass’, from 2015 to 2017. The project involved 11 researchers and was funded by more than 10 companies. She also directed an Academy of Finland funded project ‘CoCare, Cooperation in Care – meaning systems, chances, and conflicts’, in 2014-2018. In 2014 she co-edited the publication ‘Solidarity. Theory and Practice’. Previously she directed the research projects ‘RiTS Religion in Transforming Solidarity’, in 2008-201), which led to the publication ‘Christianity and the Roots of Morality’. She has also worked as a Senior Research Member on the project ‘Church in Today´s European Society’, 2011-2015 and as a member of the executive management team of an Argumenta project ‘Human Mortality’, 2011-2014, funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Pessi had already been working on various international research projects before, such as the EU-funded project “Welfare and Values in Europe” (2006-2009).
The schedule
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6.00 - 8.00 p.m.
Optional visit the expo 'COMPASSION' -
8.00 p.m.
Welcome by UCSIA & introduction by Museum MAS -
8.15 p.m.
Lecture by Anne Birgitta Pessi (Professor of Church and Social Studies, University of Helsinki) -
8.55 p.m.
Response by Emmanuel Van Lierde (Staff Member, Study service Curando) -
9.15 p.m.
Q&A -
9.30 p.m.
Ending
