Yearly Archives: 2015

Borderland Religion Workshop—Migration and Religion: A Mutual Impact

A 3 day workshop at Union Theological Seminary and CUNY Graduate Center in cooperation with the GOBA-project (Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo, Norway), and The Thuthuka Migration and Religion Program ( University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa). Thursday, November 12
Union Theological Seminary, Room 36
0900 Coffee
0930 D. Machado, UTS/ T. Wyller, Oslo: Welcome: [read more»]

Borderland Religion Workshop—Migration and Religion: A Mutual Impact

November 12, 2015 - November 14, 2015
All Day
Committee for the Study of Religion
A 3 day workshop at Union Theological Seminary and CUNY Graduate Center in cooperation with the GOBA-project (Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo, Norway), and The Thuthuka Migration and Religion Program ( University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa). Thursday, November 12
Union Theological Seminary, Room 36
0900 Coffee
0930 D. Machado, UTS/ T. Wyller, Oslo: Welcome: [read more»]

October Events at the Committee for the Study of Religion

October 2nd
Note: this event takes place on Friday, 2pm in the Sociology Lounge
Tom Barnes, Loren B. Landau, and Caroline Wanjiku Kihato
Rising and Declining Cities: A Comparison of Detroit, Melbourne, and Johannesburg October 7th
Colin Samson
Versions of Happiness and Success Under Settler Colonialism: Indigenous Peoples’ Cultural Continuity Against Neoliberal Dispossession October 14th
read more»]

October Events at the Committee for the Study of Religion

October 2nd
Note: this event takes place on Friday, 2pm in the Sociology Lounge
Tom Barnes, Loren B. Landau, and Caroline Wanjiku Kihato
Rising and Declining Cities: A Comparison of Detroit, Melbourne, and Johannesburg October 7th
Colin Samson
Versions of Happiness and Success Under Settler Colonialism: Indigenous Peoples’ Cultural Continuity Against Neoliberal Dispossession October 14th
read more»]

2015–16 Seminar: Personal Happiness & Successful Societies

The annual theme (2015-2016) for the seminar series for the Committee for the Study of Religion is the analysis of religion and ‘successful societies’ and how success could be measured and explained. Various indicators have been used in the policy studies to measure ‘social wellbeing’ but they are typically organized under three main clusters of namely health, wealth and happiness. [read more»]

Said Arjomand –“Islam as a World Religion and Developmental Paths in the Islamicate Civilization”

March 04, 2015
12:30 pm - 2:00 pm
Committee for the Study of Religion
Abstract This lecture sketches a historicized paradigm for analyzing the relation between Islam as a world religion and the Islamicate civilization that grew around it from the Nile to the Oxus. Moving away from the monistic and ahistorical, one ideal-type one-religion approach followed by many Weberians, and applying instead Max Weber’s own notion of developmental patterns to axial civilizations in [read more»]

Rosario Forlenza (Columbia University), Secularization from Within: Political Catholicism in Perspective

May 13, 2015
12:30 pm - 2:00 pm
Committee for the Study of Religion
Using the Italian case as a springboard, this paper discusses how Catholicism related to modernity and democracy, tracing continuities and changes in the tensions between religion and secularity throughout the twentieth century. At a general level, Catholicism went through a process of transformation which developed from radical rejection of modernity to hesitant embracement and, finally, critical co-articulation of the modern [read more»]

Carla Bellamy–Neoliberalism, Political Hinduism, and a New God in a New India

March 18, 2015
12:30 pm - 2:00 pm
Committee for the Study of Religion
In the early 1990’s, the Indian government began transitioning from a planned socialist economy to one that embraced global markets.  Twenty-five years later, the increased availability of products that have become markers of middle class status has fostered a feeling of possibility and an enhanced belief in the efficacy of individual agency.  At the same time, widespread frustration with government [read more»]

Philip Bohlman–On the Origin of Nations: Sacred Music and Religious Nationalism

May 06, 2015
12:30 pm - 2:00 pm
Committee for the Study of Religion
Religion in its many forms—as myth and metaphor, people and polity, community and chorus—provides one of the most powerful foundations for the nation. The forms in which the religion and nation converge engender what I refer to in this colloquium as religious nationalism. The power of religious nationalism is evident not only in its originary moments, but also in the [read more»]