Date: Tuesday 7 November 2006
Time: 09:30-13:00
Venue: Auditorium, CMI (open link for map)
Website: Politics of Faith
This opening seminar of CMI’s new research programme “Politics of Faith” explores contemporary religious resurgence not only as a product of modernization and globalization but as a driving force within these processes. The phenomenon challenges long-held assumptions about the secular nature of modernization. The seminar focuses on national, regional and international religious actors who question the basic tenets of what was earlier seen as the almost teleological goal of social change: a secular society.
9.30-09.40
Official opening by Assistant Director of Chr. Michelsen Institute Alf Morten Jerve
09.40-10.00
“Politics of Faith”
Anne Sofie Roald, Programme director of Politics of Faith, Chr. Michelsen Institute
Roald is a Historian of Religion, specialized in Islam and gender issues. She has extensive experience from fieldworks in Malaysia, Pakistan, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and United Arab Emirates. Roald is the author of the book Women in Islam: The Western Experience.
10.00-10.45
“Insulting the Prophet”
Faisal Devji, Assistant professor of History at the New School University, New York. Devji is a Historian. His PHD explores Muslim nationalism in colonial India. He has been a lecturer at Yale, Harvard, and the University of Chicago. His newest book, Landscapes of Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity, explores the features that al-Qaeda and other strands of militant Islam share in common with global movements such as environmentalists and anti-globalization protesters.
10.45-11.15
Coffee break
11.15-12.00
“Exploring Christian beliefs and faith communities in the context of globalization”
Sturla Stålsett, Secretary General of the Church City Mission, Oslo.
Stålseth has been the coordinator of the research project “Religion in a Globalized Age” at the faculty of theology, University of Oslo. He holds a PHD in theology with the focus on the so called liberation-theology among the poor in Latin America. He has conducted several fieldtrips to Brazil, Costa Rica and El Salvador.
12.00-13.00
Roundtable discussion: “Global religious actors”
Anne Sofie Roald, Faisal Devji and Sturla Stålsett.
Questions from the floor
13.00-14.00
Lunch for invited guests