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Tag: religions

Religions and Public Life Graduate Student Research Workshop

Celebrate the end of the academic year with the 2019-20 cohort of Religions and Public Life graduate fellows, as they present public talks based on their research. The virtual workshop will meet on Zoom Wednesday, April 29, 2:00-5:30PM. Each panelist will give a 6-8 minute “TEDx”-style presentation, followed by open discussion and Q&A.

*Please email Amber Díaz Pearson to RSVP and receive the Zoom meeting invitation.*

 

Religions and Public Life at KIE Graduate Fellows Program: Spring 2020 Research Workshop on “Church and State”

Panel 1: “The Good Life” in religion and politics

Elsa Costa (History, Duke): Understanding the “human flourishing” definition of happiness and the economic “pursuit of happiness” model and how they were used by absolute monarchs to discredit the Church during the Renaissance and Enlightenment.
 
Luke Olsen (Divinity, Duke): Research on the Christian Transhumanist Association and the vision of the good life, liberty, and individual expression expressed at the intersection of Christianity and Transhumanism.
 
Shreya Parikh (Sociology, UNC): Exploring what it means to be Black and Muslim in France and Tunisia when the idea of Muslim authenticity offered by the state as well as the religious authorities equates Muslimness with Arabness.

 

Panel 2: Theological underpinnings of political actions and institutions

Matthew Elmore (Divinity, Duke): John Locke’s use of ‘consent’ defines his new understanding of natural law, displaying a political theology in which the colony, as a bounded settlement, reveals a new nature. Government, insofar as it is enlightened, seeks a new end: the security of private property.
 
Isak Tranvik (Political Science, Duke): Martin Luther King Jr.’s embrace of nonviolent political action is a function of his religious commitment to relationality—to be human, King believed, was to be ethically related to every other in love through Jesus, including perpetrators of injustice as well as those subject to it.
 
Hannah Ridge (Political Science, Duke): New research indicates Muslims in Morocco and Egypt may place a high value on economic policy while supporting a system in which civilians participate in the government. They also demonstrate a nuanced understanding of the role religion should play in the government.

 

Panel 3: Religious communities as sites of both worship and political action

Devran Ocal (Geography, UNC): Studying mosques as spaces where unique political perceptions and practices are negotiated and reproduced, as well as dynamic and fluid spaces of everyday transnational politics.
 
Anna Holleman (Sociology, Duke): Understanding the Sanctuary Movement, where religious congregations offer housing to undocumented individuals within the walls of their congregation so that the individuals cannot be deported, and support the individuals with shelter, food, healthcare, and other forms of support.
 
Wei Mao (MFA-EDA, Duke): A photography essay and diary to record her experiences in both China and the US Chinese Christian Communities, exploring how these communities are constructed, how individuals interact in these communities, what role has religion played in their daily life, and to critically analyze her own identity in the communities.
 
Armani Porter (Bioethics & Science Policy, Duke): This project argues that the Chilean protests against the Catholic Church are demonstrations against both the Catholic Church in Chile and against the Chilean government. Second, this project argues that the continued silence of the Catholic Church has further reinforced the lack of distinction between Church and State.

 
 
The 2019-20 Religions and Public Life Graduate Student Working Group focuses on the theme of “Church and State.” Ten master’s and doctoral students were selected out of a competitive application pool, representing nine different departments and degree programs, three schools, and two universities (Duke and UNC). Graduate Fellows developed their research interests and discussed recent scholarship during monthly meetings. Several scholars are also supported by generous collaborations with the Center for Jewish Studies, the Duke University Middle East Studies Center, the Duke Islamic Studies Center, and the Program for American Values and Institutions.

RESCHEDULED to Apr. 16: Providential Modernity Seminar with Matthew Rowley

** Rescheduled to virtual format, now on April 16, 1:00-2:30PM, EDT — email Amber Díaz Pearson for the paper and Zoom meeting details. **

The next Providential Modernity seminar will meet at 1:00PM on Thursday, April 16, on Zoom. The seminar will feature historian Matthew Rowley (Leicester and Cambridge): “Make (Colonial) America Great Again: The Past, the President and the Protestant Imagination.” Matthew is an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of Leicester, working on the ‘William Wilberforce Diaries’ project there. He is also a Research Associate at the Cambridge Institute on Religion and International Studies (Clare College, University of Cambridge) working on the ‘Protestant Political Thought’ project.
Please RSVP to Amber Díaz Pearson to receive a copy of the paper and an invitation to the Zoom meeting.

Abstract: President Trump promised to move the United States towards greater liberty and prosperity. His rallying cry, however, was unashamedly backwards-looking. ‘Make America Great Again’ might be a call to nationalism, but it can also be taken as a commission for historians. Perhaps the most controversial word in this slogan comes at the end, ‘Again’. But what in the past should be remembered or revisited?
Many Protestants who want to restore American greatness only desire to turn the cultural and political clock back a few decades. Some want to restore America to the blueprint outlined at the founding. Others push further into the past, finding American greatness in the original European colonial settlements. For those who support the ‘Great Again’ agenda, what is remembered or forgotten in American history? How are the darker chapters of history understood—particularly complicity in racism, sexism, exploitation and intolerance?
The President’s agenda has been vigorously opposed by other Protestants who are just as eager to discuss American history. They highlight, among other things, the lingering effects of racism and privilege. Most do not join the call to ‘Make America Great Again’, but they earnestly desire to make America better. They use Scripture and history to illumine past national sin so that the nation can confess them, confront their ongoing nature and choose a better path forward.
The 2020 Presidential election occurs one week before the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s arrival at Cape Cod. The Pilgrims, like the Presidential candidates, will be celebrated and confronted, deified and demonized. Competing remembrances will doubtless influence—and be influenced by—the election. Partisans will promote conflicting visions for America and differently situate the President in a grand national narrative. This paper examines Protestant excavations of the colonial past and surveys how history is used to support or oppose the President’s vision to ‘Make America Great Again’.

The Providential Modernity seminar brings together faculty and graduate students from several area universities on a monthly basis to discuss work in the areas of history, political theology, and comparative sociology from Antiquity to the present. A key goal of the seminar is to place scholars of religion into conversation with one another and address scholarly challenges emerging from the post-secular age. “Providential modernity” encompasses a variety of social and political hopes, as well as anxieties, about the promise of history, sometimes expressed in millenarianism and apocalypticism, at other times in peaceful theodicies. In modern times, secular surrogates for providentialism found expression in revolution, social change, and the transformation of knowledge — ideas that have been conceptualized from Hegel to Fukuyama in discussions of the End of History. Many put their “faith” in “providential modernity,” while others, in despair, denied that history had any meaning at all. At the core of our deliberations will be an effort to deepen our grasp of the ways in which religions, Western and Eastern, both converge and differ in their understanding of providentialism, and how scholars may respond to the powerful working of religion in the postmodern age.

Providential Modernity Seminar with Eric Nelson

The next Providential Modernity seminar will meet at 1:00PM on Thursday, February 6, in the Ahmadieh Family Conference Room (West Duke Building, room 101). The seminar will feature Eric Nelson (Government, Harvard University).

A vegetarian lunch will be served; please RSVP to receive a copy of the paper (and request parking on East Campus, if needed) to Amber Díaz Pearson.

Eric Nelson is the Robert M. Beren Professor of Government at Harvard University. His research focuses on the history of political thought in early-modern Europe and America, and on the implications of that history for debates in contemporary political theory. Particular interests include the history of republican political theory, the relationship between the history of political thought and the history of scholarship, theories of property, and the phenomenon of secularization. Nelson is the author, most recently, of The Theology of Liberalism: Political Philosophy and the Justice of God (Harvard/Belknap, 2019). His other books include The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding (Harvard/Belknap, 2014), which received the Society of the Cincinnati History Prize and was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2015, as well as a Choice “Top 25 Books for 2015” selection; The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought (Harvard/Belknap, 2010), which received the Erwin Stein Prize and the Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies and was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2010; and The Greek Tradition in Republican Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

The Providential Modernity seminar brings together faculty and graduate students from several area universities on a monthly basis to discuss work in the areas of history, political theology, and comparative sociology from Antiquity to the present. A key goal of the seminar is to place scholars of religion into conversation with one another and address scholarly challenges emerging from the post-secular age. “Providential modernity” encompasses a variety of social and political hopes, as well as anxieties, about the promise of history, sometimes expressed in millenarianism and apocalypticism, at other times in peaceful theodicies. In modern times, secular surrogates for providentialism found expression in revolution, social change, and the transformation of knowledge — ideas that have been conceptualized from Hegel to Fukuyama in discussions of the End of History. Many put their “faith” in “providential modernity,” while others, in despair, denied that history had any meaning at all. At the core of our deliberations will be an effort to deepen our grasp of the ways in which religions, Western and Eastern, both converge and differ in their understanding of providentialism, and how scholars may respond to the powerful working of religion in the postmodern age.

Providential Modernity Seminar with David Cook

The next Providential Modernity seminar will meet at 1:00PM on Thursday, January 9, in the Ahmadieh Family Conference Room (West Duke Building, room 101). The seminar will feature David Cook (Religion, Rice University) discussing his project, “Mainstream and popular Ottoman-era Muslim apocalypses.”

A vegetarian lunch will be served; please RSVP to receive a copy of the paper (and request parking on East Campus, if needed) to Amber Díaz Pearson.

Abstract:

There has been comparatively little work on Ottoman apocalyptic narratives, other than Cornell Fleischer’s work on imperial apocalypse. This lecture and discussion will focus upon several apocalyptic narratives chosen because of their representative nature of the material overall. Al-Suyuti (d. 1505) was a mainstream Sunni religious figure from Egypt, who tried to prove that the world would not end in the hijri year 1000/1591-2. Unfortunately, his treatise on the subject, while proving his basic point, raised the question of when it would end. As his treatise then serves as a basis for calculations for the next 400 some years, it is of considerable interest.
The anonymous calculations keyed to the year 1000 represent popular Islamic beliefs, and although much of the material is based upon an Islamic frame, the apocalyptic stories diverge considerably from the standard. Most likely it was originally a sermon or a popular tale taken down.
The lecture will use these basic apocalypses to provoke discussion of the different strands of apocalypse: mainstream, speculative Sufi, and popular during the Ottoman period.

The Providential Modernity seminar brings together faculty and graduate students from several area universities on a monthly basis to discuss work in the areas of history, political theology, and comparative sociology from Antiquity to the present. A key goal of the seminar is to place scholars of religion into conversation with one another and address scholarly challenges emerging from the post-secular age. “Providential modernity” encompasses a variety of social and political hopes, as well as anxieties, about the promise of history, sometimes expressed in millenarianism and apocalypticism, at other times in peaceful theodicies. In modern times, secular surrogates for providentialism found expression in revolution, social change, and the transformation of knowledge — ideas that have been conceptualized from Hegel to Fukuyama in discussions of the End of History. Many put their “faith” in “providential modernity,” while others, in despair, denied that history had any meaning at all. At the core of our deliberations will be an effort to deepen our grasp of the ways in which religions, Western and Eastern, both converge and differ in their understanding of providentialism, and how scholars may respond to the powerful working of religion in the postmodern age.

Providential Modernity Seminar with John Martin

The next Providential Modernity seminar will meet at 1:00PM on Thursday, November 21, in Classroom Building 229. Professor John Martin (History) will discuss his new work, “Visions of the End and the Making of Modernity.”

A vegetarian lunch will be served. Email Amber Díaz Pearson to receive a copy of the paper (available November 15).

The Providential Modernity seminar brings together faculty and graduate students from several area universities on a monthly basis to discuss work in the areas of history, political theology, and comparative sociology from Antiquity to the present. A key goal of the seminar is to place scholars of religion into conversation with one another and address scholarly challenges emerging from the post-secular age. “Providential modernity” encompasses a variety of social and political hopes, as well as anxieties, about the promise of history, sometimes expressed in millenarianism and apocalypticism, at other times in peaceful theodicies. In modern times, secular surrogates for providentialism found expression in revolution, social change, and the transformation of knowledge — ideas that have been conceptualized from Hegel to Fukuyama in discussions of the End of History. Many put their “faith” in “providential modernity,” while others, in despair, denied that history had any meaning at all. At the core of our deliberations will be an effort to deepen our grasp of the ways in which religions, Western and Eastern, both converge and differ in their understanding of providentialism, and how scholars may respond to the powerful working of religion in the postmodern age.

Providential Modernity Seminar with Michael Gillespie

Religions and Public Life at KIE enters the second year of the interdisciplinary Providential Modernity seminar. For the first meeting of the fall, participants will discuss a short overview of a new book project by Michael Gillespie (Duke, Political Science), “The Antitrinitarian Origins of American Liberalism,” at 1:00PM on Thursday, September 26, in Classroom Building 229.

A vegetarian lunch will be served. Email Amber Díaz Pearson to receive a copy of the paper.

Michael Gillespie describes the book project:

In my Theological Origins of Modernity I argued that what we see as secularization in the West is in fact the transference of what the medieval world imagined to be divine attributes from God to nature and human beings. This process was not an abandonment but the concealment of Christian theology at the foundation of modernity and that modernity in this sense inherited many of the problems that had beset late medieval thought in reconciling a deterministic view of creation with free will. That project began with an examination of the Realist-nominalist debate, then turned to an examination of the ideal of individuality in Petrarch and humanism, the reaction against humanism in Luther and his debate with Erasmus over the freedom of the will. I then discussed the way in which this debate was replayed in the debate between Descartes and Hobbes and concluded with a discussion of the way in which this reappeared in the French Revolution and the thought of nineteenth century Europe and particularly Germany. My current book project is a sequel to Theological Origins that begins with Erasmus, then examines the development of Antitrinitarianism, the thought of the Dutch Remonstrants and particularly James Arminius and Grotius. The fourth chapter will turn to an examination of the impact of both the Antitrinitarians and the Remonstrants on Locke and his notion of liberalism. The final chapter then examines The Declaration of Independence, focusing on its chief authors, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, who were all deeply influenced by their mutual friend, Joseph Priestly, the scientist and leading English Unitarian, and were themselves Antitrinitarians. In this way I hope to show that the supposed secular character of the American founding itself is underpinned by a particular Christian theology that is all the more powerful because it remains unseen.

The Providential Modernity seminar brings together faculty and graduate students from several area universities on a monthly basis to discuss work in the areas of history, political theology, and comparative sociology from Antiquity to the present. A key goal of the seminar is to place scholars of religion into conversation with one another and address scholarly challenges emerging from the post-secular age. “Providential modernity” encompasses a variety of social and political hopes, as well as anxieties, about the promise of history, sometimes expressed in millenarianism and apocalypticism, at other times in peaceful theodicies. In modern times, secular surrogates for providentialism found expression in revolution, social change, and the transformation of knowledge — ideas that have been conceptualized from Hegel to Fukuyama in discussions of the End of History. Many put their “faith” in “providential modernity,” while others, in despair, denied that history had any meaning at all. At the core of our deliberations will be an effort to deepen our grasp of the ways in which religions, Western and Eastern, both converge and differ in their understanding of providentialism, and how scholars may respond to the powerful working of religion in the postmodern age.