Faith Angle Europe 2026 Forum

Marlene Laruelle is Full Professor at Luiss University in Rome and Director of the Illiberalism Studies Program and The Lab for Political Imaginaries. Prior to joining Luiss, she spent fifteen years as Research Professor at George Washington University, where she also directed the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES). Trained in political theory and originally a specialist on Russia, Marlene now works on grassroots cultural illiberalism, left postliberalism, and the renewal of political imaginaries. You can follow her on her Substack, Vivatopia.

Tobias Cremer has represented the Ruhr region, western Westphalia, and the Münsterland in the European Parliament since July 2024, serving as one of 14 SPD Members of the European Parliament. He sits on the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Security and Defence, and he is a member of the delegations for relations with the United States and with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

Cremer completed his secondary education at the Neues Gymnasium Bochum before earning a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy at Sciences Po Paris in France. He went on to receive a master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University in the United States and a doctorate in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He subsequently worked as a lecturer in Political Science at the University of Oxford and as a diplomat in the European Affairs Department of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin.

Alongside his professional career, Cremer is active in a number of civic and community organizations, including the AWO Bochum (a workers’ welfare association), the football club VfL Bochum, and the parish of Altenbochum/Laer.

Dr. Sanam Vakil is the director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. Her expertise spans Iranian and Gulf politics, regional security dynamics, and US foreign policy, with a particular focus on the evolving strategic landscape of the Middle East and its global connectivity.

At Chatham House, Sanam directs a diverse portfolio of research and policy initiatives, addressing critical issues such as Gulf Arab security and economic transitions, Iran’s regional ambitions, governance and political reform, women’s empowerment, and the intersection of climate and socio-economic challenges.

She provides nuanced analysis of Western policy priorities – particularly those of the UK, US, and Europe – while also offering strategic insight into the growing influence of China and Russia across the region, and regularly engaging with government, corporate and research sectors.

In addition to her policy work, Sanam holds the James Anderson Professorial Lectureship in Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS Europe) in Bologna, Italy, where she has taught Middle East politics since 2008.

She previously served on the faculty of SAIS Washington’s Middle East Studies Program. Sanam is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on other advisory boards and is regularly consulted by high ranking government officials in the US, Europe, UK, and Middle East.

Delphine Horvilleur is helping transform the traditional French Jewish community through her work as a leader of the Liberal Jewish Movement of France. The grandchild of Holocaust survivors, Horvilleur grew up with a strong sense of Jewish tradition. She studied journalism at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, then moved to New York, where she took an intensive course of Jewish study at the Drisha Institute before beginning her studies at the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. After her ordination in 2008, she returned to France, where she became (and remains, as of 2017) one of three leaders of the Liberal Jewish Movement of France, a liberal community affiliated with the World Union for Progressive Judaism, as well as rabbi of one of its two Parisian synagogues. In her work to bring a more progressive and inclusive mindset to the Jewish community, Horvilleur often draws upon both the values of secular French culture and the historical context that explains why Judaism developed along certain lines in France. This understanding of Jewish history and tradition influenced her two books on religion, Eve’s Costume: Feminism, Modesty, and Judaism (2013), and How the Rabbis Make Children: Sex, Transmission, and Identity in Judaism (2015).

Dariusz Stola is a historian, the director of the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, and professor at the Institute for Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences. He has authored six and co-edited four books, and many articles on the political and social history of Poland in the 20th century, in particular on Polish-Jewish relations, the Holocaust, international migrations and the communist regime.

Wolfgang Palaver is Professor Emeritus of Catholic Social Thought at the University of Innsbruck, where he served as Dean of the Faculty of Catholic Theology from 2013 to 2017. Born in the Tyrol and trained in Innsbruck in theology, German studies, and political science, he has spent his career at the intersection of religion, politics, and violence. He continues to teach Catholic Social Thought at the Philosophical-Theological College of Brixen / Bressanone.

He is among the foremost interpreters of René Girard’s mimetic theory. His René Girard’s Mimetic Theory (2013) is widely regarded as the standard introduction to Girard’s thought, and he has helped shape the wider field as co-editor of The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion and Mimetic Theory and World Religions. From 2007 to 2011 he was president of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, becoming an honorary member of its board in 2016.

Alongside Girard, his work engages Thomas Hobbes, Carl Schmitt, and Simone Weil. Especially in recent years, he has become a sought-after lecturer, speaking widely on religion, violence, and the search for peace.