Zoran Grozdanov is an Associate Professor at the University Center for Protestant Theology Matthias Flacius Illyricus in Zagreb. After graduating theology, history and philosophy in Rijeka, Zagreb and Osijek, he earned his PhD at the University in Zagreb. During his PhD studies he has been visiting scholar at the University in Tübingen, Germany, where he was writing his PhD under the supervision of Jürgen Moltmann. He was visiting scholar at the Institute for Ecumenical Theology at the University in Münster, Germany. He presented his papers at the conferences in Berlin, Münster, Oxford, Cambridge and Yale University.
As an author or an editor he has published ten books, and recently he has coedited and contributed to the volume Balkan Contextual Theology: An Introduction (Routledge, 2022) which is the first attempt of the contextual Balkan theology, giving voices to Islamic, Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic and secular perspectives.
His books include Harsh Word: The Death of God in Early Hegel and Early Moltmann (Fabrika knjiga, 2016, in Croatian), Theology: Descent into the Vicious Circles of Death: On the Fortieth Anniversary of Jürgen Moltmann’s The Crucified God (Cascade, 2017), Envisioning the Good Life: Essays on God, Christ, and Human Flourishing in Honor of Miroslav Volf (Cascade, 2017); Homeland Painted with the Incense: Theology of National Identity (Ex libris, 2023, in Croatian). He has contributed and edited many volumes on Christianity in contemporary society, religion and national identity and secular religious collaborations. For the book Faith in the Dialogue: Secular and Religious Domain in Conversation (Ex libris, 2017, two editions, with Nebojša Zelič) he has been awarded with The Book of the Year award by the Center for non-violence and human rights in Osijek, Croatia.
Among his other publications are: “When a Light Cloak Turns into a Pious Cage: Thinking National Identity with Karl Barth and John Paul II” in: M. van der Toll et al (eds.), The Many Faces of Christianism: from the Russian World to the Challenge of Illiberalism in Europe (Brill, 2025, to be published); “Religious nationalism and religious governance: Overlaps and divergences – the Case of Croatia”, Ethnicities (2014), (with Nebojša Zelič); “From Incarnation to Identity: The Theological Background of National-Populist Politics in the Western Balkans”, in Ralston and Schmiedel (eds.), The Spirit of Populism: Political Theologies in the Polarized Times (Brill, 2022); Christ’s Ethnonationalist Crucifixion: Sacralization of Ethnonationalist Agendas within Croatian Catholicism and Serbian Orthodoxy—Cases and Effects, in Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe (2020). Also, he is an co-editor of the forthcoming special issue of the Political Theology journal, devoted to the Balkan political theologies.
Slavica Jakelić teaches religious studies and social thought at the Honors College of Valparaiso University, USA. Her scholarly interests and publications center on religion and nationalism, religious and secular humanisms, theories of religion and secularism, theories of modernity, and interreligious conflict and dialogue. Jakelić has worked at or was a fellow of a number of interdisciplinary institutes in Europe and the United States: Erasmus Institute for the Culture of Democracy (Zagreb, Croatia), Institute for the Study of Economic Culture (Boston University), Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (Vienna, Austria), Institute for the Advanced Study in Culture (University of Virginia), Martin Marty Center (University of Chicago), Erasmus Institute (University of Notre Dame), The Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Studies (University of Notre Dame), Kroc Institute (University of Notre Dame), and Yale Divinity School (Yale University). She was a Senior Fellow of the national project “Religion & Its Publics”, placed at the University of Virginia, where she was a faculty member and co-director at the UVA’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture for several years. She was also a Senior Fellow of the international project “Orthodoxy and Human Rights”, placed at Fordham University.
Jakelić’s writings have appeared in journals such as the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Journal of Religious Ethics, Political Theology, The Hedgehog Review, The Review of Faith & International Affairs, Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, and Commonweal. She edited or co-edited four volumes: The Future of the Study of Religion, Crossing Boundaries: From Syria to Slovakia, The Hedgehog Review’s issue “After Secularization”, and the special issue of Religions “Nationalisms and Religious Identities.” Jakelić is the author of Collectivistic Religions (Routledge, 2010/2016), Both Freedom and Belonging: Essays on Religion, Nationalism, and Solidarity (Tim Press, in Croatian, 2024) and Pluralizing Humanism (Routledge, 2025). She is currently working on a book titled Ethical Nationalisms.
Nebojša Zelič earned his degree in philosophy and history at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka. He received his PhD from the same faculty in 2012 with a dissertation in political philosophy titled The Idea of Public Reason. Since 2016, he holds the position of assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka. He also teaches the course “Justice in the City” in the specialist Urban Studies program at the University of Rijeka. In 2018, he taught the course “Civic Friendship in Liberal Community” at the University of Potsdam. He has been the head of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Rijeka (2019-2025). He led the project Designing a Civic Education Curriculum for Secondary Schools, within which the elective course “School and Community” was developed. He also initiated the revitalization program of the Mrkopalj Peace School. He was the principal investigator of the research project Well-being, Belonging, and Social Justice (UIP-2017-3462) funded by the Croatian Science Foundation. He is currently a collaborator on the research project Public Justification and Capability Pluralism (IP-2020-02-8073), also funded by the Croatian Science Foundation.
For the book Faith in the Dialogue: Secular and Religious Domain in Conversation (2017, two editions, with Zoran Grozdanov) he has been awarded with The Book of the Year award by the Center for non-violence and human rights in Osijek, Croatia. He also published Philosophy of Well-Being (University of Rijeka, 2024, in Croatian, with A. Gavran Miloš).
Among his other publications are: „Play It by Trust: Social Trust, Political Institutions and Leisure“ in Institutions in Action: The Nature and the Role of Institutions in the Real World, Andina, Tiziana , Bojanić, Petar (ed.). Cham: Springer (2020); „The resource curse and duties to immigrants“ (with T. Crnko) Ethics & Global Politics, 14 (2021); „The Role of Experts in Deliberative Epistemic Democracy“ Ethics and politics, 23 (2021); ) „From Catholic Church to Religious–Political Movements: Religious Populism’s Coming of Age in Croatia“ in The Christian Right in Europe: Movements, Networks and Denominations / lo Mascolo, Gionathan (ed.), Transcript Verlag, Berlin, 2023 (with Z. Grozdanov); „Religious nationalism and religious governance: Overlaps and divergences. The case of Croatia“ // Ethnicities, 24(2), (2024) (with Z. Grozdanov).
