With a Mormon candidate for the presidency and the unprecedented media attention given to Mormons recently, this conference  will take a broad view of the history of Mormon participation in American political life, from Joseph Smith’s 1844 run for the presidency to the Reed Smoot trials of the early 20th century and to the rise of Ezra Taft Benson during the Eisenhower administration, which ushered in a new era of Mormon identification with the Republican Party.

Speakers include Randall Balmer, Richard Bushman, Claudia Bushman, Joanna Brooks, Matthew Bowman, Sarah Barringer Gordon, Jan Shipps, Trevor Hill, Meredith LeSueur, David Campbell, Russel Arben Fox, Max Perry Mueller, Philip Barlow, and Peggy Fletcher Stack. The Religious Test, a documentary about American voters’ perceptions of Mormons, will also be screened.

Moderated and organized by Randall Balmer and Jana Riess. Sponsored by the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life.

No registration required. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Members of press may contact chriscdtr@gmail.com.

Conference schedule and participant bios and paper abstracts follow:

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A talk by Arolda Elbassani, CDTR Visiting Researcher, PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute, Florence. Moderated by Karen Barkey, Professor of Sociology, Columbia University.

Since the fall of communism, Muslim organizations have boomed in number and strength in Albania. Yet, they represent an exceptional case of Islam which is both liberal, tolerant, pro-democratic and pro-European.  The Albanian brand of moderate Islam has persisted over radical influences which have penetrated the porous post-communist terrain characterized by open competition for sources and ideas.

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

A conversation with Michael Laffan, Professor of History, Princeton University and author of The Makings of Indonesian Islam; and with Duncan McCargo, Visiting Scholar, Weatherhead East Asian Institute and author of Mapping National Anxieties: Thailand’s Southern Conflict.
Co-sponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI) and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR).

A conversation with Paul Kollman, who will draw upon his research in African Christianity as well as other trends in religious studies to offer some suggestions about how studies of religion and mobility have been already undertaken and how they might profitably move forward. Kollman is an associate professor in the Department of Theology and Fellow of the Kellogg, Kroc, and Nanovic Institutes at the University of Notre Dame, as well as Acting Director of the Center for Social Concerns at Notre Dame. In 2005 he published The Evangelization of Slaves and Catholic Origins in Eastern Africa and his current project is a book on the Catholic missionary evangelization of eastern Africa.

A conversation with Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, Anathem, and most recently Reamde. Moderated by Alfred E. Guy Jr, director of Yale College Writing Center.

Rewiring the Real is a yearlong series of conversations with writers about the interplay of literature, technology and religion, including Jennifer Egan on February 7 and Mark Z. Danielewski on April 24. 

A conversation with Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, Absurdistan, and most recently Super Sad True Love Story. Moderated by McKenzie Wark, professor of media and cultural studies at The New School and author of Gamer Theory.

Rewiring the Real is a yearlong series of conversations with writers about the interplay of literature, technology and religion, including Neal Stephenson on December 1; Jennifer Egan on February 7; and Mark Z. Danielewski on April 24.

A workshop with Christophe Jaffrelot (CERI, Sciences Po); Karen Barkey (Columbia); Rajeev Bhargava (Columbia); Shabnam Hashmi; Gagan Sethi (Jan Vikas Society).The 2002 pogrom in Gujurat, India, which resulted in 2,000–mostly Muslim–casualties. It was exceptional not only because of its magnitude but also because of its spread to the countryside, where a large number of Muslims were attacked by their Hindu neighbours. After the pogrom, NGOs committed themselves to relief work, judicial assistance and attempts at reconciliating Hindus and Muslims. This workshop will engage NGO activists involved in reconciliation work to share their experience and assess the impact of their efforts.The workshop is part of the ongoing Sacred Sites project, organized by Karen Barkey and Elazar Barkan.

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

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On September 17th, 2011, a group of protestors began their occupation of Zuccotti Park in the financial district of Manhattan. The #OCCUPYWALLSTREET movement has grown to include hundreds of people who live in the park and thousands more who occupy it during the day. Similar protests have begun in other cities around the United States and throughout the world. The leaderless movement has spread largely via the Internet and through the use of mobile technology and social media. How do we understand this movement? What is new about it, and how has it arisen? Where is it going, and how has it already changed? A roundtable of Columbia University professors will explore these questions and provide a platform for campus-wide discussion.

Participants include Saskia Sassen (Sociology), Nadia Urbinati (Political Science), Stathis Gourgouris (ICLS), and Suresh Naidu (Economics and SIPA).

Seating is limited, and registration is required. Please RSVP to jlb2210@columbia.edu.

Sponsored by the Heyman Center for the Humanities, the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society (ICLS) and the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life (IRCPL).

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A screening of Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer, a documentary film about the mystical prayer that has been in use since the Apostles, but remains largely unknown in the West. For the first time on film, desert hermits, monks and nuns reveal the simple prayer, bringing us into their private cells, caves and sanctuaries in the Middle East, Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, and Russia.

A conversation with the film’s director, Dr. Norris J. Chumley, bestselling author and Emmy-Award-winning executive producer/director. He is also a blogger for Huffington Post and a professor at New York University.

A two-day conference organized by South Asia Institute. Keynote speakers include Aitzaz Ahsan (Lawyer’s Movement; Supreme Court Bar Association) and Sara Hossain (Barrister-at-Law, High Court Division, Supreme Court of Bangladesh).

Schedule of Speakers

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How have recent laws, policies, and social pressures affected the civic and political engagement of Muslim Americans since 9/11?  This conference will examine political and electoral participation of Muslim Americans; the effects of counter-terrorism and de-radicalization policies and new policing and urban zoning laws on Muslim American communities; and how increases in profiling, racialization and mobilization have reshaped Muslim American engagement in the public sphere.

Co-sponsored with the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA); Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR); Middle East Institute (MEI); and the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU).

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A talk by Denis Lacorne on his new book, Religion in America: A Political History. The book identifies two competing narratives in American history and national identity: a secular one, derived from the philosophy of the Enlightenment, and a religious one, rooted in the Protestant Reformation and Puritanism. It is the third volume in the publication series by Columbia University Press and IRCPL.

Denis Lacorne is director of research at Center of International Research and Studies (CERI), Sciences Po, and a specialist of political history in the U.S.

Co-sponsored by the Alliance Program, the Center for Democracy, Toleration and Religion, the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life and the Maison Francaise. Partial support is provided by Cultural Services of the French Embassy.

A discussion with Humeira Iqtidar, research fellow at the Centre of South Asian Studies and at King’s College, Cambridge University. Moderated by Karen Barkey, Professor of Sociology at Columbia.

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

A conference for the project Religion and Human Rights Pragmatism. What causes persuasion, diffusion, and change of human rights norms and practices? What are the processes by which human rights norms change across cultures?  Does normative change happen through exposure to new ideas, by astute strategies of persuasion, by rewards for good behavior and punishments for bad, or as a result of deep social and economic changes that create a climate in which rights can thrive?

A round table discussion with Marcus Mietzner, Steven A. Cook, and Alfred Stepan.

Marcus Mietzner, Senior Lecturer at the Australian National University, is the author of Military Politics, Islam and the State in Indonesia: From Turbulent Transition to Democratic Consolidation, which was highly praised by The Economist. Professor Mietzner’s research on models of controlling the military during democratic transition in Indonesia can be posited as a potential guide for Egypt’s transition.

Steven A. Cook, is the authoritative scholar on the Egyptian military, Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington DC, and author of Ruling But Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey and a forthcoming book on the Egyptian transition.

Moderated by Professor Alfred Stepan, Wallace Sayre Professor of Government, author of two books on civil-military relations and a number of texts on failed and successful democratic transitions. Professor Stepan has made two visits to Egypt since March 2011.

Sponsored by the Center for Democracy, Tolerance, and Religion and the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies.

A discussion with Professor Marcus Mietzner, Australia National University. Moderated by Professor Ann Marie Murphy.

Mietzner will review the state of decentralization in Indonesia ten years after its launch in 2001 and will focus on those impacts of decentralization that have made the Indonesian state stronger and center-periphery relations more stable than at any other point in the country’s history.

Co-sponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion.

A reception welcoming Columbia faculty and students interested in learning about upcoming events and funding opportunities at the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life (IRCPL) and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR). Learn about applying for research grants and assistantships, proposing faculty seminars, and convening events. Meet the directors and staff of the IRCPL and CDTR.

The event is co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR).

What are the consequences of the increasing salience of “spirituality” in American civic and political life? Do actors and groups publicly identified as spiritual challenge commonly held understandings of social and political involvement? This conference explores the institutions and traditions that construct spiritual activities and identities, and it considers their relations to systems and patterns of political participation and public engagement in the contemporary United States.

Panelists and respondents include: Nancy Ammerman (Boston University), Courtney Bender (Columbia University), Philip Gorski(Yale University), David Kyuman Kim (Connecticut College), Pamela Klassen (University of Toronto), Ruth Marshall (University of Toronto), Elizabeth McAlister (Wesleyan University),Omar McRoberts (University of Chicago), John Lardas Modern (Franklin and Marshall College), Joel Robbins (University of California, San Diego), and Josef Sorett (Columbia University).

For more information, or to RSVP, contact Charles Gelman, at gelman@ssrc.org.

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VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF JAZZ 1pm
Since its inception, jazz music has inspired artists to represent the arrangements of its rhythms and nuances of its tone through photography, painting, collage, and other media. Join curator, scholar, and author Professor Robert O’Meally, photographer Kwame Brathwaite, and curator Erica Agyeman for a brief discussion addressing the visual representations of jazz.

JAZZ AND THE SPIRIT: THE ARTS OF HARLEM IN THE AMERICAN RELIGIOUS IMAGINATION    2pm
From the Spirituals, through Blues and Jazz and right on up to Hip Hop, religion has occupied a place of privilege in black musical repertoires.  At the same time, Harlem—that premier staging ground of African-American cultural expression—has in many ways figured pre-eminently as a sacred place and space in American history. Wedding these themes together, Professor Marcellus Blount, composer, pianist, arranger Courtney Bryan, Reverend Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III and historian Josef Sorett explore the spiritual dimensions of Harlem’s aesthetic legacies and contemporary vitality.

Please visit: http://www.harlemjazzshrines.org/ for more information.

The African metropolis represents one of the most challenging and important spaces of our time. Insight on African cities has driven some of the most innovative and provocative recent scholarly debates considering development, the nature of citizenship, and the postcolonial urban condition. In contrast with a familiar, sometimes apocalyptic reading of ?failed? African cities which characterizes them as dysfunctional, chaotic and decaying, there is a burgeoning scholarship which explores the way that African cities actually work and the very orderly, dynamic, and creative processes which animate them. more

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A conversation with comedian Lewis Black, a regular commentator on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He is a two-time Grammy Award-winner for the comedy albums The Carnegie Hall Performance (2006) and Stark Raving Black (2010) and is author of several books, including Nothing’s Sacred (2005) and I’m Dreaming of a Black Christmas (2010).

Moderated by Mark C. Taylor, Chair of the Department of Religion and Co-Director of the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life.

Sponsored by the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life

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A talk by Murat Somer, a Democracy and Development Fellow at the Institute for International &
Regional Studies, Princeton University.

Moderated by Karen Barkey, Director of Undergraduate Studies Sociology and Professor of
Sociology and History, Columbia University.

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

A book launch and panel discussion of Religion and International Relations Theory with editor Jack Snyder (Political Science, Columbia); contributor Elizabeth Shakman Hurd (Luce Visiting Fellow, Princeton); Michael Doyle (Political Science, Columbia); and Courtney Bender (Religion, Columbia).

Religious concerns stand at the center of international politics, yet key paradigms in international relations—realism, liberalism, and constructivism—barely consider religion in their analysis of political subjects. The essays in this volume rectify this; they introduce models that integrate religion into the study of international politics and connect religion to a rising form of populist politics in the developing world.

Registration is encouraged. Please register here.
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A Conversation with Eboo Patel, the founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, an international nonprofit that aims to promote interfaith cooperation. He is a member of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships and author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim.

“Shop Talk and God Talk” is a yearlong series of conversations with professionals working on how the study of religion shapes their work and their global perspectives. Organized by Lisa Miller, senior editor of Newsweek. Co-sponsored with Columbia Journalism School and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR).

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The purpose of this workshop is to discuss the various meanings of legal pluralism and its impact on human rights and on gender hierarchies. Is legal pluralism an obstacle to human rights, particularly of women? Is status based legal pluralism defensible if the groups exercising the coercive power of the state involve patriarchal norms and/or non-democratic hierarchical authority structures? Should one differentiate between ethnic and religiously based legal pluralism when the rights of women are at stake?

Turkey, India, and to some extent, the United States offer excellent material for analyzing democracy, secularism and constitution-making.  Conference panels will use TESEV DP research to evaluate current debates in Turkey on constitutionalism, constitution-making, transitional justice and reparations, and religion-state relations and to reflect on how these issues have been engaged in the United States and India and what each case can offer to scholarship and policymaking.
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The following people will be participating in the discussion:

Mona El-Ghobashy (Assistant Professor Comparative Politics, Barnard College)
Timothy Frye (Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy)
Mirjam Kuenkler (Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University)
Alfred Stepan (Wallace Sayre Professor of Government at SIPA and Political Science as well as the Co-Director of the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life at Columbia University)

Moderated by:

Michael Doyle (Member, Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University)

Click here to listen.

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A talk by Olivier Roy on his new book, Holy Ignorance.  Roy, one of the world’s most distinguished analysts of political Islam, finds in the modern disconnection between faith communities and sociocultural identities a fertile space for fundamentalism to grow. Instead of freeing the world from religion, secularization has encouraged a kind of holy ignorance to take root, an anti-intellectualism that promises immediate access to the sacred and positions itself in direct opposition to contemporary pagan culture.  Books will be on sale at the talk.

Click here to listen.

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A talk by Sami Pihlstrom, Director of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies at the University of Helsinki and Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. After having received his PhD in philosophy in 1996 from the University of Helsinki, he has authored more than ten books (seven in English) and dozens of articles on pragmatism, the problem of realism, transcendental philosophy, philosophy of religion, and related topics. He is one of the founders of the Nordic Pragmatism Network and one of the Editors of Sats: North European Journal of Philosophy, as well as Book Review Editor of Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society.

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A talk by Dilek Cindoglu, Visiting Senior Scholar at Columbia University’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWaG). What are the real world impacts of Turkey’s headscarf ban? Despite the contrary expectations from the headscarf ban  towards women’s emancipation and liberation in the public,  the headscarf ban it is actually limiting women’s labor force participation in contemporary Turkey.

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5:00 pm: Screening of Restrepo, an Academy Award nominated documentary about a platoon of U.S. soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. Based on reporting for Vanity Fair and winner of the Grand Jury Prize for the best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

6:30 pm: Discussion with filmmakers Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington. Junger is a journalist and author of the books The Perfect Storm and War, based on his reporting from Afghanistan. Hetherington is an award-winning photographer and author of Long Story Bit by Bit: Liberia Retold. Moderated by Paul Elie, senior editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Co-sponsored with Columbia Journalism school as part of the Delacorte Lectures on Magazine Journalism; Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma; Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies; and Columbia-SIPA Veterans Association.

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A panel discussion and book launch with contributors to After Pluralism: Reimagining Religious Engagement, the first volume in the book series by Columbia University Press and the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life:

• Courtney Bender, Associate Professor, Religion, Columbia University
• J. Terry Todd, Associate Professor, Religious Studies, Drew University
• Janet Jakobsen, Director, Center for Research on Women, Barnard College
• Winnifred F. Sullivan, Director, Law and Religion Program, University Buffalo Law School
• Rosemary Hicks, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Humanities, Tufts University
• Moderated by Craig Calhoun, President of the Social Science Research Council.

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This conference studies the diverse images of shared heroes across the Abrahamic traditions. It explores and compares the invention and reinvention of the heroes over time and space within their specific cultural contexts in the late Middle Ages and the early modern times. Considering the different roles and functions certain heroes have filled in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam indeed reveals how different societies and cultures communicate, consciously and unconsciously, and how they interact.

To RSVP (required), please contact Kerren Marcus, knm2121@columbia.edu.

For more information, please visit http://iijs.columbia.edu.

Organized by Micha Perry (Yale University) and Rebekka Voß (Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität). Co-sponsored by the Columbia University Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies & the Program in Judaic Studies at Yale University with support from the Columbia University Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life.

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A conversation with Eliza Griswold, an award-winning journalist and fellow at the New America Foundation. Her recent book is The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam (2010). Moderated by Randall Balmer, Professor of Religion at Barnard College.

“Shop Talk and God Talk” is a yearlong series of conversations with professionals working on how the study of religion shapes their work and their global perspectives. Organized by Lisa Miller, senior editor of Newsweek.

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

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A conference with Christophe Jaffrelot, Alliance Visiting Professor (Sciences Po-CERI, Paris) and author Hindu Nationalism: A Reader (2008), A History of Pakistan and Its Origins (2004), and The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India (1998), Alfred Stepan (Columbia University), Philip Oldenberg (Columbia University), and many others.

Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion.

Click here to listen at SIPA’s website.

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A screening and conversation with the director of Constantine’s Sword and Sister Rose’s Passion. The film based on James Carroll’s book of the same title, Constantine’s Sword is Carroll’s personal exploration into Christianity’s violent historical roles. Sister Rose’s Passion is an Academy Award-nominated film about a Dominican nun’s personal campaign against anti-Semitism in the Catholic faith.

Oren Jacoby is an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker. In 2004, Sister Rose’s Passion won Best Documentary Short Film at the Tribeca Film Festival. He has also won CINE Golden Eagles, the Royal Television Society journalism award, and the MacArthur Golden Owl award.

“In the Names of Gods” is a month-long film series sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion.

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A screening of Chaplains Under Fire, a documentary about the presence of military chaplains in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. The film explores the daily lives of the chaplains, their interactions with fellow soldiers, and the issue of constitutionality at the heart of their service. With special guests directors Lee Lawrence and Terry Nickelson.

Terry Nickelson has been involved in several film projects, contributing to a PBS series on preventive diplomacy and filming a documentary on Rwandan refugees.  Lee Lawrence is a freelance writer; she wrote an award-winning series on military chaplains in 2007 for the Christian Science Monitor.

“In the Names of Gods” is a month-long film series sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion.

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Victor Anderson, Vanderbilt University
Serene Jones, Union Theological Seminary
Barbara Savage, University of Pennsylvania

Co-moderators:
Cathy Cohen, University of Chicago
Josef Sorett, Columbia University

Seating is limited. To RSVP, send email to: dwm2110@columbia.edu

A discussion with:

• Christopher Caldwell, senior editor at The Weekly Standard, columnist at the Financial Times, author of Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West
• Adam Gopnik, writer for The New Yorker, author of Paris to the Moon and Angels and Ages;
• Patrick Weil, visiting professor at Yale Law School, director of the Center for the Study of Immigration, Integration and Citizenship Policies, at the University of Paris 1, and author of How to be French: Nationality in the Making since 1789.
• Chaired by Peter Awn, professor of Islamic Religion and Comparative Religion and director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University.

A cocktail reception with the speakers will follow. To attend the event, please RSVP to: mj2412@columbia.edu

Co-sponsored by the Columbia-Paris Alliance Program, the American Foundation, and the Middle East Institute at Columbia University.

A talk by YOGENDRA YADAV, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and Co-Director of Lokniti, a research programme on comparative democracy. His research interests include modern Indian political thought and Indian socialism.

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

A discussion with Aqil Shah, current PhD in Political Science at Columbia University and Harvard Society of Fellows 2010-2012. Moderated by Jack Snyder, The Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations, and Alfred Stepan, Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government.

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

A lecture by NIRAJA GOPAL JAYAL, Visiting Professor at Princeton University and Professor at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University. She is author of Democracy and the State: Welfare, Secularism and Development in Contemporary India (1999) and director of the Ford Foundation project Dialogue on Democracy and Pluralism in South Asia.

The Annual Mary Keating Das Lecture co-sponsored with the South Asia Institute and Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR).

A symposium on Jews and Native Americans, two peoples made into Others by Christian Euro-America in fascinatingly similar yet different ways: as remnants of primitivity, as tribal peoples, as enduring threats and unassimilable enemies, and as romanticized traditionals possessing the solution to the ills of modernity.

Directions: Enter at 116th Street (at Broadway or Amsterdam)
Enter building through Schermerhorn Hall; Follow signs when you enter to the elevators to the Symposium in 754 Schermerhorn Ext.

Co-sponsored with the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies.

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A discussion with OUSMANE KANE, Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University.

Religion, Ethnicity and Politics Lecture Series co-sponsored by Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR) and Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP).

A screening of My Father, My Lord (2007) and a discussion with Uri Cohen, Professor of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures.

A film series co-sponsored with the Religion Departments of Columbia University and Barnard College.

A prestigious group of over a dozen Iranian scholars, media entrepreneurs, and democratic activists will discuss the role of new forms of media in the pursuit of social change within Iran.  The forum will feature a series of talks in Low Library in the morning and interactive break-out sessions on various topics in the afternoon. For more information and registration, please visit: www.newgenerationforum.org

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

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The discipline that was once called “Oriental Studies” has been divided up in various ways in today’s university. This conference is concerned not with “the death of the discipline” as so many others have been, but rather with the diversity of the disciplines when it comes to studying the non-Western World.

Join us for student papers, two faculty discussion panels, and a keynote address by Professor Aamir Mufti of UCLA. For more information, including a schedule, presentation abstracts and directions, see http://www.columbia.edu/~add2115/gradconf/

A talk by SENER AKTURK, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University. Reception to follow.

For more information, please contact Mucahit Bilici at mbilici@jjay.cuny.edu.

This talk is part of the Religion and Politics Lecture Series, which is co-sponsored by The Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR), Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP).

A conversation and book signing with NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and columnist for the New York Times. He is co-author of the recent bestseller Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (2009), copies of which will be on sale.  Moderated by Sheila Coronel, Professor of Professional Practice at the Columbia Journalism School.

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

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A conference on the challenges faced by Muslim immigrants and their children in the process of integration in France and the United States.

Organized by Ousmane Kane (SIPA, Columbia) and Khadija Mohsen Finan (Science Po, Paris) with Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Malika Zeghal, Rosemary Hicks, Mohamed Nimeir, Solenne Jouaneau, Ahmet Kuru, Louise Cainkar, Valerie Amiraux, Simona Tersigni, Ousmane Kane, Aminah Mohammed Arif, Hisham Aidi, Robert Lieberman, Mucahit Bilici, Mahamet Timera and Samim Akgonul.

Co-sponsored with Columbia University Seminar for the Study of Contemporary Africa; School of International & Public Affairs (SIPA); Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, & Religion (CDTR); Department of Religion at Barnard College; Institute for Religion, Culture, & Public Life (IRCPL); Middle East Institute; Institute of African Studies; Maison Française; The European Institute; Department of French & Romance Philology; Migration Working Group.

download the conference agenda

A lecture and concert with Grammy-nominated Amjad Ali Khan, a maestro without peer in Indian classical music. Accompanied by his two sons, Amaan Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan, he will play some of his most popular songs with the sarod, a soulful string instrument.

Tickets for Lecture in Lerner Hall, 6-7PM
http://cuarts.com/calendar/view/type/4/event_id/5288

Tickets for Concert in Miller Theatre, 8-10PM
www.millertheatre.com

The most prominent politicians and intellectuals of the left in India will gather to discuss the role of the left in the future of a globalized India.

Speakers include Prabhat Patnaik, (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Planning Board of the Indian state of Kerala), Sitaram Yechury (author of Saffron Brigade and columnist with Hindustan Times), C.P. Chandrasekhar (Jawaharlal Nehru University and co-author of Crisis as Conquest: Learning from East Asia), Jayati Ghosh (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Javeed Alam (author of Domination and Dissent, Who wants Democracy?), Sanjay Reddy (Barnard College and SIPA), Arjun Jayadev (University of Massachusetts), Anush Kapadia (Columbia University), and Akeel Bilgrami (Heyman Center for the Humanities, Columbia University).

Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR), the Heyman Center for the Humanities, and the Committee on Global Thought.

A graduate conference on how new media technologies have transformed the way people imagine and communicate with the divine.

Keynote speakers include BERNARD STIEGLER, Director of the Department of Cultural Development at Centre Georges-Pompidou, MARK C. TAYLOR, Chair of Religion at Columbia University, BRIAN LARKIN, Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, and SAMUEL WEBER, Professor of German at Northwestern University.

Co-sponsored with Religion Graduate Students Association at Columbia University.

A discussion with AHMET KURU, Assistant Professor of Political Science at San Diego State University and author of Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey.

Religion, Ethnicity and Politics Lecture Series co-sponsored by Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR) and Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP).

A discussion with Haroon Moghul, current PhD in Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University. Moderated by Sudipta Kaviraj, Professor of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures and Bachir Souleymane Diagne, Professor of French and Romance Philology

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

A discussion with Al Jazeera Director General,  Wadah Khanfar, who transformed the single channel into a media network with multiple properties including Al Jazeera English.  Ranked as one of the most “Powerful People in the World” by Forbes Magazine, Khanfar began his career as a news correspondent in South Africa and later reported on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. One of his first mandates as managing director was to launch the Al Jazeera Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct in July 2004 at the First Al Jazeera International Forum.

Co-sponsored with the Middle East Institute and Columbia’s School of Journalism.

A screening of The Green Pastures (1936) and discussion with Josef Sorett, Professor of Religion.

A film series co-sponsored with the Religion Departments of Columbia University and Barnard College.

A discussion with Ajay Chaudhary, current PhD in Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University. Moderated by Sudipta Kaviraj, Professor of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures.

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

A discussion with MICHAEL BUEHLER, Postdoctoral Fellow in Modern Southeast Asian Studies 2008-10 at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute. Moderated by Alfred Stepan, Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government.

Religion, Ethnicity and Politics Lecture Series co-sponsored by Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR) and Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP).

A discussion with Iren Ozgur, 2009 PhD in Political Science at Oxford University. Moderated by Karen Barkey, Professor of Sociology.

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

A discussion with TARIQ MODOOD, Professor of Sociology at the University of Bristol and director of the Research Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol.

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

A discussion with JULIANE HAMMER, Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at George Mason University and author of Palestinians Born in Exile: Diaspora and the Search for a Homeland (2005).

Religion, Ethnicity and Politics Lecture Series co-sponsored by Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR) and Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP).

A screening of A Man Escaped (1956) and discussion with Joshua Dubler, Society of Fellows.

A film series co-sponsored with the Religion Departments of Columbia University and Barnard College.

A discussion with Emily Bech, current PhD in Political Science, Columbia University. Moderated by Jack Snyder, The Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relationsm, and Alfred Stepan, Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government.

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

A discussion with FATMA GOCEK, Associate Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at University of Michigan and author of Social Constructions of Nationalism in the Middle East (2002) and Rise of the Bourgeoisie, Demise of Empire: Ottoman Westernization and Social Change (1996).

Religion, Ethnicity and Politics Lecture Series co-sponsored by Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR) and Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP).

A conversation with GEORGE RUPP, president of the International Rescue Committee and former president of Columbia University as well as author of Globlization Challenged: Conviction, Conflict, Community (2006). Moderated by Mark C. Taylor, Chair of the Department of Religion.

[download podcast]

A discussion of human-rights report by the Cairo Institute of Human Rights (CIHRS) and its implications for U.S. policy, with remarks from Bahey Eldin Hassan (General Director, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies), Jeremie Smith (Director, Geneva Office of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies), Radwan Ziadeh (Founding Director, Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies).

In 2009, human rights in the Arab world have significantly deteriorated, prompting CIHRS to refer to the region as a “bastion of impunity.” The report points to increased suppression of political dissent and raises concerns about religious freedom, the deteriorating status of religious minorities and the tendency of regimes to align themselves with radical Islamists.

Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Human Rights (CSHR) and co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR).

A discussion and screening of “Heaven’s Taxi” and “Iran Zendan”, two feature films that address the political situation and treatment of prisoners in Iran since the 2009 presidential election.  Panelists include Daryush Shokof, Hasan Demicri, Taies Farzan, Vadim Glowna, Bahman Maghsoudlou, Mahnaz Talebitari, and Daryoush Zandi.

Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Human Rights (CSHR).  Co-sponsored by the Human Rights Working Group at SIPA, the Human Rights Concentration at SIPA and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR).

A discussion with Gérard Araud, Ambassador of France to the United Nations, on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons as a new resolution on the Iranian crisis is under discussion at the United Nations. Moderated by Richard Bulliet, Professor of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University.

To RSVP: mj2412@columbia.edu

Co-sponsored by the Columbia-Paris Alliance Program; the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR); the Middle East Institute (MEI); the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and the UN Studies Program.

“Western Responses to the Torture of Muslims”
4-5:30pm: Keynote address by Sherene Razack, Professor of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. She is author of Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims From Western Law and Politics (2008) and Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping and the New Imperialism (2004).

“The New Muslim Cool”
6-8pm: A screening of the film “The New Muslim Cool,” by Jennifer Taylor, with a discussion with Zaheer Ali (Columbia University). The film is about Puerto Rican American rapper Hamza Perez’s ride through the streets, projects and jail cells of urban America, following his spiritual journey to some surprising places. Please visit:
http://www.newmuslimcool.com

Co-sponsored with Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race; Middle East Institute; and the Institute of African Studies Institute for Social Policy and Understanding’s Center for the Study of American Muslims George Mason University’s Ali Vural Ak Center for Islamic Studies.

Speakers: Can Paker (Chair, TESEV), Etyen Mahçupyan (Turkish/Armenian Journalist, former Editor in Chief of Agos), Dilek Kurban (Program Officer, TESEV), Henri Barkey, (Lehigh University, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) Zehra Arat (SUNY Purchase), Jeremy Walton (New York University).

Panels will address how questions related to identity, nation-state and citizenship are being reshaped from below and how the Turkish state responds to minority, ethnic and religious challenges to citizenship in Turkey.  They will also examine the role and limits of state institutions and civil society in responding to social pressure for change.

Co-sponsored by the Institute of Turkish Studies, the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR), the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life (IRCPL), and the Middle East Institute (MEI)

A conversation with DAVID SHIPLEY, op-ed editor at The New York Times. He also served in the Clinton Administration as Senior Presidential Speechwriter and was the executive editor of The New Republic Magazine. Moderated by Mark C. Taylor, Chair of the Department of Religion.

Co-sponsored with Columbia Journalism School and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion.

[download podcast]

A presentation of the film Household Saints (1993) with a discussion by Elizabeth Castelli, Professor of Religion.

A film series sponsored by the Religion Departments of Columbia University and Barnard College

A workshop led by Sudipta Kaviraj, Professor of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, and Rajeev Bhargava, Director of the Center for Studies in Developing Societies (Delhi). Discussion will focus on the role of religion in India throughout its history, particiularly the dynamics of conflict and accommodation between Buddhists and conventional Vedic religion and among Saivas, Vaisnavas and Jains in ancient and medieval society.

Click here for schedule and more information.

Co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion and the Heyman Center for the Humanities. For directions to the Heyman Center, click this link: http://heymancenter.org/visit.php

A discussion with CHRISTOPHE JAFFRELOT, Alliance Visiting Professor (Sciences Po-CERI, Paris), THOMAS BLOM HANSEN, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, and RAJEEV BHARGAVA, Professor of Political Science at the University of Delhi and Director of the Center for the Study of Developing Societies.

Co-sponsored with the Alliance Program; the South Asia Institute; the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures; and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion.
 

[download podcast]

A lecture by CHARLES TAYLOR, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at McGill University and winner of the 2007 Templeton Prize and the 2008 Kyoto Prize.

Co-sponsored with the Committee on Global Thought; Heyman Center for Humanities; Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion.

audio:
 

[download podcast]

[download podcast]

A discussion led by MARTA LAGOS, Director of Latin Barometer in Santiago, MARGARET CRAHAN, Senior Research Scholar at the Institute of Latin American Studies, ALFRED STEPAN, Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government. Participants also include John Burdick (Syracuse University), Timothy Steigenga (Florida Atlantic University), David Smilde (University of Georgia), Alejandro Natal (Interdisciplinary Program for Third Sector Studies, El Colegio Mexiquense, Mexico), and Diana Lima (Institute Universitário de Pesquisas do  Rio de Janeiro).

Co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Toleration, Democracy and Religion and the Institute for Latin American Studies.

Brown Bag Lecture Series presents a talk with Yakov Rabkin, Professor of History at University of Montreal and author of A Threat from Within: A History of Jewish Opposition of Zionism.

Co-sponsored with the Middle East Institute.

A conversation with JON MEACHAM, the editor of Newsweek magazine and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House as well as American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. Moderated by Randall Balmer, Professor of Religion.

Co-sponsored with Columbia Journalism School and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion.
 

[download podcast]

A presentation of the film Ghostbusters (1984) with a discussion by Courtney Bender, Professor of Religion.

A film series sponsored by the Religion Departments of Columbia University and Barnard College.

A talk by JACK MILES, Senior Fellow for Religious Affairs with the Pacific Council on International Policy and Distinguished Professor of English and Religious Studies, University of California, Irvine. A MacArthur Fellow, he is winner of the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for God: A Biography.

For directions to the Heyman Center, visit: http://heymancenter.org/visit.php

Co-sponsored with the Heyman Center for the Humanities.

[download podcast]

A conference in honor of B.R. AMBEDKAR, chief architect of the Indian constitution and Columbia alumnus. Participants include President Lee C. Bollinger; Vice President Nicholas B. Dirks; Gnana Alyosius; Masood Alam Falahi; Marc Galanter; Gopal Guru; Rajkumar Hans; Christophe Jaffrelot; Pratap Mehta; Smita Narula; Balmurli Natrajan; Gyan Pandey; Sudha Rani; Anupama Rao; Nat Roberts; Palanimuthu Sivakami; Jebaroja Singh; Anand Teltumbde; Gauri Viswanthan.

Co-sponsored with Center for Human Rights and Documentation; Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race; Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Culture; Institute for Social and Economic Research. Made possible by additional funding from the Dr. Ambedkar International Mission (AIM) Inc. U.S.A; Provost’s Office of Columbia University; Taraknath Das Foundation; and the US Department of Education.

For a full conference schedule, visit  the South Asia Institute’s site.

Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College and author of Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus, which won a National Jewish Book Award and Germany’s Geiger Prize.

Intrigued with Islam: Jewish Scholars, Travelers, and Converts in Modern Europe
Tuesday, October 13, 6:30-8pm
International Affairs Building, Room 707
420 W. 118th St.

[download podcast]

Jesus as Aryan Hero: The Peculiar Conversion of Christianity into National Socialism
Thusday, October 15, 6:30-8pm
International Affairs Building, Room 707
420 W. 118th St.

[download podcast]

A talk by Abdallah Schleifer, Professor Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research at the American University in Cairo.

Co-sponsored with the Middle East Institute.

A conversation with JAMES TRAUB, who writes on politics and international affairs for The New York Times Magazine and has also written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and National Review. Moderated by Jack Snyder, The Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations.

Read a review of the event at the Columbia Journalism School’s website.

Co-sponsored with Columbia Journalism School and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion.

[download podcast]

A lecture by Etienne Balibar, Professor Emeritus at the Sorbonne and Distinguished Professor at University of California, Irvine, on racism, nationalism and the plight of non-European immigrants in a newly unified Europe.

Co-sponsored with the Maison Francaise at Columbia University.

As part of the World Leaders Forum, internationally renowned artist Alfredo Jaar will present a selection of projects he has created in response to conflicts around the world. Following will be a conversation with Alfredo Jaar and Dean of the School of the Arts, Carol Becker.

For RSVP information, visit the World Leaders Forum site.

Co-sponsored by the School of the Arts and the World Leaders Forum.

A discussion with CHARLES TAYLOR, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at McGill University and winner of the 2007 Templeton Prize and the 2008 Kyoto Prize, ALAN MONTEFIORE, Emeritus Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, and EMMANUEL PICAVET, Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Paris.

Co-sponsored by Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life, the Committee on Global Thought, and the Alliance Program

Video of the Panel

[download podcast]

Video of the Discussion

[download podcast]

Schedule: Friday, Sept 25, 12-6pm, and Saturday, Sept 26, 10am-6pm

A conference on the multiple meanings of the new urban wars and the limits of power and of war. Discussions will focus on asymmetric armed conflict, US Army training for the “urban enemy,” cities and urban space as a technology for war, re-appropriating the city of fear, and civil war refugees and their flight from and to cities.

Speakers include Arjun Appadurai, Elazar Barkan, Ted Byfield, Partha Chatterjee, Tony Conrad, Susan Crile, Claire Cutler, Ashley Dawson, James Der Derian, Gar Smith (Environmentalists Against War), Yasmine Ergas, Karen Jacobsen, Fiona Jeffries, Danny Kaplan, Jennifer S. Light, Peter Marcuse, Suketu Mehta, Rosalind C. Morris, Les Roberts, Saskia Sassen, Jan Schneider, Richard Sennett, Jessica Stern, Ida Susser, Gediminas Urbonas, Sudhir Venkatesh, Eyal Weizman, Florian Schneider and Susanne Lang (Dictionary of War Project).

For more information, please visit http://cgt.columbia.edu/events/cities_and_new_wars/

Co-sponsored with the Committee on Global Thought; Center for the Study of Human Rights; Department of Sociology; Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; ISERP; Mailman School of Public Health; New York Theological Seminary.

A presentation of the film Wings of Desire (1987) directed by Wim Wenders with a discussion by Jonathan Schorsch, Professor of Religion.

A film series sponsored by the Religion Departments of Columbia University and Barnard College.

A two-day conference promoting a public dialogue between science and religion on environmental sustainability. Speakers include Jeffrey Sachs (Earth Institute), Wayne G. Ramsey (Fetzer Institute), James Hansen (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies) and other scholars, leaders, and activists. For more information: www.columbia.edu/cu/cssr

Sponsored by Center for the Study of Science and Religion and the Earth Institute at Columbia University with the Fetzer Institute.

A lecture by AIJAZ AHMAD, a leading Marxist thinker and prominent commentator on South Asian politics, on global Islamist jihadi groups. He is Professorial Fellow at the Centre of Contemporary Studies in New Delhi and author of several books, including In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures.

Co-sponsored by the Heyman Center for the Humanities; Committe on Global Thought; and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion.

An undergraduate interdisciplinary conference on East Asia. Panels include “Recovering the Individual: Contemporary Asian Art,” “Soft Power in Asia,” and “Rice and Steel: Urban Development in Northeast Asia.” The Columbia East Asia Review (CEAR), an undergraduate peer-review academic journal, will also launch its second volume. To learn more about the conference, please visit www.eastasiasymposium.org.

A conversation with PAUL AUSTER, acclaimed novelist, essayist and translator. His many works include The New York Trilogy, Moon Palace, The Brooklyn Follies and, most recently, Man in the Dark. Moderated by Mark C. Taylor, Chair of the Department of Religion and Co-Director of the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life.

[download podcast]

Loren Ryter, Visiting Scholar and Lecturer at the University of Michigan, on Indonesia’s New Order, in which state-sactioned criminal groups were given license to control gambling, prostitution, drug distribution, and protection rackets in exchange for political support.

Sponsored by Southeast Asian Student Initiative. For more information, contact: mb3120@columbia.edu

A lecture with Professor James Collins, Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University, on language shifts in Indonesia due to colonial genocide, natural disasters as well as complex socio-economic factors.

Sponsored by the Southeast Asian Student Initiative. For more information, contact:  mb3120@columbia.edu

A Panel Discussion with Nilüfer Göle, Professor of Sociology at Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and is author of The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling.

Cosponsored with the Center for the Study of Religion, Toleration and Democracy.

A lecture by PHILIP BOBBITT, the Herbert Wechsler Professor of Federal Jurisprudence and the Director of the Center for National Security at Columbia University. He has written extensively on constitutional law as well as international security and strategy in such works as The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History and, most recently, Terror and Consent.

A lecture by G. MURAT TEZCUR (Political Science, Loyola University) as part of the Religion, Ethnicity, and Politics Lecture Series. Moderated by Macartan Humphreys (Political Science, Columbia University).

Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP), and the Middle East Institute (MEI).

A lecture by ZEYNEP AKBULUT KURU (University of Washington, Seattle) as part of the Religion, Ethnicity, and Politics Lecture Series. Moderated by Nadia Guessous (Anthropology, Columbia University).

Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP), and the Middle East Institute (MEI).

A lecture by SIMON C. TAY, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, on the future of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The talk will address its charter, economic community and relationship with the Obama administration as well as global priorities in human rights, environment and security.

Sponsored by Southeast Asian Student Initiative. For more information, contact: mb3120@columbia.edu

A lecture by AMY LIU (Emory University) on what part language plays in statebuilding and governments’ tendency to share linguistic powers when the threat of state destabilization is high.

Sponsored by the Southeast Asia Student Initiative. For more information, contact: mb3120@columbia.edu

A public lecture by Charles Taylor, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at McGill University and Templeton Prize-winning author of A Secular Age (2007). His talk is based on his Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences (CCAPRCD) in Quebec, which he co-chaired.

Co-Sponsored by the Heyman Center for Humanities; Center for the Study of Democracy, Tolerance; and the Committee on Global Thought.

[download podcast]

Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority state in the world and underwent a successful transition to democracy in 1998. Panelists will reflect on the past ten years of the country’s democratic experiment, in particular on the role of Islamic organizations in the democratic transition, the role of veto actors in the consolidation process, and the relationship between Islamic law and democratic institutions.

Presenters and Discussants include Alfred Stepan, Edward Aspinall, John Bowen, L. Carl Brown, Michael Buehler, Jose Casanova, Greg Fealy, Robert Hefner, Nadirsyah Hosen, Mirjam Künkler, Michael Laffan, Marcus Mietzner, Musda Mulia, Sidney Jones and Franz Magnis Suseno.

Co-sponsored by the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS), Princeton University

Click here for more details

In recent decades, scholars of religion have attempted to shift attention away from belief and doctrine to practices, rituals identities and institutition. This focus has allowed scholars to recognize that “lived religion” is a multilayered and dynamic phenomenon, but it has kept them from examining other ways in which belief remains central to religious practices. By re-examining what it means to believe, this conference explores if and how belief matters.

Discussants include Courtney Bender, Mark C. Taylor, Penny Edgell, Joshua Dubler, Wayne Proudfoot and Zareena Grewal.    Co-sponsored by the Religion Graduate Students Association at Columbia University.

A lecture by CEREN BELGE (Political Science, Harvard University) as part of the Religion, Ethnicity and Politics Lecture Series. Moderated by George Gavrilis (International Relations, University of Texas at Austin).

Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP), and the Middle East Institute (MEI).

A lecture by TRUDY JACOBSEN, an ARC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Monash Asia Institute, on the Khmer Rouge’s methods of torturing and targeting women during the Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979) in Cambodia.

Sponsored by Southeast Asian Student Initiative. For more information, contact:  mb3120@columbia.edu

A conversation with David Ignatius, columnist for The Washington Post and author of Body of Lies, which was recently adapted into a feature film. Moderated by Nicholas Lemann, Dean and Henry R. Luce Professor of the Graduate School of Journalism.

Co-sponsored with Columbia Journalism School.

[download podcast]

University Lecture by Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History. Hosted by President Lee C. Bollinger and Provost Alan Brinkley.

Sponsored by University Program and Events.

A performance of extracts from the operas The Daughters of Ishmael in Wind and Storm by Assia Djebar and Margaret Garner by Toni Morrison and Richard Danielpour. Accompanied by a discussion with Assia Djebar, Toni Morrison, Leila Ahmed (Harvard Divinity School), and Angela Davis (University of California Santa Cruz).

Co-sponsored with the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society.

A talk by JEAN LECA (Sciences-Po, Paris) on current global political dynamics in reference to the concepts of uncertainty, vulnerability, and legitimacy. He will use Algeria as a case study for democratic processes in the Arab world. Introduction by Peter Awn, Director of the Middle East Institute and Dean of General Studies. Light lunch will be served.
Co-sponsored by the Alliance Program and Middle East Institute.

Read Leca’s articles (PDF):

• “Democratization in the Arab World: Uncertainty, Vulnerability and Legitimacy,” Democracy Without Democrats?: The Renewal of Politics in the Muslim World (1994).

• “Opposition in the Middle East and North Africa,” Government and Opposition (1997).

A lecture by CHRISTOPHE JAFFRELOT (Sciences Po-CERI, Paris) on the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the rise of ethnic nationalism and ideology in India. Moderated by Alfred Stepan, the Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government at Columbia University.

Co-sponsored by the Alliance Program; Southern Asian Institute; Center for Democracy, Toleration and Religion; and the Political Science Department.

A lecture by DAN SLATER, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, addressing Indonesia’s elites and their response to the country’s democratic transition. Slater will discuss elite strategies during the 1999-2004 period and likely results from the upcoming 2009 elections.

Co-sponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR).

A lecture by SENEM ASLAN (Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University)as part of the Religion, Ethnicity, and Politics Lecture Series. Moderated by Ayca Cubukcu (Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University).

Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP), and the Middle East Institute (MEI).

Turkey is the only member of NATO and candidate member of the European Union that is a Muslim-majority country. Assertive secularism, multiparty democracy, and military interventions are other puzzling aspects of Turkish politics. This conference aims to present an integrated picture of Turkey by bringing together comparative perspectives on its past, present, and future, and delving into such issues as the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, secularism, religion, democracy, civil-military relations, and the European Union membership.

Participants include Alfred Stepan, Ergun Ozbudun, Andrew Arato, Karen Barkey, Richard Bulliet, Ümit Cizre, David Cuthell, ?ükrü Hanio?lu, Stathis Kalyvas, Rashid Khalidi, Mirjam Künkler, Ahmet Kuru, Joost Lagendijk, Joan Scott and Nur Yalman.

Co-sponsored by the Turkish Studies Institute, the Middle East Institute, and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion.

• Watch coverage on Ebru TV and Turk.net.

Click here for more information

A conversation with DALIA SOFER, author of the novel The Septembers of Shiraz based on her family’s flight from post-revolutionary Iran. It was named one of the New York Times Notable Books of 2008. Moderated by Dohra Ahmad, Assistant Professor of English at St. John’s University.

[download podcast]

A conversation with ERGUN OZBUDUN, Professor of Law at Bilkent University in Turkey and IRCPL Distinguished Scholar in Residence. He is the author of Contemporary Turkish Politics: Challenges to Democratic Consolidation and the co-editor of Atatürk: Founder of a Modern State. He recently chaired the academic committee to draft a new constitution for Turkey.

Co-Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR), the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP), and the Middle East Institute.

[download podcast]

Are candor and respect compatible when discussing other religions in the public sphere? This conference investigates the dangers of neglecting both in the realms of governance, diplomacy and journalism.

Panelists include Bat Ye’or, Faisal Devji (The New School University), Philip Hamburger (Columbia Law School), Marci Hamilton (Cardozo Law School), Leonard Leo (US Commission on International Religious Freedom), Tomoko Masuzawa (University of Michigan), Flemming Rose (Culture Editor, Jyllands-Posten), Alfred Stepan (Columbia University) and Winnifred Sullivan (SUNY at Buffalo Law School).

Sponsored in partnership with Mark Kingdon and Columbia Law School.

A lecture by JOHN SIDEL, the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at LSE, on anti-colonialist revolutions in the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Co-sponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR).

A conversation with Uzodinma Iweala, author of Beasts of No Nation and named one of Granta‘s Best Young American Novelists. Moderated by Mamadou Diouf, the Leitner Family Professor of African Studies and Director of Institute for African Studies.
 

[download podcast]

The 36th Bampton Lectures will be delivered by Irving Weissman, the Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Professor for Clinical Investigation in Cancer Research and Director of the Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Institute at Stanford University. He is also the 2008 Koch Prize Winner for advances in the biomedical sciences.

Co-Sponsored with the Department of Religion and the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life at Columbia University.

• “Adult Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine,” Wednesday, January 21, 5-7pm
   

  
  [download podcast]

• “Cancer and Leukemia Stem Cells: A New Paradigm for Research, Diagnosis and Therapy,” Thursday, January 22, 5-7pm
   

  
  [download podcast]

• “Embryonic and Pluripotent Stem Cells: Science and Medicine meet Politics and Religious Organizations,” Tuesday, January 27, 5-7pm
   

  
  [download podcast]

• “Self and Nonself: Co-evolution of Stem Cells and Immunity and Speculations on Stem Cells and the Mind,” Thursday, January 29, 5-7pm

A conversation with Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and the acclaimed Everything is Illuminated, which was adapted into a feature film directed by Liev Schreiber.

Moderated by Jenny Davidson, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

Copies of his book will be on sale courtesy of Book Culture.

[download podcast]

A talk by Riza Yildirim, Postdoctoral Scholar at Harvard University. Moderated by Ahmet T. Kuru, Postdoctoral Scholar at Columbia University.

Co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Democracy,

Toleration and Religion (CDTR), Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP), and Middle East Institute (MEI).

For more information: Ahmet Kuru: ak2840@columbia.edu

A public talk with Gail Omvedt, sociologist and author of Seeking Begumpura: The Social Vision of Anticaste Intellectuals (2008). Dr. Omvedt has also worked actively with social movements in India, including the Dalit and anti-caste movements, environmental movements, farmers’ movements and especially with rural women.

Co-sponsored with the Southern Asian Institute.

A book presentation by Gilles Kepel, Professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at Sciences Po, Paris. His book investigates the ideological quagmire of terrorism and martyrdom and explores the terms of a new and constructive dialogue between Islam and the West, one for which Europe, with its expanding and restless Muslim populations, may be the proving ground.

Moderated by Alfred Stepan, Co-Director of IRCPL.

Co-sponsored with the Middle East Institute and the Alliance Program at Columbia University.

A talk by Akif Kireççi, Assistant Professor of History at Bilkent University, with Richard Bulliet, Professor of History at Columbia University.

Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR), Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP), and the Middle East Institute.

For more information: Ahmet Kuru: ak2840@columbia.edu

A book presentation by Laurence Louër (Professor of Middle East Studies at Sciences Po-CERI in Paris) and moderated by Gary Sick (Middle East Institute).

Co-sponsored with the Alliance Program at Columbia University.

A talk by Mucahit Bilici, Assistant Professor of Sociology, John Jay College, with Taylor Carman, Professor of Philosophy at Barnard College.

Since the tragic events of 9/11, there has been an upsurge in ethnic comedy by Muslims in America. This talk will explore the landscape of Muslim ethnic comedy in the United States and its intricate relationship with Islamophobia.

Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR), Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP).

For more information: Ahmet Kuru: ak2840@columbia.edu

Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at McGill University and Templeton Prize-winning author of A Secular Age (2007).

What is Enchantment?
Monday, November 17, 8-10pm
International Affairs Building, Room 1501

Audio:
 

[download podcast]

[download podcast]

[download podcast]

[download podcast]

More on the web: read the ongoing discussion of Charles Taylor’s “A Secular Age” at The Immanent Frame

Co-sponsored with Center for Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR); Committee on Global Thought (CGT); and Heyman Center for the Humanities.

A public roundtable with Rajeev Bhargava (Center for the Study of Developing Societies), José Casanova (Georgetown University) and Alfred Stepan (Columbia University).

Co-sponsored with Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and Center for Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR).

“Turkey’s Role in Shaping the Future,” a World Leaders Forum program with keynote address by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey.

Hosted by Alan Brinkley, Provost and Allan Nevins Professor of American History at Columbia University. Moderated by Alfred Stepan, Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government. For more information, and to register, please visit www.worldleaders.columbia.edu

Co-sponsored with the School of International and Public
Affairs; the Center for Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR); and the Middle East Institute at Columbia University.

A conference on India’s tradition of social peace and tolerance in public life, an example that demonstrates a successful democracy does not depend on the decline of religious belief in society.

Convened by Sudipta Kaviraj, Professor of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, and Rajeev Bhargava, Professor of Political Science at the University of Delhi, is Director of the Center for the Study of Developing Societies.

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

A conference on the legacy of Edward Said’s work and its part in the larger phenomenon of Orientalism with regard to the question of Palestine and the Jewish question.

Includes lectures by Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies and Literature, and Joseph Massad, Associate Professor of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures.

Co-sponsored with Middle East Institute (MEI).

To celebrate its inauguration, the Institute is hosting an afternoon of public lectures on religion in contemporary society with Salman Rushdie, Thomas Krens, Charles Taylor, and Orhan Pamuk.

Click here for more information

The Past and Future of Religion & Toleration (IRCPL Launch Event)
*Toleration Faculty Working Group with Charles Taylor, Emeritus Prof. of Philosophy
 

[download podcast]

[download podcast]

SALMAN RUSHDIE in conversation with Gauri Viswanathan (IRCPL Launch Event)

* Opening Remarks by Lee C. Bollinger
* Introduction by ORHAN PAMUK
 

[download podcast]

[download podcast]

As part of the series “New Evidence, 1400-1800,” a lecture with Jaime Lara, Associate Professor of Christian Art and Architecture at Yale University Divinity School, and José ardo Tomás, a member of the Department of History of Science at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Barcelona.

Co-sponsored with Departments of Spanish and Portuguese and of Religion; Institute for Latin American Studies; Institute for Comparative Literature and Society; and Mexican Cultural Institute of New York.

While distinctions between religious and secular activist media often seem self-evident, this panel asks what they might share. Panelists include Birgit Meyer (VU University Amsterdam), Charles Hirschkind (University of California, Berkeley) and Peter Redfield (University of North Carolina).

Co-sponsored with Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and Center for Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR).

Richard Locke, Professor of Writing at Columbia’s School of the Arts, in conversation with Philip Gourevitch, writer and editor of The Paris Review, on his most recent book Standard Operating Procedure, which he co-authored with filmmaker Errol Morris. The book and Morris’ film explore Abu Ghraib.

Copies of his books will be on sale courtesy of Book Culture.
 

[download podcast]

An open forum with Naz Modirzadeh, Senior Associate at Harvard School of Public Health, and Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University.

Organized by Lila Abu-Lughod, William B. Ransford Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies.

Co-sponsored with Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWAG) and Center for the Critical Analysis of Social Difference (CCASD).
 

[download podcast]

An open forum that addresses the limitations of current models of religious pluralism used in academic and political contexts.

Organized by Courtney Bender, Professor of Religion, the discussion culminates two years’ work by an interdisciplinary group and highlights some of the empirical and analytical issues that will appear in a forthcoming edited volume.

Historian and novelist Tariq Ali discusses his new book The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power with an introduction by Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Professor of Anthropology. Copies of the book will be on sale courtesy of Book Culture.

Co-sponsored with Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC).
 

[download podcast]

A talk by Karsten D. Voigt, Coordinator of German-North American Cooperation at the German Federal Foreign Office.

Karsten D. Voigt asserts that religion, however, has more strongly, if subtly, shaped society and politics in Europe than meets the eye, and the process of secularization seems to have been reversed in recent years. He argues Germany is no exception to that. Europeans and Americans simply have different approaches to religion, which are influenced by their respective historical experiences.

Cosponsored with the Center for the Study of Democracy,
Toleration and Religion (CDTR); the Institute for the Study of Europe
(ISE); the Council for European Studies at Columbia University;
Deutsches Haus at Columbia; and the German Consulate General New York.

A talk by Ali Bardakoglu, Professor of Theology and President of Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs.

This talk will examine the Ottoman  millet system  and its ability to let the peaceful co-existence of tens of different cultural, ethnic,
and religious groups in the Ottoman Empire.

Prof. Bardakoglu is the President of Directorate of Religious Affairs which coordinates 70,000 mosques, in addition to other religious affairs in Turkey.

Cosponsored with the Center for the Study of Democracy,
Toleration and Religion (CDTR) and Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP).

Click here to watch video on Ebru Television.

A talk by Michael Buehler and Alfred C. Stepan. In recent years a growing number of districts in Indonesia have adopted shari’a laws. This has been interpreted as a sign for the growing influence of fundamentalist Islam in Indonesian politics after the demise of the military-backed dictatorship of President Suharto in 1998. Analyzing shari’a politics in Indonesia over the last 50 years, Michael Buehler will show in his talk that the recent implementation of Islamic laws, however, has non-fundamentalist origins. He will then provide possible answers for why this is the case.

Cosponsored with the Center for Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.

Michael Buehler is a doctoral candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Click here to read paper.

The conference will explore how Senegal’s Sufi population has contributed to the country’s democratic development and culture. As part of the conference, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture will present A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal, an exhibition curated by the Fowler Museum at UCLA featuring Senegalese calligraphic art and murals as well as representations of Sheikh Amadou Bamba, the founder of the Sufi Mouride brotherhood.

Cosponsored with Institute of African Studies; the Center for Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion; and the Comittee on Global Thought. Convened by Mamadou Diouf, the new Director of Columbia’s Institute for African Studies and Professor of History in Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures.

Click here for more information.

Denis Lacorne will discuss his new book De La Religion en Amerique: Essai d’histoire politique (2007), a comparative analysis of religion in America, which has received a popular and critical reception in France. An English translation is forthcoming.

Denis Lacorne is Director of Research at le Centre d’Etudes et de Recheches Internationales at L’Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, where he is also a professor of comparative politics.

• Rise and Fall of American Secularism: Friday, March 28, noon–2 p.m., 80 Claremont, Room 101.

The current Turkish 1982 Constitution was written after the 1980 military coup and under great military-Kemalist influence. Some argue that amending the constitution will be the end of secularism. Others argue that the new constitution will be more democratic and will allow for the greater practice of religious freedom, such as the right of veiled women to attend public universities. The conference will investigate this sharp difference of opinion. Three key drafters of the constitution will discuss their proposed changes in the morning session. In the afternoon session, three specialists on comparative constitutions in democracies will respond. The day will conclude with a round-table discussion and questions.

Cosponsored with the Center for the Study of Religion, Toleration and Democracy and convened by Professor Alfred Stepan and Ahmet Kuru, a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Democracy.

Click here to view event program.

The conference will investigate how some religions in conflict have collaborated on agreed access to major religious sites they all hold sacred. A number of sites in India, Morocco, Indonesia, and Palestine/Israel will serve as models for toleration.

Cosponsored with the Center for the Study of Human Rights, the Center for Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion, and the Institute for Historical Justice in Reconciliation in Salzburg, Austria and convened by Elazar Barkan, Professor of International and Public Affairs.

Click here to view paper abstracts.

Schedule Notes:
Day one: 9 a.m.–6:45 p.m.
Day two: 9:30 a.m–12:30 p.m

Rajeev Bhargava, Professor of Political Science at the University of Delhi, is Director of the Center for the Study of Developing Societies and the leading scholar on Indian secularism.

• Rehabilitating Secularism, Friday, February 8, 12–2 p.m., The Heyman Center for the Humanities, Common Room.

• To be Secular or Not: How Should States Deal With Religious Diversity? Thursday, February 21, 12–2 p.m, Kellogg Center, International Affairs Building, Room 1512.

Speaker series chaired by Jack Snyder, Professor of Political Science, in cooperation with Professor Alfred Stepan.

The series showcases research that addresses the role of religion in international relations:

• Peter Katzenstein: “Civilizational States, Secularisms and

Religions, Wed., January 23. Click here to read paper.

• Elizabeth Shakman Hurd: “Secularism and IR Theory,” Wed.,

January 30. Click here to read paper.

• Michael Barnett: “Religion, Humanitarianism and International

Relations,” Thurs., February 14. Click here to read paper.

• Daniel Philpott:”When God Means War, When God Means

Peace: Explaining the Wild Variation in Religious Politics,” Wed.,

April 9.  Click here to read paper.

• Daniel Nexon: “Religion and International Relations: No Leap

of Faith Required,” Tue. April 22.

• Monica Toft: “Hypotheses on Religion and War,” Wed. April 30. Read papers “Getting Religion? The Puzzling Case of Islam and Civil War” and “Issue Indivisibility and Time Horizons as Rationalist Explanations for War.”

Cosponsored with the Political Science Department; the
Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies; and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR).

A workshop on religion and human rights pragmatism, which focuses on strategies for promoting rights through persuasion and dialogue across cultural and religious divides. The panelists and audience for these open workshops will include scholars and non-academic practitioners in the human rights field.  Students are welcome to attend.

Sponsored by Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion, supported by a grant from the Luce Foundation.

A conference on how some religions in conflict have collaborated on shared access to religious sites they hold sacred.  Negotiations over these sites in Turkey, North Africa, the Balkans and Palestine/Israel serve as models for toleration.

Co-sponsored by Bogaziçi University, Istanbul, and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR), the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life (IRCPL), and the Institute for the Study of Human Rights (CSHR) at Columbia University.

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