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.

Pooyan Tamimi Arab is Associate Professor of Secular and Religious Studies at Utrecht University.

Ellie Geranmayeh is a senior policy fellow and deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations. She focuses on US and European policy in relation to Iran, particularly on the nuclear and regional dossiers and sanctions policy. Geranmayeh worked extensively on the diplomatic track that led to the 2015 nuclear deal and continues to brief senior policymakers on how to effectively contain Iran’s nuclear activities. Her research also covers wider regional dynamics including de-escalation efforts between the GCC states and Iran, and geopolitical trends in the Middle East as a consequence of increasing tensions between global powers.

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.

Marc Weitzmann began his career as a journalist in the early 1980s, working with weekly magazine Sans Frontière (Without Borders), the first publication to specialize in migrant workers issues in France. After traveling and living in Brazil, he returned to France to become chief editor of the literary section of Les Inrockuptibles. He is the author of twelve books, including seven novels, two travel accounts, a book of essays, and most recently, Hate: The Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism in France (and What It Means for Us). He is a regular contributor to Le Monde, Le Point, and Tablet, and hosts a weekly radio show called Signes des Temps at France-Culture. He lives in Paris.

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.

Lauren Goode is a senior correspondent at WIRED, covering Big Technology companies, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, the flow of capital, and Silicon Valley culture. She also cowrites the weekly newsletter Backchannel. Previously she worked at The Verge, Recode, and The Wall Street Journal. She lives in San Francisco.