A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 1 5

The intermingling of the local and the global is now a defining feature of our

time. Take the anti-Islam rally that took place in Phoenix in May. We might

think this sad, hate filled spectacle just a local affair. Not so. A Center colleague

currently working in Southeast Asia said friends and contacts from around

the world forwarded him over 40 social media reports—in 6 languages—

referencing his “home town” event.

Our lives have become interwoven with others, near and far. The cultural

innovations needed to inhabit our shared planet lag behind our technological

advances. Our most sophisticated scientific instruments picture the vastness of

the universe but our conceptual maps have not kept pace.

Here at CSRC we are pursuing multiple initiatives that foster the knowledge,

understanding, and imagination needed to live together well. This past year

with a grant from the State Department we hosted seven Pakistani faculty

for a semester in residence. We launched an initiative on Global Citizenship

with support from the Henry Luce Foundation. We hosted a robust series of

conferences and lectures on the dynamics of peace, conflict, and global affairs.

I invite you to take a closer look at our report to learn about the people, the

ideas, and the programs that make up our work. Please consider joining the

Friends of the Center, a group that supports our efforts, helping us expand our

scope and impact. Together, we can make a difference.

Sincerely,

Linell Cady

Message from the Director

1

CSRC Year in Review 2

Major Events

The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism 4

Neuroscience and the Religious Imagination 5

Measuring Religion: Sacred Values in Human Conflict 6

Why Human Rights Depends on the Humanities 7

Research

Religion and Global Citizenship 8

Pakistani Women at ASU Provide Glimpse of Culture ‘Beyond the Hijab’ 10

Emerging Trends in Muslim Discourse 12

How do Religious Fervor and Violence Enhance Each Other? 14

Interrogating the Post-Secular Moment 15

New Book Discusses Women and Everday Peace in the Islamic World 16

People’s Peace: A Conference on Culture, Agency and Lived Experience 18

Friends of the Center: Making a Difference 20

Education

Center Alum Returns from the Peace Corps 22

Undergraduate Fellows Program Shapes Career Choices 24

Undergraduate Research Fellows, 2014-15 26

Friends of the Center Research Awards 27

Undergraduate Certificate in Religion and Conflict 28

About the Center 29

Table of Contents

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August

Luce Foundation grant awarded to Linell Cady and John Carlson: “Religion and Global Citizenship”

NSF grant awarded to Carolyn Warner, Steve Neuberg and David Siroky: “Religious Infusion and Asymmetric Group Conflict”

DoD-ONR grant awarded to Mark Woodward and Hasan Davulcu: “Shifting Trends in Muslim Discourse: Sectarianism and the Rise of Shari’ah Consciousness”

Asma Niaz and Ayesha Babar, first cohort of Visiting Scholars from Kinnaird College for Women (Pakistan), begin residencies at CSRC

Announcement of 2014–15 Undergraduate Research Fellows

Launch of Interdisciplinary Faculty Seminar: Religion and Global Citizenship

September

Carnegie Humanities Investment Fund awarded to Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Linell Cady:“Interrogating the Post-secular Moment”

Hardt-Nickachos Lectures in Religion, Conflict and Peace Studies

• Peace Studies Film Festival, with discussions led by Chad Haines, Amit Ron, Daniel Rothenberg, Yasmin Saikia

Launch of Interdisciplinary Faculty Seminar: The Post-Secular Moment

Launch of Interdisciplinary Faculty Seminar: Measuring Religion

Minerva Research Presentation, Washington, D.C.

October

Release of Abdullahi Gallab’s Their Second Republic: Islamism in the Sudan from Disintegration to Oblivion (Ashgate)

Religion and Conflict: Alternative Visions Lecture Series

• Andrew Bacevich: “American Exceptionalism and The Limits of Power”

Launch of New Lecture Series: Interactions and Interchanges: Literature, Culture, Globlalization (a partnership with the ASU English Department)

• Jayson Gonzales Sae-Saue: “Constructing Paradigms of Future Critique from Foundational Studies of the Past”

• Sophie McClennen: “Why Human Rights Depend on the Humanities”

November

Release of Sally Kitch’s Contested Terrain: Reflections with Afghan Women Leaders (Univ. of Illinois Press)

Conversations at the Center

• Evelyn Bush: “Measuring Religion: Political and Economic Influences of Religious NGOs”

• Scott Atran: “Measuring Religion: Sacred Values in Human Conflict”

Friends of the Center

• Scott Atran: “Talking to the Enemy: The Making and Unmaking of Terrorists”

December

Conversations at the Center

• Matthew Riedl: “Apocalyptic Violence: The Desire for Universal Destruction and Its Historical Origins”

CSRC Year in ReviewHighlights from the 2014-15 Academic Year

Peace Studies: A Film SeriesSeptember 2014

Join us at the Center, Noon to 2:30 p.m. in West Hall Room 135, for a film series highlighting issues of justice, people’s struggle, religion, and peace. Each screening of these four acclaimed films will be followed by a discussion led by a faculty member.

Wednesday, Sept. 3

Heart of JeninThis documentary is the story of a Palestinian boy shot by Israeli soldiers. His father donates his son’s organs to Israeli children as a gesture of peace, and then travels through Israel to meet the families he has helped.

Faculty expert: Amit Ron Assistant Professor of Political Science, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Thursday, Sept. 4

Parzania Parzania is based on the true story of a 10-year-old boy who disappeared during the 2002 Gujarat riots in India. The film tells the story of the riots, and traces the journey of a family trying to locate their missing son.

Faculty expert: Yasmin Saikia Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies and Professor of History, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies

Wednesday, Sept. 10

NoIn 1988, Chile voted on military dictator Augusto Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. This Oscar nominated film details how opposition leaders devised an audacious plan to win the election.

Faculty expert: Daniel Rothenberg Professor of Practice, School of Politics and Global Studies

Thursday, Sept. 11

The Square ‘The Square’ details the ongoing struggle of the Egyptian Revolution through the eyes of six very different protesters. It follows a life-changing journey from the euphoria of victory to the dangers of the current period.

Faculty expert: Chad Haines Assistant Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies

Supported by the Hardt-Nickachos Peace Studies Endowment. This is a free public event, but seating is limited so please RSVP to reserve a seat.

For more information or to RSVP: csrc.asu.edu or 480.727.6736

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January

Tehreem Arslan Aurakzai, Zahra Hamdani, Kanza Javed, Mahwish Khan, and Aisha Usman, second cohort of Visiting Scholars from Kinnaird College for Women (Pakistan), begin residencies at CSRC

Conversations at the Center

• Luis Cabrera: “Faith, Death, and Freedom on the Arizona Frontier”

February

Religion and Conflict: Alternative Visions Lecture Series

• David Eagleman: “ Neuroscience and the Religious Imagination”

Interactions and Interchanges: Literature, Culture, Globlalization Lecture Series

• “Ledfeather,” a reading and discussion with author Stephen Graham Jones

Conference on Ethnic and Religious Conflict

March

Release of Women and Peace in the Islamic World: Gender, Agency and Influence (IB Tauris) edited by Yasmin Saikia and Chad Haines

Conversations at the Center

• Panel Discussion with Chad Haines, Abdullahi Gallab, Ibrahim Hassan and Raza Rumi: “The Global Dynamics of Violent Extremism”

• Panel Discussion with Tehreem Arslan Aurakzai, Zahra Hamdani, Kanza Javed, Mahwish Khan, and Aisha Usman: “Beyond the Hijab: Pakistani Women’s Perspectives” (with Project Humanities)

Workshop on “The University at the Post-Secular Moment: Interrogating Assumptions”, with Michael Crow, David Hollinger, Jeffrey Kripal, Wayne Proudfoot

April

Interactions and Interchanges: Literature, Culture, Globlalization Lecture Series

• Gabriele Schwab: “Radioactive Ghosts: Precarious Lives in the Aftermath of Nuclear Contamination”

Hardt-Nickachos Lectures in Religion, Conflict and Peace Studies

• Conference on “People’s Peace”, with plenary addresses by Hamid Dabashi, Bruce Lawrence, and Susan Thistlethwaite

Conversations at the Center

• Alice Kang: “Measuring Religion: Bargaining for Women’s Rights: Activism in an Aspiring Muslim Democracy”

• Phil Stover, “The Catholic Church and the Mexican Revolution” (with School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies)

May

NBC Video Commentary on “A.D. The Bible Continues” by CSRC affiliate Jason Bruner

Workshop on “Making Religion Visible in Global Health” (with School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies)

Friends of the Center Student Research Awards Announced

2014-15 Certificates in Religion and Conflict awarded

People’s PeaceA multidisciplinary conference exploring peace through culture, agency and lived experience

April 16 & 17 West Hall 135 ASU Tempe campus

Thursday, April 16

9 – 9:30 a.m. Coffee and Registration

9:30 – 9:45 a.m. Welcome and Opening Remarks

Linell Cady, Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict

Yasmin Saikia, Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies

9:45 – 11:45 a.m.. Opening Plenary

Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Chicago Theological Seminary

“ How to End War in Your Spare Time”

Bruce B. Lawrence, Duke University and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakif University, Istanbul

“ Exegeting Peace from Nagpur”

11:45 a.m. Lunch, Secret Garden

1 – 3:15 p.m. Practices of Peace

David Cortright, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame

“The Power of Nonviolence”

Donald L. Fixico, Arizona State University“Spiritual Balance of Peace”

Lisa Sowle Cahill, Boston College“ Enacting Violence, Inspiring Peace: Religious Peacebuilding from Local to Global”

Joel Gereboff, Arizona State University“ Rabbinic Stories of Reconciliation: Successful and Failed”

3:30 – 4:45 p.m. Intersections of PeaceLeslie Dwyer, George Mason University

“ Peace-Making at the Intersection of Local and Global in Bali, Indonesia”

Amanda Izzo, Saint Louis University“ ‘The Nuns Were Not Just Nuns’: Missionary Martyrdom and the Long Arc of Justice in the Salvadoran Civil War”

Friday, April 17

9 – 11:15 a.m. Peace in Place

Stuart Schwartz, Yale University“ Toleration from Below: Its Opponents and Its Doubters”

Jackie Smith, University of Pittsburgh“ Human Rights City Initiatives as a Peoples Peace Process”

Chad Haines, Arizona State University“ Peace in the Alley: Informality and Everyday Peace in Islamic Cities”

Atalia Omer, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame

“ Is Ferguson the Same as Gaza? Diaspora Grassroots Activism and Intersectional Alliances”

11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Closing Plenary

Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University“Is Peace Possible?”

This conference is supported by the Hardt-Nickachos Endowment in Peace Studies. For further information or to register, e-mail csrc@asu.edu or call 480.965.7187.

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The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism

American power around the world is facing new challenges, and our government is often paralyzed by gridlock. How did we

get here, and how do we fix it? And why does calling for a military solution seem to be the first recourse rather than the last?

Andrew Bacevich addressed these questions and their historical roots as part of the Center’s Religion and Conflict: Alternative Visions lecture series this past year.

“Andrew Bacevich has been called one of our indispensable intellectuals, one of the most thought provoking national security writers out there today,” Center director Linell Cady said.

“The historical perspective that he brings to the study of international affairs is

enormously important and illuminating.” According to Bacevich, America’s international

politics have been shaped since the 1990s by four “Big Ideas”—Fukuyama’s end of history, globalization, the indispensable nation theory, and full-spectrum dominance.

Of these four, he asserted, full-spectrum dominance is the least commonly known, but also the most influential in the formation of the Global War on Terrorism.

“Full-spectrum dominance posited that with

the end of the Cold War, with the onset of the end of history, the United States of America found itself in possession of unmatched and unprecedented military capabilities that endowed the United States with unprecedented and permanent military supremacy,” Bacevich said.

This assumption, combined with the other “Big Ideas” claiming America’s position as a permanent superpower, was the driving force behind the United States’ response to the 9/11 attacks, according to Bacevich.

“It was assumed that the supremacy of American military power was going to facilitate and guarantee the process of globalization, and it was going to give way to American claims of global leadership,” Bacevich said. “This was what the four Big Ideas of the 1990s yielded. An all-mighty superpower that cannot be afraid to act.”

Bacevich said that the promises of full-spectrum dominance failed for three reasons. First, it led to a failure of leadership to anticipate the political complications that would hamstring the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Secondly, “in fashioning their response to 9/11, the Bush administration failed to understand the extent to which US claims of supremacy rested on the consent of others in the international order.”

Finally, Bacevich continued, this line of thinking led to a war campaign that neglected to involve American citizens, unheard of in United States history.

“Full-spectrum dominance discounted the importance of nurturing an intimate relationship between soldiers and society,” Bacevich said.

Bacevich concluded his lecture by calling for America’s leaders to “close that gap” between our professed goals as a superpower and the actual limits of our capabilities and resources.

“We should revise our goals and purposes to see this so-called Global War on Terrorism as both deeply flawed and fundamentally unsustainable and to chart a different course, one that is consistent with the means that we actually have available.”

Story by Tye Rabens

Andrew Bacevich is a former Army officer and professor of international relations and history at Boston University. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times. His books include Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country and The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.

“ And why does calling for a military solution seem to be the first recourse rather than the last?”

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How can a better understanding of the human brain help us study the nature

of religion and conflict? Drawing insights from science,

psychology, philosophy and current events, award-winning neuroscientist and author David Eagleman explored this and other questions at a lecture hosted by the Center this past year.

Eagleman is the best-selling author of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain and SUM: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, as well as numerous academic articles.

As part of the Center’s Alternative Visions Lecture Series, Eagleman outlined his views on religious conflict, based on his research into the workings of the human mind.

Eagleman began his talk by discussing group selection theory, which broadly contends that a population tending toward cooperation is more fit to survive. He argued that this theory has special applications to the study of religion and conflict.

“What religion does is cause people to work together cooperatively,” Eagleman asserted. But he also cautioned that while religion does cause “people to behave more decently to people of their in-group”, it also causes people to “behave more badly to people in their out-group.”

Eagleman then analyzed several experiments, including some performed in his own lab, that studied underlying neurological factors behind how the brain exhibits empathy, and how it limits empathy.

In particular, Eagleman described a study in which participants’ brainwaves were scanned while watching videos of hands being stabbed by either a syringe or a Q-tip. In general, watching another human experience genuine pain ignited the same brain network involved with processing one’s own physical pain.

“What that means is that empathy is about, literally, feeling someone else’s pain,” Eagleman said.

However, the experiment then added religious labels—Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Scientologist, Hindu, and Atheist—to the hands being “stabbed.” Eagleman found that for each group, the brain exhibited an empathy response only

when the participant’s “in-group” experienced pain.

“When we talk about dehumanization, it’s literal,” Eagleman concluded. “The circuits in your brain that deal with people as people, they’re going offline.”

This neurological pattern, Eagleman contended, is what causes populations to commit large-scale atrocities on another group; in short, one can be trained to view another without empathy, or as less than human.

“People can say whatever they want,” Eagleman said. “People say, ‘Look, I love all my brethren equally,’ but it’s not true, and we can measure that.”

Eagleman concluded by discussing his personal views on the intersection of religion and science.

He argued that although we know too much to accept any single creation story as the truth, rejecting religious insights outright goes against the exploratory spirit of science.

Instead, Eagleman offered his own value system that he calls “possibilianism.” Basically, this means to plot all theories in a “possibility space” from which we can study universal phenomena currently unexplained by science.

“I think what life and science really teach us is how much we don’t know,” Eagleman said. “As far as the eye can see, it’s all uncharted waters.”

Story by Tye Rabens

Religion and Conflict: Alternative Visions is a lectures series supported by a grant from John Whiteman. The series brings nationally and internationally recognized experts to campus to address the religious dynamics of conflict and peace.

“ I think what life and science really teach us is how much we don’t know. As far as the eye can see, it’s all uncharted waters.”

David Eagleman, neuroscientist at the Baylor College of Medicine and director of the Laboratory for Perception and Action, speaking at the MU on ASU’s Tempe Campus.

Neuroscience and the Religious Imagination

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Measuring Religion: Sacred Values in Human Conflict

Why do moral or religious beliefs sometimes drive people to risk their lives or commit violent acts? And how

do we approach making peace in conflicts where opposing value systems take center stage?

These questions lay at the heart of a series of lectures given by renknowned anthropologist Scott Atran as part of the Conversations at the Center and the Friends of the Center lecture series this past year.

“His work is remarkably wide-ranging,” said Center Director Linell Cady. “It brings together approaches from evolutionary psychology, cognitive anthropology, ethnography, and theories of violence and religion.”

Atran discussed his research that seeks to understand how and why people will fight, risk serious loss, and even die, rather than compromise, for the “sacred values” of their group.

These sacred values, cemented through ritual and a sense of purpose and fraternity, are powerful enough to build civilizations and “facilitate both large-scale cooperation and enduring group conflict,” Atran said.

However, he argued that not enough is known about how these kinds of values shape the human

world. “There’s been very, very little study of what these kinds of value systems are, yet they almost always trump economic and political rationality.”

In addition, Atran claimed that belief in modern ideological concepts like nationalism, liberal democracy, fascism, and human rights follow the same patterns as religious belief. All these value systems can prove more powerful in determining a person’s actions than practicality, logic, or even survival.

Therefore, offering monetary or material compensation for someone to compromise a sacred value is not persuasive, according to Atran, and may even backfire—after all, if someone offered to buy your child, would you be more likely to agree, or get angry and resist?

“In economic theory, everything’s fungible,” Atran explained, but those engaged in a conflict based on their group’s sacred values “are generally immune to material tradeoffs.”

Such observations have crucial implications for the study of religious conflict, Atran contended, because when a conflict is constructed in terms of competing moral frameworks, they can become much more violent and intractable.

“Disputes over otherwise mundane material resources—people, territory, energy sources—become existential struggles as when land becomes Holy Land,” Atran explained.

“While there’s no necessary link between religious belief and violent conflict, during intergroup conflict, protagonists may transform otherwise material interest into sacred values.”

Finally, Atran said that if peace negotiations in such conflicts are to be successful, leaders on both sides must approach each other with empathy and understanding, and focus on reframing or re-prioritizing sacred beliefs rather than changing them.

“We know things like apologies, respect, and simply recognition that [opposing groups] are not nuts, that their values matter to them...are very important,” Atran said.

Story by Tye Rabens

Scott Atran is research director in anthropology at France’s National Center for Scientific Research, Presidential Scholar at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, and Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University. His books include Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists and In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion.

“ While there’s no necessary link between religious belief and violent conflict, during intergroup conflict, protagonists may transform otherwise material interest into sacred values.”

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Why are humanities scholars so often left out from the formation and development of international human rights policy?

How can we meaningfully apply humanities theories to human rights frameworks?

Author, columnist, and scholar Sophia McClennen tackled these issues as part of the Center’s new speaker series, “Interactions and Interchanges: Literature, Culture, Globalization,” that was launched this year.

To begin her talk, McClennen examined the breakdown in discourse between human rights practitioners and humanities scholars.

“Those of us who specialize in the study of culture are acutely aware of the ways that cultural forms can lead equally to genocide and to peace,” McClennen said. “Yet, we’ve been sidelined from the core of these struggles, relegated to the margins.”

McClennen traced this disconnect to three intellectual movements: the Enlightenment, postmodern thought, and the current rise of neoliberalism.

First, the Enlightenment led to “the divorce between philosophy and science, signaled by the split between deductive and empirical methods of inquiry,” McClennen said. This created an intellectual divide between “the search for the true” and “the search for the good and beautiful.”

Next, McClennen argued, postmodern thought generated differences in “how these two fields understand subjectivity,” or “the tension between the universal and the particular.”

“The human rights activists think that humanists have no practical knowledge that would help them. The humanists falsely assume that human rights discourse continues to rest on enlightenment ethics, when in fact those ethics have undergone a number of conceptual transformations,” McClennen asserted.

Recently, neoliberalism’s ascension in both economic and public policy has further weakened the role of the humanities in both academic

and policy-making realms, devaluing what the humanities have to offer human rights. According to McClennen, “one of neoliberalism’s key successes is in convincing the public that humanists themselves have little, if anything, to offer in the effort to solve major human rights struggles.”

McClennen concluded her lecture by outlining several essential questions at the heart of human rights advocacy—and how the humanities can help answer them.

Chief among these questions is how to inquire about human rights issues. Traditional lines of inquiry favored by policymakers tend to leave out the nuanced cultural and social circumstances surrounding facts, McClennen argued. Humanities offers another line of thinking—

about the relationships and background ideas that necessarily frame human rights issues.

“This, then, is where the humanities steps in, to make sense of human rights in ways that those who favor empirical approaches miss,” McClennen stated.

Though punctuated by the speaker’s humor and wit, McClennen’s lecture was an earnest call for “heightened collaboration” between humanities and human rights.

“It’s my view that the absence of humanists—understood here as specialists in culture and in the various ways that humans understand,

represent, and theorize human life—in shaping human rights policy must be registered as a profound loss,” McClennen said.

Why Human Rights Depend on the Humanities

Sophia McClennen, professor of comparative literature and international affairs, directs Penn State’s Center for Global Studies and its Latin American Studies program. She has published seven books, including Colbert’s America: Satire and Democracy and Neoliberalism, Education, Terrorism: Contemporary Dialogues.

“ Those of us who specialize in the study of culture are acutely aware of the ways that cultural forms can lead equally to genocide and to peace. Yet, we’ve been sidelined from the core of these struggles, relegated to the margins.”

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“Become a global citizen and learn how to change the world.”

Universities across the United States are increasingly using such language to describe the orientation and skills students will need to succeed in the 21st century.

But it’s not just universities who are talking about global citizenship. Activists use the concept to promote human rights causes, corporations

use it to explain their business strategies, and policymakers increasingly talk about global citizenship as a way of describing the duties of international institutions.

As the idea of global citizenship spreads, what role do religious traditions and communities play in reinforcing or undermining

the development of global citizens? Is global citizenship a secular project that competes with forms of religious universalism? Is global citizenship itself a spiritual project? Or is it a movement that is reconfiguring religious and secular formations?

These are some of the questions that the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict has set out to answer in a new project, “Religion and Global Citizenship,” that is funded with a multi-year grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.

“The universalist orientation of global citizenship raises fundamental questions about its relation to other forms of identity and allegiance,” says Linell Cady, director of the Center and co-director of the project. “It represents efforts to create new obligations and loyalties that challenge more traditional ideas of religious and national belonging.”

The Project Different understandings of global citizenship are often evident in debates over foreign policy and how to deal with violent conflicts around the world.

“What are the implications of global citizenship regarding the use of military power for humanitarian purposes?” asks John Carlson, an associate professor of religious studies who co-directs the project with Cady.

“The ways that global citizenship is negotiated and reconciled in the coming years could have

significant implications for some of the most pressing problems in international affairs in the twenty-first century,” Carlson says.

For some, the current nation-state system supplies an appropriate mechanism by which to navigate international relations. For others, however, the nation-state system requires a stronger international regulatory system to address humanitarian, justice, and civil issues.

Creating international treaties on human rights has proven to be much easier than reaching agreement about the duties of nations, institutions, and individuals to safeguard those rights. This raises numerous questions about when and where the claims of global citizenship trump or yield to national interests and local citizenship.

The Team Joining Cady and Carlson on the project’s lead team are Roxanne Doty, a political scientist and associate professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies; Yasmin Saikia, Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies and professor of history; and George Thomas, a sociologist and professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies.

“This project explores both historical and contemporary dimensions of global citizenship,” says Thomas. “We examine its roots and how it has evolved, as well as the ways claims surrounding global citizenship are used in practice today.”

The multiyear project involves visiting scholars, international workshops and an on-going faculty seminar designed to deepen cross-cultural understanding and advance scholarship and teaching about global citizenship.

The Role of Religion Often neglected in conversations pertaining to global citizenship is the role of religion. Many consider religion a private matter and preclude religion from public discussion, citing the divisive nature of religion globally and nationally.

“For 200 years, citizens of countries in Europe and the Americas have learned to think about religion as something separate from political life—something private and personal.” says Gaymon Bennett, assistant professor of religious studies and a participant in the project’s faculty seminar.

“Given that history, it’s perhaps not surprising that major players on the global stage—from international organizations to multinational corporations—don’t think of religion and

Religion and Global Citizenship

“ The ways that global citizenship is negotiated and reconciled in the coming years could have significant implications for some of the most pressing problems in international affairs in the twenty-first century.”

9

religious communities as being a significant vector in the play of global dynamics,” says Bennett.

According to Bennett, “it’s vital that those in power get much clearer about the multiple ways in which global forces reshape people’s religious lives, and the ways in which people’s religious lives provide the essential matrix through which they experience, interpret, and respond to global forces.”

Another key component of the research project is the inclusion of scholars and practitioners from around the globe.

Chandra Muzaffar, President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST)

in Malaysia, was one of the projects first visiting scholars. Muzaffar suggested that religion or spirituality is needed in discussions about global citizenship because religion can infuse the discourse with a moral ethic not present elsewhere.

After a series of international workshops, the project team will publish an edited volume of essays and a final report to disseminate the findings and insights of the initiative.

Story by Terry Shoemaker

Faculty SeminarThe faculty seminar brings together expertise from history, sociology, political science, anthropology, religious studies, and international studies to explore the historical and theoretical dimensions of global citizenship, including its roots, evolution, and diffusion. The seminar also engages leading sites and exemplars of global citizenship, the causes and interests they represent, and the institutions and venues in which global citizenship is put into practice, paying special attention to the relationship among global citizenship, religion, and other forms of identity and commitment. To learn more, see religionandglobalcitizenship.csrc.asu.edu.

Gaymon Bennett Assistant Professor of Religious Studies School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies

Linell Cady Director, Professor of Religious Studies Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies

John Carlson Associate Director, Associate Professor of Religious Studies Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies

Roxanne Doty Associate Professor School of Politics and Global Studies

Chad Haines Assistant Professor School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies

Anne Herbert Director for Undergraduate Education Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law

Stanlie James Professor School of Social Transformation

Catherine O’Donnell Associate Professor of History School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies

Thomas Puleo Assistant Professor School of Politics and Global Studies

Yasmin Saikia Professor of History, Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies

Terry Shoemaker Research Assistant Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict

George Thomas Professor School of Politics and Global Studies

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Pakistani Women at ASU Provide Glimpse of Culture ‘Beyond the Hijab’

When Tehreem Aurakzai stepped off the plane at Phoenix-Sky Harbor airport, she didn’t fully appreciate her new role as

“cultural representative.” A scholar on a U.S. State Department

exchange, Aurakzai was in Arizona to research American literature and culture. What she hadn’t planned was having to defend the reputation of her home country of Pakistan, which many Americans view as a strife-ridden hotbed of terrorism.

Aurakzai knows differently. Pakistan has an active civil society, with numerous strong women leaders, who are seen as key to combating extremism in the Islamic South Asian republic. It is also a place of rich culture, history and diversity. Aurakzai worked to convey Pakistan’s complexity to students and faculty she met at Arizona State University and in the surrounding community.

“Terrorism is everywhere because we are living in an age of violence. It doesn’t happen only in Pakistan,” she says.

Aurakzai believes that to combat negative views of another culture, “The best way is to visit the country itself, meet people and experience on your own.”

Aurakzai is a lecturer in the English department at Kinnaird College for Women in Lahore, Pakistan. She and four other scholars from Kinnaird—Zahra Hamdani, Kanza Javed, Mahwish Khan and Aisha Usman—spent the spring 2015 semester at ASU funded by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan.

The three-year project, “Globalizing Research and Teaching of American Literature: A University Partnership between ASU and

Kinnaird College (Lahore),” aims to create an academic, research, and knowledge exchange that will help to empower Pakistani women in academia and in society. Faculty and staff from ASU’s Department of English and the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict co-direct the project and participated in the first wave of exchanges to Pakistan in fall 2014 while ASU hosted two scholars from Pakistan.

The second Pakistani cohort arrived in January 2015. They participated in classes, attended cultural events, met with mentors, and gave presentations on their own research and scholarship during their semester-long ASU visit.

One course that two Pakistani scholars attended was Professor Melissa Pritchard’s English 594: Creative Writing—Fiction class. Not only did the Pakistani women gain insight on trends in the field of contemporary American literature, their very presence in the classroom was a learning experience for their U.S. counterparts.

“Having students from overseas in ASU classes brings new perspectives that many students haven’t considered,” says Carolyn Forbes, assistant director of the ASU Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict and project manager for the exchange.

“These sorts of exchanges shape new research questions that lead to new ways of teaching the material.”

The ASU hosts, which in addition to Forbes included English faculty Deborah Clarke, Claudia Sadowski-Smith, and Neal A. Lester, as well as Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies Yasmin Saikia and CSRC coordinator Laurie Perko, provided opportunities for the Pakistani scholars to be immersed in multi-ethnic literatures of the U.S. In particular, the group focused on introducing the unique culture of the American Southwest.

“We built in to the grant a variety of cultural experiences that we thought would enhance their understanding of the literature they were reading,” Forbes said. “For example, we visited Santa Fe where they were able to tour one of the pueblos in the area and explore the intermingling of Native, Hispanic, and Anglo culture.”

Forbes added that she and her colleagues did their best to minimize culture shock for the participants. One boon: CSRC found a house to rent, so the Pakistani women were all able to stay together.

ASU English professor and project director Deborah Clarke lecturing on gender in American literature before a packed crowd at Kinnaird College for Women, November 2014.

When Tehreem Aurakzai stepped off the plane at Phoenix-Sky Harbor airport, she didn’t fully appreciate her new role as a ‘cultural representative’.

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ASU English professors Neal Lester and Deborah Clarke with Nadia Anjum, head of Kinnaird’s graduate program in English literature, and faculty and graduate students outside of Kinnaird’s staff house in November 2014.

“The house was within walking distance of campus, and this sort of living experience more closely resembled the way families live in Pakistan. The neighbors also did a lot of community activities together and this turned out to be a real plus since these sort of social interactions are also more common in Pakistan,” Forbes said.

The five women participated in a public panel discussion at ASU on March 26 called “Beyond the Hijab: Pakistani Women’s Perspectives.” Each scholar shared her introduction to American culture and focused on dispelling some of the preconceived notions of Pakistani women.

During the discussion, panelist Aisha Usman, a member of the English Literature faculty at Kinnaird, addressed a main area of concern—the role of media in shaping perceptions of women in Muslim countries.

Usman sees the media as emphasizing the stereotype that women in Pakistan aren’t able to fill leadership roles. But, she pointed out, Kinnaird College is a women’s college where most of the faculty are women. She also revealed that much of Pakistan’s higher education is co-

educational, and women have provided strong leadership in that sector.

“Women in Pakistan do face difficult situations,” Usman said. “But they are also empowered and have minds of their own.”

Pakistani women are typically charged with providing structure and early learning opportunities for their children, so it is with this in mind that Usman quips, “If we are educating a woman, we are educating a nation.”

As hoped, the exchange has affected the Pakistani women’s own perspectives. Aurakzai says that she now has a global mindset and will apply newly learned teaching skills when she goes back to her country.

“I grew as a person, and this was a very intellectually

stimulating experience,” she affirms. “I became an English professor because of the opportunities it provides to enter into others’ experiences. This is the spirit at the heart of this exchange.”

Each of the scholars will return to the U.S. in fall 2015 to present academic papers based on research they did while at ASU. Several ASU faculty will travel to Pakistan in the fall, and the next cohort of Kinnaird scholars is due to arrive at ASU in spring 2016.

Story by Paulina Iracka and Kristen LaRue-Sandler

“ I became an English professor because of the opportunities it provides to enter into other’s experiences. This is the spirit at the heart of this exchange.”

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What does the future of Islamic extremism look like?

The central themes in extremist Muslim discourse around the world are increasingly shifting from Salafi Jihadism to narratives promoting Shari’ah law and sectarianism directed against Shia, minority, and non-Muslim groups. A prominent example is ISIS, a Salafi group in name, but sectarian in its actions.

This trend has compelled governments and researchers worldwide to ask new and difficult questions about violent Islamic extremism: How has the rise of sectarian groups affected religious discourse and politics in the Muslim world? What strategies do they use to communicate their views online and on the ground? And how can learning about these trends benefit those opposed to ISIS and similar groups, within Muslim communities and internationally?

These are the essential questions ASU professor Mark Woodward seeks to answer.

His latest research project, “Emerging Trends in Muslim Discourse,” utilizes qualitative and computational methods to identify semantic dynamics in the discourse of those promoting sectarian Islamic agendas worldwide.

Woodward, associate professor of religious studies and faculty affiliate of the Center, hopes this research will yield new insight into important developments in Muslim discourse, including deeper understanding of the politics of Shari’ah and sectarianism, their sources, and the networks through which they are disseminated.

One need look no further than current events in the news today to find examples of why these developments are vital to understand.

“The most obvious example is the current conflict in the Middle East, which pits Sunni extremists against Shia. This has spilled over into Southeast Asia and Europe, though so far without the violence,” says Woodward, the project’s principal investigator.

The transdisciplinary project will conduct research in five countries—Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Turkey, and the UK—selected for their large Muslim communities and geopolitical and cultural importance. In addition, all five countries share concerns over sectarian and Shari’ah issues.

“We expect that the project will yield findings important for those seeking to effectively counter extremist movements,” Woodward says. “My

hope is that by better understanding the rhetoric they use, mainstream religious leaders and NGOs will be able to formulate strategies that will impede radicalization.”

Woodward and his team began work on “Emerging Trends in Muslim Discourse” in 2014, conducting research in all five target countries. The project combines ethnographic research, textual analysis, and analysis of rhetoric on Twitter and other social media streams. Woodward aims to produce a book on the semantics of religious intolerance and hate speech and its impact across countries and cultures.

“The research that we have conducted to date indicates that themes, including heresy, defining religious others as existential threats to one’s own community, violence against women and children, and ‘deviant’ sexual practices, are common,” Woodward explains. “In most cases, these allegations are fabrications that define

Emerging Trends in Muslim Discourse

“ The research that we have conducted to date indicates that themes, including heresy, definining religious others as existential threats to one’s own community, violence against women and children, and ‘deviant’ sexual practices, are common. In most cases, these allegations are fabrications that define ‘others’ in terms of archetypes of evil.”

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‘others’ in terms of archetypes of evil.” Woodward’s extensive academic career

includes research into political Islam, religion and modernity, and religion and conflict in Southeast Asia. He has published ground breaking research on Islam in Indonesia, and has led multi-country research projects that have resulted in publications across multiple fields.

“Mark Woodward’s research has contributed enormously to understanding the sources and dynamics of conflict in Muslim communities around the world today, with particular attention to counter-extremist movements,” says Carolyn Forbes, assistant director of the Center. “His work exemplifies the kind of transdisciplinary, socially-engaged research that the Center seeks to develop.”

He is joined on the “Emerging Trends” project by Hasan Davulcu, an associate professor of computer science in ASU’s School of Computing,

Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, and Muhammad Sani Umar, a historian and professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Amadu Bello in Nigeria. Working closely with Davulcu, the team has also helped advance innovative approaches to Big Data.

Much of Woodward’s recent career has focused on analyzing violent discourse and religious division within the Islamic world. However, in the future, he hopes to return to more peaceful topics, such as writing a book about the Wali Songo, the revered Javanese saints of Islam in Indonesia.

“I hope that the time will come when I can stop doing research about violent extremism,” Woodward says.

Story by Tye Rabens

Mark Woodward, associate professor of religious studies, and Hasan Davulcu, associate professor of computer science, bring together a unique interdisciplinary approach to the study of the interaction of violent and counter-violent social movements.

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Religious extremism. Violent conflict. Which comes first?

The Islamic State in Syria and Iraq is one of the most recent and well known examples of a small group engaged in violence that claims a religious identity and frames its actions with religious language.

But how exactly do religious fervor and violence create or enhance each other?

The Center’s research team of Carolyn Warner, professor of political science in the School of Politics and Global Studies, and Steven Neuberg, Foundation Professor in psychology,

were awarded a multi-year grant from the National Science Foundation to explore these questions.

Their project, “Religious Infusion and Asymmetric Conflict,” examines a wide array of case studies around the world to determine how and why small religious groups do or do not

engage in conflict. “Which specific features of religion

play a role in how a small

group of people

engages in conflict against a much stronger group?” asks Warner. “In one of our previous projects we found a pattern of behavior suggesting that religion is often a primary factor when a less powerful group engages in violent conflict, and in this project we are taking a closer look at why that happens.”

The questions the project raises have significant national security implications and their answers have the potential to offer crucial insights that may help anticipate the emergence of conflict situations, create interventions to defuse potential conflicts, and manage existing conflicts.

Joining Warner and Neuberg on the research team is David Siroky, assistant professor of political science in ASU’s School of Politics and Global Studies, and researchers from Georgetown, University of Florida, and the University of Allahabad in India.

The research team draws from multiple fields in the social and behavioral sciences in order to investigate how religious ritual, doctrine, and context shape the motivations and capacities of weak but religiously-infused groups to initiate conflict against stronger groups.

“Highly motivated groups can successfully target and inflict harm on stronger rivals, but what counts as a sufficiently strong motivation to overcome the significant risks?” asks Neuberg.

The team will attempt to address these questions and test their hypotheses through a number of methods. These include in-depth case studies of groups in the Middle East and South Asia, comparative analysis of low-power groups representing diverse religious and ethnic identities around the world, and lab experimentation in the U.S. and India.

“Exploring the community rituals, socialization practices, and organizational structure of several religious groups in multiple geographical settings through multiple methods can offer some depth to previous research on these issues,” says Neuberg.

Findings from the research will be made available to the academic community, policymakers, students and the public through courses, professional meetings, publications and presentations.

Story by Matt Correa

How Do Religious Fervor and Violence Enhance Each Other?

“ The questions the project raises have significant national security implications and their answers have the potential to offer crucial insights that may help anticipate the emergence of conflict situations, create interventions to defuse potential conflicts, and manage existing conflicts.”

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For a half a century or more it has been widely accepted that as societies become more modern, they necessarily grow less religious. Recently, though, this notion seems less and

less representative of the realties around us. From controversies over teachers and students

wearing headscarves in European schools to the rise of Christian mega-churches and conflict over the location of mosques in the U.S., religion seems more than ever a matter of public debate and controversy.

Other forms of spirituality based in meditation, health, and community are also gaining social visibility, and challenging the assumption that those who understand scientific principles necessarily reject spiritual pursuits and questions.

Are we in a “post-secular” moment? Do theories of secularism and secularization have to be reconsidered in light of recent events?

These ideas are at the heart of ongoing research and collaboration by an interdisciplinary group of scholars convened jointly by the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict and the Center for Jewish Studies.

The project, “Interrogating the Post-Secular Moment,” is supported by a seed grant from the Carnegie Humanities Investment Fund. Its purpose is to produce innovative humanistic research, that crosses the boundaries of the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences, and to demonstrate the relevance of humanistic scholarship for contemporary public life.

This March the project’s research culminated with a workshop that convened a group of scholars from across the humanities and social sciences, and featured guest scholars Michael Crow, president of ASU, David Hollinger from the University of California, Berkeley, Jeffrey Kripal from Rice University, and Wayne Proudfoot from Columbia University.

The speakers and the assembled faculty and graduate students engaged in a lively conversation about the status of religion, secularity, and post-secularity within the university and beyond.

Important questions were brought to the table addressing how to understand recent

developments challenging secularization

theories in the university context, as well as in the broader social and political spheres.

Ideas generated over the course of the year, and input from the workshop, have inspired the project’s co-directors, Linell Cady, professor of religious studies, and Hava Samuelson, professor of history and Jewish studies, to explore opportunities to expand the project into a larger, in-depth study of these issues and related phenomena.

The research team sees a lack of empirical research on the cross-traffic, overlap, and relationships between science and religion. The proposed future project would seek to fill this gap by examining historical and contemporary points of intersection between religion, science, and technology across a variety of cultural and national contexts.

Cady and Samuelson were joined on the project by ASU professors from a range of disciplines, including Ben Hurlbut, assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences; Erik Fisher, assistant professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies; Gaymon Bennett, assistant professor of religion, science, and technology; and Gregg Zachary, professor of practice at the Consortium For Science Policy.

Story by Tess Doezema

ASU President Michael M. Crow and Dean of Humanities George Justice meeting with members of the interdisciplinary faculty seminar during a workshop on “Interrogating the Post-Secular Moment.”

Interrogating the Post-Secular Moment

“ From controversies over teachers and students wearing headscarves in European schools, to the rise of Christian mega-churches and conflict over the location of mosques in the U.S., religion seems more than ever a matter of public debate and controversy.”

What is a realistic idea of peace? Peace is most commonly thought of as

something governments deliver to people by negotiating or applying strategic violence to end particular conflicts or wars.

What does this idea of peace leave out? How can we think about peace in ways that broaden it beyond something the powerful give to the weak? Where do we look for peacemaking in the practices of ordinary people in everyday life?

In their new book of essays, Women and Peace in the Islamic World: Gender, Agency and Influence, ASU professors and co-editors Yasmin Saikia and Chad Haines suggest new interpretations of peace by exploring the everyday interactions of Muslim women.

The book presents original research from different parts of the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, including Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, and

Sudan. It both challenges assumptions of Islam as an inherently violent religion, and offers some new and timely examples of Muslim women forging new pathways toward peace in the contemporary world.

“Women are often defined by their ‘victim’ status in conflict situations,” says Saikia, holder of the Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies at ASU’s Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict.

“When we focus too much on those categorizations, we lose sight of women as active agents who create new narratives for peace in their everyday lives.”

The book’s contributors, including scholars from Harvard, Georgetown, Duke and elsewhere, draw upon a rich array of personal experiences, research, and work in the field to understand the diverse roles Muslim women play in the development of peaceful and just communities.

“There are some long-standing stereotypes about Muslim women that are worth challenging,” says Haines, assistant professor of religious and global studies.

“The essays in this book show the diversity of roles Muslim women play in contemporary Muslim societies, and also how their religion shapes how they become agents of peace.”

By documenting a range of Muslim women’s perspectives, the book shows how the path to peace for women is not easily defined.

In Ayse Kadayifci-Orellana’s chapter on Muslim women’s involvement in peacebuilding she discusses the importance of women’s engagement and full participation in society as a fundamental component of the peacebuilding process.

“Many women in Muslim majority countries such as Egypt, Palestine, Afghanistan, Kenya, Yemen, Somalia and Iraq, among others, are taking up proactive roles in response to conflicts and working toward establishing just and peaceful societies,” she writes.

Other contributors offer case studies that document specific examples of the role of women

in peacebuilding. Arzoo Osanloo’s chapter highlights women’s peace initiatives in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Elora Haim Chowdhury’s chapter examines women’s organizing in Bangladesh.

The book also includes a public conversation between two Muslim women peacemakers, Daisy Khan, a social activist, and Cemalnur Sargut, a Sufi sheikha.

“This is a remarkable collection,” writes Omid Safi, Director of Islamic Studies at Duke University. “The editors deserve praise for bringing together a divergent set of perspectives that trace the way in which Muslim women on a global level are working to bring about peace not

New Book Discusses Women and Everyday Peace in the Islamic World

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“ Women are often defined by their ‘victim’ status in conflict situations. When we focus too much on those categorizations, we lose sight of women as active agents who create new narratives for peace in their everyday lives.”

as a distant goal but as an everyday path here and now.”

The first section of the book looks at basic assumptions people have about Islam and women. It underscores how important it is to move beyond associating men with violence and women with peace, because peacebuilding is everyone’s business.

The chapters in the second section explore women’s activism in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Sudan, and how they are reshaping and creating new social institutions to assert their rights and claims to peace and justice.

Contributors to the third section focus on the Islamic frameworks Muslim women use as guidance for developing moral communities in their everyday lives. From using Islamic texts that counter conservative interpretations to applying Islamic concepts of forgiveness, Muslim women are creating peaceful transformations.

The final section shows how women draw from local Muslim concepts and terminology to develop various ethics of peace. While social institutions and traditions are sometimes sources of oppression, they are also sites of liberation where women negotiate their place in society.

The book grew out of an international conference on “Women, Islam, and Peace” that Saikia organized in 2010, during her first year at ASU. Since then, Saikia has gone on to lead the development of a robust array of programs, including an annual peace studies film festival, the creation of new courses, and a variety of lectures, seminars and conferences.

Story by Matt Correa and Emily Fritcke

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Chad Haines

“ The essays in this book show the diversity of roles Muslim women play in contemporary Muslim societies, and also how their religion shapes how they become agents of peace.”

Yasmin Saikia

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“ If peace is not simply the absence of conflict, but rooted in ideas, feelings, emotions, and experiences that have a certain kind of independent substance, then it becomes extremely important to explicitly look at peace as its own reality..”

Linell Cady

“ The task at hand is actively to imagine and cultivate militant pacifists. Militant pacifists are not passive. They are decidedly active, defiant, assertive. They interrupt. They object. They dismantle the apparatus of power.”

Hamid Dabashi

“ We have defiantly resisted the idea that violence can dominate our lives, and reduce us into a sense that we do not have any hopes. Rather, we are continuing this inquiry that there is something substantial, and something important, to discuss about peace.”

Yasmin Saikia

“ Spiritual peace has to be in balance...it starts with balance within oneself.”

Donald Fixico

“ We are faced with a growing realization that freedom of religion and toleration may not be a conquest that has been won once and for all, and that both of these concepts still remain in question.”

Stuart Schwartz

People’s Peace: A Multidisciplinary Conference Exploring Peace Through Culture, Agency and Lived Experience

What values of peace exist and how are they transmitted within and across cultures? How do these values function in communities? What threatens their functioning and how do they operate during critical times of violence? Is there a difference between the lived peace of people and managed peace of external systems? If peace is a way of being that is potentially alive in all cultures, then why is peace aspired to as a future ideal rather than a present reality? What lessons can we learn by studying the dynamics of peace across cultures?

With support from the Hardt-Nikachos Endowment in Peace Studies, the Center brought together leading scholars for focused attention on the practical values, lived experiences and on-the-ground cultures of peace. Since the conference, these scholars are continuing to work together to produce work that will deepen understanding about people’s peace as a creative resource for peacebuilding today.

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“ We have many examples of non-violent resistance all over the world. We can truly say that this has become a force more powerful, one in which people have begun to recognize that we can achieve justice without the use of violence.”

David Cortright

“ While often we think about celebrating diversity and acceptance within the United States and other parts of the world...it comes with a price of understanding what citizenship is within the modern state and how it is hierarchically ordered. It’s not about egalitarianism, but ultimately about those who get to define what the nation is, and those who are accepted within it.”

Chad Haines

“ Despite inevitable setbacks, the ideal of peace can still transform the reality of conflict.”

Lisa Sowle Cahill

“ Understanding the background, understanding the history of conflict is absolutely crucial for understanding what we could possibly do in the domain of peacebuilding.”

Leslie Dwyer

“ You’ve got to be culturally literate to know how to use cooperative conflict resolution.”

Susan Thistlethwaite

“ It’s not just that scripture is sacred. It also has to be pragmatic. It has to be a rational instrument for peacebuilding.”

Bruce Lawrence

“ Forgiveness serves as a key element in the exploration of how to pursue reconciliation and peace, both on a group and an interpersonal level.”

Joel Gereboff

“ We need to think about the world historical context...about colonialism, imperialism, and the ways that those processes affected the conflicts that we’re trying to address. Peacebuilding can’t start in a local space without global and historic context.”

Jackie Smith

“ ‘The Long Arc of Justice’ evokes the daunting persistence with which the struggle for peace must be waged. This story is, by no means, one that is over...it’s a reminder that a people’s peace is less a destination and more a process always in the making.”

Amanda Izzo

“ In order to think about peace processes, peace building in Israel and Palestine, you have to think about how Judaism, Jewish tradition, and Jewish resources can be employed in this process. They don’t necessarily need to translate to hegemonic practices.”

Atalia Omer

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Making a Difference: Advancing the Center through Individual Philanthropy

Friends of the Center

Friends of the Center provide annual gifts to help support the research and education initiatives of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict. Gifts to the Friends of the Center help expand student fellowship programs; bring innovative thinkers, writers and practitioners to campus; and help build a network for research and dissemination that includes students, faculty, professionals, practitioners and policy experts.

The Center thanks the many friends that contributed to our sustained progress during the 2014-15 academic year.

Lifetime FriendsAnn HardtStan and Tochia LevineMaxine and Jonathan MarshallRichard and Elaine Morrison Doug and Becky Pruitt John Roberts John Whiteman

Platinum (up to $25,000)Bijan and Fariba Ansari Thomas and Deborah Davidson Perry and Margaret Gooch Jerry Hirsch Tom and Ruth Ann Hornaday

Gold (up to $2,500)AnonymousPenny Davis John and Judith Ellerman Kevin and Yolanda McAuliffe

Maroon (up to $1,000)Susan and Bill AhearnLinda Brock and Jeffrey HeimerLinell Cady David and Joan Lincoln Donald and Irene Lubin Dick and Dinky Snell Thomas and Vicky Taradash Carole Weiss

Silver (up to $250)Anonymous (3) LoAnn & Edwin Bell Peter Buseck Vicki and Howard Cabot Jane Canby Ed Chulew Charles Coronella Matt Correa Nancy Dallett Robert & Denise DiCenso Robert and Rosemarie Fitzsimmons Carolyn Forbes Mike Franklin

Mary Anna Friederich Al Gephart Gwyn Goebel Len Gordon Gisela Grant Terrence Gregg Jennifer and Gary Grossman Rebecca Grubaugh Robert Hardy Vernon Higginbotham Fatina Hijab Rev. and Mrs. Earl Holt Doris Horn Sol Jaffe Dale Kalika and Robert McPhee Matt Korbeck and Karen McNally Sandy Lambert Ronald D. MacDonald Marlene Maddalone Michael H. Morris Ingrid O’Grady Steve and Linda Pogson William C. Rhodes Aleda Richter-West Roger S. Robinson Carol Rose Cayetano Santiago Ronald Sassano Cliff & Patricia Schutjer Steve and Mary Serlin Mr & Mrs. Vikram Shah Milt Stamatis John Staub Daniel Suchoff Gwen Williams Ray and Sarah Williams Jeff and Janelle Wright Robin Wright

Gifts made in honor of Neal Lester Ann Hardt

Gifts made in memory of Inez Casiano

Investing in the Center has a positive impact on students, faculty, and the community.

To make a donation online, go to asufoundation.org/religionandconflict.

To make a donation by mail, send a check, payable to the ASU Foundation/CSRC to: Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict Arizona State UniversityPO Box 870802 Tempe, AZ 85287-0802

To make a major gift, contact Gwyn Goebel, Major Gifts Officer, at (480) 965-9882 or Gwyn.Goebel@asu.edu.

All funds will be deposited with the ASU Foundation for a New American University, a separate non-profit organization that exists to support ASU. Your gift may be considered a charitable contribution. Please consult with your tax advisor regarding the deductibility of charitable contributions.

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Alli Coritz ‘12, an alumni of the Center’s Undergraduate Research Fellows Program and a former intern at the Center, was a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin, Africa for the past two years. On her return, she sat down with another Fellows alum, Richard Ricketts, to discuss her experience and what she learned from the community she became a part of during her time of service.

How did you get involved with the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict?

I had a friend who was a research fellow at the Center his sophomore year. My work centered on conflict, human rights issues, and development. I saw the Center’s fellows program, and its certificate in religion and conflict, and it looked like a perfect way to tie my lines of study together. So I applied for the program in my junior year and became a fellow myself.

When did you decide to join the Peace Corps and where were you appointed?

The question of what to do after graduating is a concern on the minds of many students. For me, the Peace Corps was always the end goal of my university education. I had wanted to join since I was in middle school.

I was willing to go anywhere, and with my French-language background I was placed in Toucountouna, Benin for a 26 month term. I taught sixth and seventh grade, three classes each year, with about 60 to 70 students per class. They were mixed level classes, ages ranged from 11 to 17. At the school I also worked with local language teachers to help them develop their English skills. For many of them I provided practice with a native English speaker that they had not had in some time, if ever.

Additionally, I was one of about 12 volunteers who was able to form a health group in the community I was working in. We worked with students to learn about health issues such as malaria, hygiene, HIV/AIDS, and XPI, and communicate information back in local languages to women, children, and men.

What was your experience like being the “other”?

There were certain expectations of me that went along with my skin. For example, I should have a certain amount of money. But I think the most interesting assumptions were in relation to my gender.

People would automatically think that because I was of a certain age and unmarried, I must be searching for a husband. I remember distinctly one such situation with a group of women where one of them stated, “Oh, we’ll find you a husband.”

I was in a relationship at the time, and so I told her I already had a husband. Her response was, “Oh, you don’t like blacks.” I made a joke of it, saying, “Even in America a woman can’t have two husbands.”

They loved it, because it revealed a societal truth which we shared. In Benin a man can have more than one wife, but women cannot have more than one husband. Examples like this elucidate the multiple identities we each inhabit and how, while at times they can separate us, they provide a space where we can come to connect in ways that are unexpected.

Center Alum Returns from Service in Peace Corps

“This is me with one of my main families in the village who so kindly adopted me into their lives.” Alli Coritz

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“ The question of what to do after graduating is a concern on the minds of many students. For me, the Peace Corps was always the end goal of my university education.”

If there is one thing you learned that you found most impactful to your life, what would that be?

I thought a lot about privilege, especially in light of the Ebola situation.

The disease did not hit Benin in the way other West African countries were affected. But Peace Corps volunteers in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea were evacuated because of Ebola. They got to leave, and this broke their hearts from what I have read of their blogs.

And it breaks my heart, because it calls to attention just how lucky we are. While our friends and families that we have made in these countries do not get any special treatment, I have a government who will pull me out, who will say, “you do not get to be exposed to this,” as people I care about and love are left behind.

I am fortunate and privileged in my skin color. I am privileged in my education. I am privileged in where I was born.

If there is one thing you learned that you found most impactful to your academic thought, what would that be?

One of the biggest questions I wrestled with as an undergraduate at ASU was the tension between universalism and relativism, especially in relation to the ephemeral idea of “culture.” My time in Peace Corps called greater attention to, and questioned, the relativistic and laissez–faire attitude toward this idea that I had developed as a student.

I re-read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe during my time in Peace Corps. In the book there is a part where he talks about a Nigerian idea that you cannot feed a child eggs, because they will become a thief. I found this was also the case in Benin.

When I heard this, I was like, “Oh, that’s crazy.” But the strange thing is during my time there, it did not sound as crazy. It sounded normalized. It sounded internalized even.

But I still know, with my Western education, eggs are a great source of protein and your children are protein deficient. You should feed them eggs. They are cheap.

So there is a tension between a cultural belief that seems harmless, but one that effectively eliminates one of the best sources of cheap protein in the area. At what point is this no longer a harmless cultural idea but one that should

addressed, and if so, by whom? There is this divide between what might

seem like innocent innocuous cultural ideas and practices that you might be able to write off in a classroom and one’s experience in person. When you see the effects on children who are not getting enough protein, then you start to wonder, “How much of a relativist am I?”

Is there a story you could share as to how this tension played out during your time there?

There is this belief that if there is a ceremony, any ceremony, it will not rain on that day. One day I was painting a mural for the kids at the school and I looked up and saw that storm clouds were building up. I started worrying…“Will the paint dry in time? Is it going to run? Will the mural be ruined?”

And then I thought to myself, relieved, “Oh, no. There is a ceremony today. It is not going to rain!” and continued painting.

A few moments later I stopped painting, and standing there with my eyes wide, thought, “Oh, I just thought that. And that was a completely normal thought.”

Would you recommend the Peace Corps?

If at any age you are contemplating going into Peace Corps, I say go for it. I had families who truly adopted me, who let me awkwardly sit in with them as I learned their culture. Who let me observe them and who dealt with my weird quirks when I did not understand exactly how I was supposed to behave. I had people who loved me, tolerated me, accepted me, and who I miss totally. That’s not something I would exchange for any other experience in the world.

Oftentimes people are concerned about the two-year time commitment. Wherever you are, those two years are still going to happen. My experience would have been completely different had I dropped in for only a few months. There are some things you can critique, some things you might change, but I would wholeheartedly recommend the program to anyone.

Interview by Richard Ricketts

Alli Coritz is now a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Southern California

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Undergraduate Fellows Program Shapes Career Choices

Erik Lundin describes himself as a “non-traditional student.” The 29-year-old religious studies senior practiced screenwriting and songwriting in Los Angeles for several years before returning to ASU with a clearer vision of his academic goals.

Lundin describes his path to the Center’s undergraduate fellows program as a “fortunate coincidence.” He learned of the program at

a lecture by scholar Stephen Prothero that was sponsored by the Center, and entered the fellows program with no idea of what would come next.

However, Lundin said the experience further clarified his research interests and strengthened his applications to graduate school.

“Actually, it affected [me] quite a bit,” Lundin said. “What participating in the fellows program did for me is direct my focus.”

For the research component of the program, Lundin worked under Jason Bruner, assistant professor of religious studies, on the project “Museum and Memorial.” The collaborative, interdisciplinary project explores points of comparison between different genocides. The project uses research and open-source survivor testimonies, and engages the public—especially high school students and teachers—with museum exhibitions, symposiums, and digital learning tools.

Bruner said that Lundin made himself valuable to the project immediately, helping to develop the project’s website and create a database of oral and written testimonies from genocide survivors around the world.

“Erik was involved in the very groundwork of this project,” according to Bruner.

Research and Opportunities

Bruner was excited to have Lundin, who had already excelled in two of his undergraduate courses, join the project.

“I knew Erik well,” said Bruner. “He’s a top-notch student.”

Lundin’s success as an undergraduate fellow led Bruner to invite him to stay on the project for the spring 2015 semester. Bruner said this gave Lundin valuable insight into how academic research is conducted, and how to do collaborative research at the university level.

“I mean, he was able to see the skeleton of it, what it takes to maintain a collaborative project,” Bruner said. “We rarely actually train students to

Kohinoor Gill, Abbey Pellino, Shelby Stringer, and Eric Lundin attend a meeting of the Center’s undergraduate research fellows program.

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do this, even though most academics have to do it, in one form or another.”

That the fellows program brings together people with different academic backgrounds and levels of expertise is a vital addition to humanities research, Bruner added.

“It got me to think about my work in a way that I hadn’t before, and that was in the context of developing a ‘humanities laboratory,’ where you’re encouraging people, or trying to give them the tools, to help you solve a common problem,” Bruner said.

Lundin said the fellows program helped him develop the research skills that he believes will be necessary to succeed as a graduate student in the coming year.

“Intellectually, there’s a ton of stuff that I learned from this project,” Lundin said. “But having to coordinate with people, and bounce ideas off [them], and work through these projects on a cooperative basis, is really important on a practical level.”

Learning Through Discussion

The Center’s fellows program also includes a weekly seminar in which undergraduates from a wide range of majors meet with faculty and guest speakers to discuss readings on religion and conflict. The Center’s director Linell Cady guided the fellows’ discussion each week.

“The undergraduate fellows program ... was a happy surprise and a major privilege for me,” Lundin said. “The best part of it, in a lot of ways, was just being able to meet every week with a group of people who were really invested in these contemporary issues of religion and violence.”

Lundin and the other fellows met with leading scholars

brought to campus by the Center, including Dennis Dalton and Andrew Bacevich.

“I am grateful to our Friends of the Center for making this kind of program possible,” Cady said. “There is something very special that happens when you bring together such a talented and passionate group of students who come from many different fields of study and backgrounds to talk about these issues.”

Lundin said the fellows program has been instrumental to his academic goals by leading him into a long-term research assistantship, focusing his interest in religious studies, and developing valuable academic connections as he applied to graduate school.

“As I was putting together my graduate applications, I had to write these statements of purpose,” Lundin said. “And the things I had learned in the fellows program, the thoughts that had kind of been focused for me, working with these other students, really played a big part into what my purpose really developed into, as far as future study and research. It was really great for directing my focus.”

Lundin’s work really paid off. Right before the end of the year, he found out that he had been accepted as a graduate student at the Yale Divinity School.

Story by Tye Rabens

To learn more about the Memorial and Museum project, see http://asucomparativegenocide.com/

“ That the fellowship brings together people with different academic backgrounds and levels of expertise is a vital addition to humanities research.”

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Daniel OberhausMajor: English & Philosophy

Faculty Mentor: Abdullahi Gallab, associate professor of African and African American Studies, School of Social Transformation; and associate professor of Religious Studies, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies

Project: “Religion and the Split of Sudan into Two Countries”

Mariam Polo-PetrosMajor: Global Studies

Faculty Mentor: Yasmin Saikia, Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies and professor of history, Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict

Project: “Introduction to Peace Studies”

Abbey PellinoMajor: Global Studies

Faculty Mentor: Miki Kittilson, associate professor of Political Science, School of Politics and Global Studies

Project: “Policy Diffusion: International Influences on Appointments to High Courts”

Erik LundinMajor: Religious Studies

Faculty Mentor: Jason Bruner, assistant professor of religious studies, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies

Project: “Museum and Memorial: Representation of Comparative Genocide and Negotiation of Different Memory Culture in the Holocaust and Tolerance Museum”

Gabe Kaplan Major: Architecture

Faculty Mentor: Angelita Reyes, professor of African and African American Studies, School of Social Transformation

Project: “Religion and Conflict: From Human Funerary Practices to the Global Implications of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17”

Monica BurbaMajor: Global Studies & Sustainability

Faculty Mentor: Souad Ali, associate professor of Arabic literature and Middle East/Islamic studies, School of International Letters and Cultures

Project: “Kuwaiti Women in Leadership Positions”

Nemo FarrMajor: Religious Studies

Faculty Mentor: Chad Haines, assistant professor of religious studies, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies

Project: “Being Muslim, Being Global: Everyday Ethics and Urban Transformation in Dubai, Islamabad, and Cairo”

Kohinoor Gill Major: Global Studies

Faculty Mentor: Cecilia Menjivar, professor of sociology, School of Social and Family Dynamics

Project: “Media Depictions of Immigrants and Immigration”

Shelby StringerMajor: English

Faculty Mentor: Victor Peskin, associate professor of Political Science, School of Politics and Global Studies

Project: “In the Shadow of the International Criminal Court: The Gaza Wars, the Israeli Settlement Movement, Palestinian Statehood, and Trials of Jurisdiction”

Erin SchulteMajor: Justice Studies

Faculty Mentor: Lenka Bustikova, assistant professor of Political Science, School of Politics and Global Studies

Project: “Political Extremism in Ukraine”

Ethan WilsonMajor: Biological Science

Faculty Mentor: Michael Hechter, Foundation Professor of Global Studies, and David Siroky, assistant professor of Political Science, School of Politics and Global Studies

Project: “Religious Legacies, Alien Rule and Intergroup Bargaining over Separatism”

The Center’s Undergraduate Research Fellows—selected from a pool of outstanding applicants—take a special seminar with Center director Linell Cady, work directly with faculty members on research projects related to a broad range of topics and approaches, and meet with visiting scholars and practitioners. Fellows are also awarded scholarships made possible through annual gifts to the Friends of the Center.

Undergraduate Research Fellows, 2014–15

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Farina King

Doctoral Student in History

Dissertation Advisor: Donald Fixico, Distinguished Foundation Professor of History, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies

“The Journey of Diné Students in the Four Directions: Navajo Educational Experiences inthe 20th Century”

Farina King is working on a project that offers an analysis of religious and cultural dynamics in the schooling experiences of Navajos. She will be using this award to complete research and interviews with former Navajo students in the Monument Valley region concerning their experiences traveling far for their education and participating in the community effort to build local schools. This research will contribute to her doctoral dissertation, which she plans to complete by spring 2016 along with a book-length manuscript for publication with an academic press.

Justin Nadir

Doctoral Student in Religious Studies

Dissertation Advisor: Juliane Schober, Director of the Center for Asian Research and professor of Religious Studies, School of Politics and Global Studies

“Constructions of Identity and Conflict among Hindu Minorities in Muslim Java, Indonesia”

Justin Nadir will conduct doctoral research in Central Java, Indonesia during the summer of 2015. His project explores how Hindu identities are formed and articulated in relationship to a modernizing and orthodox Islamic turn in Indonesian politics. The field research he plans to conduct will encompass formal religious education as well as the participation of Hindu communities in inter-religious dialogue that is currently fostered in Java. Most research about religion in Java primarily focuses on Islam and the ongoing process of Islamization throughout the Indonesian archipelago. Nadir’s research will focus on the largely ignored Hindu religious minority and will assess solutions to religious conflict.

Ashley Brennan

Psychology and Barrett, the Honors College

Project Advisor: Daniel Schugurensky, professor of Justice and Social Inquiry, School of Social Transformation, and professor in the School of Public Affairs

“Deepening Democracy, Cultivating Community, and Building Peace: Youth Participatory Budgeting in Romania”

Ashely Brennan, a 2015 Undergraduate Research Fellow, is using her award to spend four weeks in Romania to conduct research for her undergraduate honors thesis for Barrett, the Honors College. She will evaluate the impact of Youth Participatory Budgeting (YPB) on individual and community development in Cluj-Napoca, the 2015 European Youth Capital. During her time in Romania Brennan will observe European Youth Capital programs and will conduct interviews with YPB participants, volunteers, and leadership including the Mayor of Cluj-Napoca. YPB offers a unique platform to increase youth engagement and participatory democracy. In studying YPB in Cluj-Napoca, Ashley plans to examine its effects on peacebuilding, its contribution to creating stronger, healthier communities, and its impact on resolving conflict between groups.

Brieanna Griffin

Global Studies, Anthropology and Barrett, the Honors College

Project Advisor: Abdullahi Gallab, associate professor of African and African American Studies, School of Social Transformation; and associate professor of Religious Studies, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies

“American Perceptions of the Muslim World: Seeking Grassroots Solutions”

Brieanna Griffin, an honors student double majoring in Global Studies and Anthropology, will be one of the center’s Undergraduate Research Fellows during the 2015-16 academic year. She will spend part of her summer in Zanzibar, Tanzania as an intern with America’s Unofficial Ambassadors and begin research for her undergraduate honors thesis for Barrett, the Honors College. In addition to volunteering as an English teacher at a local school, Griffin will conduct interviews with former and current volunteers within her program in order to gauge how their experiences in Zanzibar shaped their perspective of the region, religion, and culture of the Muslim world. She hopes the insight that she will gain from these interactions will help inform her understanding of how relations between the Muslim and non-Muslim world can be strengthened through grass-roots initiatives.

Made possible by annual gifts to the Friends of the Center, this program provides grants to graduate and undergraduate students for innovative research projects and international engagement. The winners were honored at an awards ceremony held at the Center in Spring 2015.

Friends of the Center Student Research Awards

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Undergraduate Certificate in Religion and Conflict

This program allows students from any major to gain a broad multidisciplinary understanding of the dynamics of religion, conflict, and peace. Established with

support from the Ford Foundation, faculty from over ten fields offer courses on such topics as “Communication, Conflict, and Peace Building,” “Total War and the Crisis of Modernity,” “National Security and International Terrorism,” “Religion, War, and Peace,” and “Introduction to Peace Studies.”

The program has graduated 91 students since its launch in 2009, including 16 students who earned certificates in 2014-15:

Gabriel Ato (Religious Studies)

Weston Aviles (Criminal Justice and Criminology and Political Science)

Stephen Biles (History)

Sara DeCristoforo (Liberal Studies)

Emily Fritcke (English Literature and History)

Levi Hagedorn (Political Science)

Mary Hake (Political Science)

Christina Hull (Anthropology and Religious Studies)

Kaitlin Ibarra (Political Science)

Jennifer Lloyd (Political Science and Global Studies)

Brian Pavey (Philosophy and Religious Studies)

Abbey Pellino (Global Studies)

Mariam Polo-Petros (Global Studies)

Jonathan Ross (Political Science)

Alyssa Sims (Business)

Jamie Watters (Religious Studies)

About the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict

Religion wields extraordinary influence in public affairs. Although a rich

reservoir of values, principles, and ideals, it is also a powerful source of

conflict and violence as diverse traditions—religious and secular—collide.

Globalizing trends that are making the world smaller are also unleashing

dynamics that are creating some of the most complex and challenging

problems of our age.

The Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State

University promotes interdisciplinary research and education on the

religious dynamics of peace and conflict with the aim of advancing

knowledge, seeking solutions and informing policy. By serving as a

research hub that fosters exchange and collaboration—local, national, and

global—the Center fosters innovative and engaged thinking on matters of

enormous importance to us all.

Committed to a model of scholarship that is transdisciplinary, collaborative

and problem-focused, the Center stimulates new research by bringing

together faculty and students from across the disciplines, creating links

between the academic world and that of professionals, policymakers,

practitioners and religious leaders, and fostering cross-cultural exchange

through partnerships and collaborations with international scholars,

students and institutions.

Center for the Sudy of Religion and Conflict

Staff

Linell Cady Director

John Carlson Associate Director

Yasmin Saikia Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies

Carolyn Forbes Assistant Director

Laurie Perko Administrative Coordinator

Maureen Olmsted Project Coordinator

Matt Correa Assistant Research Administrator

Gwyn Goebel Major Gifts Officer (CLAS)

Faculty Advisory Committee

Abdullahi Gallab African & African American Studies

Joel Gereboff Religious Studies

Steven Neuberg Psychology

Daniel Rothenberg, Human Rights and Security Studies

George Thomas Global Studies

Hava Tirosh-Samuelson Jewish Studies (Director)

Rebecca Tsosie, Native American History and Law

Carolyn Warner Political Science

Mark Woodward Religious Studies

Student Interns and Graduate Assistants

Tess Doezema

Emily Fritcke

Crystine Miller

Terry Shoemaker

Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict

PO Box 870802 | Tempe, AZ 85287-0802480.965.7187 | 480.965.9611 (fax)

csrc@asu.edu | csrc.asu.edu