Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life » Event

Mobility and ‘Dualist’ Heretical Movements in Western and Central Eurasia

cebin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:03:55 +0000

A Talk by Yuri Stoyanov, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
This lecture intends to explore movements in Western and Central Eurasia like Manichaeism, Paulicianism, Bogomilism, and Ismailism (which as early as the tenth century expanded in Central and later in South Asia and often condemned by its Sunni opponents as a ‘Manichaean’ sect). Why did normative Christian and Islamic elites view them as heretical? How did they defy this label to achieve the character of religious internationals?

Co-sponsored by IRCPL, CDTR, the Unit for Culture, Religion and Communication at the Global Health Research Center of Central Asia and the Harriman Institute.

On the Multivocality of Religious Sites and its Implication for Pilgrim and Local Populations

cebin — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:35:42 +0000

A private seminar discussion with Glenn Bowman, Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Kent and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at IRCPL. Participation is by invitation. If interested in attending, please email Chelsea Ebin at cre2106@columbia.edu.

A public talk, Mobilities and Immobilities: Reflections of Fieldwork in Palestine, will follow on Tuesday, February 14, at 5pm.

Glenn Bowman’s talks are part of the Religion and Mobility Faculty Seminar, organized by Karen Barkey, Professor of Sociology and History, and Valentina Izmirlieva, Professor of Slavic Languages, and sponsored by the IRCPL.

Co-sponsored with the Center for Democracy, Toleration, and Religion.

Saudi Arabia and the Arab Spring Uprisings

Emily — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:14:49 +0000

A talk by Bernard Haykel, professor of Near Eastern Studies and director of The Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, at Princeton University.

Saudi Arabia’s leaders have claimed that their regime is immune to the revolutionary changes associated with the Arab Spring uprisings. The Saudis have been quite actively engaged with these events and in complicated ways, domestically as well as regionally. They have encouraged some of the uprisings and attempted to clamp down on others. This talk will explore Saudi Arabia’s policies in response to the Arab Spring, which include enforcing religious sanctions against public demonstrations within the Kingdom, increasing various domestic subsidies in an effort to co-opt potential dissent, stabilizing the monarchy in Bahrain and stewarding a new government into power in Yemen.

Co-sponsored with Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR).

Religion, Legal Pluralism, and Human Rights: European and Transatlantic Perspectives

cebin — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:04:43 +0000

What is the proper place and role of religion in a constitutional democracy or international human rights regime? Does the presence of religious symbols and rituals in public and official spaces foster exclusion or inclusion of those who differ? Do demands for jurisdiction by religious authorities over personal law (marriage, divorce, sexual morals, rituals, etc.) expand or undermine the political equality and human rights of citizens?

This workshop steps back to examine the European and transatlantic past and present with interdisciplinary and geographically diverse scholars and students to take up the issues from the perspective of constitutional, political, and legal theory.

Organized by Jean Cohen, Yasmine Ergas, and Samuel Moyn. Participants include John Bowen, Christian Joppke, Tariq Modood, Maleiha Malik, Cecile Laborde, Rajeev Bhargava, Denis Lacorne, Riva Kastoryano, Genevieve Fraisse, Patrick Weil.

Burden of Choice: Debt

cebin — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:54:36 +0000

A conversation with Michael E. Lewitt, founder and president of the investment advisory firm Harch Capital Management, discusses the relationship between choice and debt. He is the author of The Death of Capital: How Creative Policy Can Restore Stability, and his widely read newsletter, The Credit Strategist, covers economics, politics and the financial markets. Moderated by Mark C. Taylor, Chair of the Department of Religion and Co-Director of the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life.

Burden of Choice is a conversation series about how proliferating choices in a liberal democracy both liberate and constrain us, including charitable giving on February 15; guns on February 29; waste on March 28; and health care on April 12.

Directions to the Heyman Center. Enter the Wien Hall Gate on 116th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Morningside Drive.

Burden of Choice: Waste

cebin — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:52:35 +0000

A conversation with Allison Macfarlane, professor of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University. Her research focuses on environmental policy and international security involving nuclear energy, and she is the editor of Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation’s High-Level Nuclear Waste. Moderated by Klaus Lackner, Maurice Ewing and J. Lamar Worzel Professor of Geophysics.

Burden of Choice is a conversation series about how proliferating choices in a liberal democracy both liberate and constrain us, including charitable giving on February 15; guns on February 29; debt on April 3; and health care on April 12.

Elections in Africa: Mali 2012

cebin — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:50:52 +0000

A roundtable discussion on Mali’s 2012 elections with Susanna Wing (Haverford College), Jaimie Bleck (University of Notre Dame), and Brandon County (Columbia University). Moderated by Manthia Diawara (New York University).

Sponsored by the Center for Democracy, Toleration, and Religion.

Secular Evolution: Coalitions, Crisis and Institutional Change in Ireland and Senegal

cebin — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:45:19 +0000

A talk by David Buckley, a doctoral candidate in government at Georgetown University. Moderated by Alfred Stepan, the Wallace Sayre Professor of Government at Columbia; and Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Professor of French and Romance Philology and of Philosophy at Columbia.

PhD Thesis Series on Religion and Politics co-sponsored with Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR).

Pray, Kill, Eat: Relating to Animals across Religious Traditions

cebin — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:43:40 +0000

A graduate student conference on how religious traditions have been instrumental in both reflecting and constructing humans’ notions of animals and have integrated such notions into comprehensive mythical, symbolic, and ritual frameworks of meaning and action. In recent decades, however, many earlier forms of such relationships have been radically transformed in the face of rapid development. This conference engages both the shifting complexity of the modern world and a growing body of scholarship in religious studies.

Keynote speakers include Wendy Doniger, the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions in the University of Chicago Divinity School; and Kimberley C. Patton, Professor of the Comparative and Historical Study of Religion at Harvard Divinity School.

Sponsored by the Religion Graduate Students’ Association of Columbia University.

Burden of Choice: Guns

cebin — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:41:55 +0000

A conversation with John Feinblatt, the chief policy adviser to Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York and the lead architect of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Burden of Choice is a conversation series about how proliferating choices in a liberal democracy both liberate and constrain us, including charitable giving on February 15; waste on March 28; debt on April 3; and health care on April 12.