Professor Maureen Junker-Kenny

Associate Professor of Theology

Head of School of Religions, Theology and Ecumenics

Maureen Junker-Kenny did M.A.s (Staatsexamen) in English, Catholic Theology and Philosophy at the universities of Tübingen and Münster. She completed a Ph.D. on F. Schleiermacher’s Christology and theory of religion at the university of Münster and her Habilitation on J. Habermas’s discourse ethics in Tübingen where she was a lecturer before coming to Trinity College Dublin in 1993. She is a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin.

Research Interests:
Conditions of faith in modernity, religion and public reason, philosophical and theological theories of action, discourse ethics, P. Ricoeur, F. Schleiermacher, biomedical ethics.

Departmental and School functions:
Currently Head of the School of Religions, Theology and Ecumenics (Aspirant), M. Junker-Kenny is Junior Sophister Head of Year and Erasmus coordinator in the Department.

Undergraduate Teaching:
JF Introduction to World Religions - Concepts of Religion
SF/JS Christianity and Society
SF/JS Contemporary Ethical Issues
SF/JS Ethics, Philosophical and Theological
SF/JS Approaches to Theological Ethics
SS Theology and Ethics of Memory
SS Autonomy and Disability, Diversity and Perfection

Postgraduate Teaching:
Postgraduate Seminar Theology
Masters in Theology: Module Christology, cooperation in module Hermeneutics
Masters in Disability Studies (MSc), cooperation in Module: Disability Policies, Law and Ethics

Recent Undergraduate Theses

The Burden of the Past: Philosophical, Ethical and Literary Approaches to the Concepts of Memory and Guilt
'You Are Worth More Than Your Acts': Cultural, Philosophical and Theological Perspectives on the Ethics of Criminal Justice
Concepts of Identity and Conflict from the Perspectives of Amartya Sen, Samuel Huntington and Paul Ricoeur
Pneuma and Logos. Two Complementary Principles of Christology in an Age of Interreligious Encounters
Solicitude and Trust as a Basis for Medical Ethics. The Relevance of the Work of Paul Ricoeur and Onora O'Neill for a Re-evaluation of Informed Consent
The Ethics of Genetic Enhancement: A Comparative Study Between Critical Theory and Liberal Positions on the Future Possibilities of Genetic Intervention
The Ethics of Gene Patents

Current and Completed PhD Theses

Toward an Intercultural Hermeneutic in a Global World. Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of selfhood and cultures in dialogue with Thomas Aquinas’s theory of analogical thinking
The Value of Labour: Economical, Ethical and Civic Perspectives
Human Dignity as Principle of Ethics and Law in Pluralist Democracies. John Rawls’s and Jürgen Habermas’s Political Philosophies in Philosophical and Theological Critique
The Limits of Law: Paul Ricoeur and a critical Phronesis to engage Law, Ethics and Religion
Neither Naked Nor Sacred: A Theology For The Public Square
The Irish Public Service Modernisation Programme 1994 - 2007. A Critique from the Perspective of Catholic Social Teaching
An Autonomy Perspective in Theological Ethics on Transgenic Food Production
Church as Community: Theological Foundations and Development in Practice
'Institutional Integrity'. The use of Theories of Justice for Resource Allocation in the Australian Catholic Church

Selected Publications:
Books:

Cathriona Russell & Linda Hogan & Maureen Junker-Kenny (eds.), Ethics for Graduate Researchers: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach (Oxford: Elsevier, 2012)

Habermas and Theology (London/New York: T & T Clark/Continuum, 2011) (Series: Philosophy and Theology)
Das Urbild des Gottesbewußtseins. Zur Entwicklung der Religionstheorie und Christologie Schleiermachers von der ersten zur zweiten Auflage der Glaubenslehre (Schleiermacher-Archiv Bd. 8) (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 1990)
Co-Editor (with P. Kenny), Memory, Narrativity, Self, and the Challenge to Think God. The Reception within Theology of the Recent Work of Paul Ricoeur (Münster: LIT-Verlag, 2004)
Editor, Designing Life? Genetics, Procreation, and Ethics (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999)
Co-Editor (with R.Ammicht-Quinn, H. Haker), The Structural Betrayal of Trust. Child Sexual Abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, Concilium 2004/3 (London: SCM Press, 2004)
Co-Editor (with R. Ammicht-Quinn/E. Tamez), The Discourse of Human Dignity (Concilium 2003/2) (London: SCM Press, 2003)
Co-Editor (with H. Häring/D. Mieth), Creating Identity - Biographical, Moral, Religious, Concilium 2000/2 (London, S.C.M. Press, 2000)

Book chapters and journal articles:
‘Witnessing or mutual translation? Religion and the requirements of reason’, in Concilium 2011/1, From World Mission to Interreligious Witness (London: SCM, 2011), 105-114.
‘B’Between Postsecular Society and the Neutral State: Religion as a Resource for Public Reason’, in N. Biggar/L. Hogan (eds.), Religious Voices in Public Places (Oxford: OUP, 2009), 58-81.
‘Memory and Forgetting in Paul Ricoeur’s Theory of the Capable Self’ in A. Nünning/A. Erll (eds.), Handbook of Cultural Memory Studies (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2008), 203-211.
‘Genetic Perfection, or Fulfilment of Creation in Christ?’ In C. Deane-Drummond / P. Manley Scott (eds.), Future Perfect? God, Medicine and Human Identity (London-New York: T & T Clark 2006), 155-167.
‘Virtues and the God Who Makes Everything New’, in A. Mayes/W. Jeanrond (eds.), Recognising the Margins: Essays in Honour of Sean Freyne (Dublin: Columba Press, 2006), 298-320, reprinted in E. McDonagh/V. MacNamara (eds.), An Irish Reader in Moral Theology. The Legacy of the Last Fifty Years. Vol. I: Foundations (Dublin: Columba Press, 2009), 169-186.

Prof. Junker-Kenny on the TCD Research Support System

Contact Details:
Phone: +353 1 8961044
Email: mjunkerk@tcd.ie

Room: 5030

Contact: jwelch@tcd.ie | Last updated: Nov 16 2012 | Back to top