Is Faith-based Violence Religious? — UCSIA Summer School, 23 Aug – 30 Aug 2015, Antwerp, Belgium

Dear all,

We would like to draw your attention to the call for applications for the 2015 UCSIA summer school on “Religion, Culture and Society: Entanglement and Confrontation”. This summer school is a one-week course taking place from Sunday 23rd of August until Sunday 30th of August 2015 (dates of arrival and departure). This year the programme will focus on the topic of Is Faith-based Violence Religious?

Topic:

Despite the predicted secularization process that would make religion less salient in the global world, the topic of faith biased violence remains hugely relevant, both from a societal and an academic perspective. Whether the movements are pro-democracy or pro-theocracy, religious movements are often instrumental in political change. Political tensions mapped onto religious discourse may also de-contextualize historical events, mythologize agendas and transform neighbours into ‘others’ while the struggle for ‘Truth’ renders defence into an act of aggression. Given UCSIA’s mission to delve into academically timely and challenging topics we will approach this phenomenon from an interdisciplinary perspective. More specifically, the UCSIA summer school will investigate both sides of the subject matter: Is religion inductive of or instrumental for violence?

Guest lecturers are Jonathan Fox (Religion and State Project, Faculty of the Political Studies, Bar-Ilan University); Peter Neumann (Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation); Marat Shterin (Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London); & Thijl Sunier (Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, VU University Amsterdam).

Practical details:

Participation and stay for young scholars and researchers are free of charge. Participants should pay for their own travel expenses to Antwerp.

You can submit your application via the electronic submission on the summer school website. The completed file as well as all other required application documents must be submitted to the UCSIA Selection Committee not later than Sunday 19 April 2015.

For further information regarding the programme and application procedure, please have a look at our website: http://www.ucsia.org/summerschool.

Please help us to distribute this call for application among PhD students and postdoctoral scholars who might be interested in applying for this summer school.

For all further information, do not hesitate to contact us on the address below.

Best regards,

Sara Mels
Project coordinator