Projects
At CURA
Conversations on Israel-Palestine
CURA and Pardee School Dean Scott Taylor launched a series of conversations about Israel and Palestine. The goal of the series was two-fold: First, to educate our community about the history, politics, and global factors that have led to the contemporary war and devastating bloodshed. Second, and just as important, to model how to discuss sensitive issues in a way that is respectful and civil, without simply avoiding hard subjects, and in so doing, to demonstrate that scholars of international affairs have the skills and knowledge to make “advancing human progress” more than a slogan.
Finding Religion Project
While past research has focused on treating religions as systems of belief that are consistent, organized, bounded, and hierarchical, the best work has disaggregated religion, studying the many diverse elements that make up religions. This project seeks to bring together researchers to explore best practice in the study of religion.
CURA Fellows Program
The CURA Fellows Program is an interdisciplinary program where CURA Fellows and the community meet regularly to discuss working papers on the given theme.
African Religion and Politics Project
Much of the work on religion and politics has been descriptive, presenting the historical relationship between religious groups and the state in various countries. While research has demonstrated relationships that range from close cooperation to antagonism, few researchers have sought to explain why particular types of religion and politics prevail. Through comparative research in a number of countries across Africa, the African Religion and Politics Project seeks to explore the factors that lead religious groups to support or challenge state authority. Led by CURA director Timothy Longman, the project has already undertaken or will undertake research in Burundi, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Botswana, and Senegal.
Indonesian Pluralisms: A Documentary and Multimedia Project on Islam, Democracy, and Civic Co-Existence
This project, with funding from the Henry Luce Foundation and directed by Robert W. Hefner, will create a documentary film and print publications for education on Indonesia, highlighting the best practices of civic pluralism in the country — as well as the challenges these practices yet face. The project links policy, journalism, and education related research to the creation of multi-media products for audiences and analysts in Indonesia and the United States.
Culture of Human Rights
Since the devastation of the Second World War and the Holocaust, human rights has emerged as a major focus for both domestic politics and international affairs. CURA’s project on the Culture of Human Rights explores multiple aspects of the transnational effort to promote international legal standards to protect human dignity. Through conferences and support for academic research and publications, this project looks at issues such as the relationship between human rights research and academic scholarship, the legacies of the Arab Spring, and the impact of conflict and means to prevent it.
Muslim Studies at CURA
The Muslim Studies Program acts as an interdisciplinary meeting point for scholars and researchers in diverse fields – ranging from anthropology, history, religion, politics, literature, language, and the arts – across the regions in which Muslims live – from the Americas to Europe, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia. Muslim Studies Program is also a home for several academic tracks for undergrads and graduate students.
Religion and Public Affairs Grad Student Group
This workshop was a platform for creative discussion between students and scholars interested in topics at the intersection of religion and politics.
International Religious Demography
International Religious Demography aims to provide comprehensive religious demographic information. The IRD project is collecting, collating and analyzing primary and secondary source material on religious demography for all major religions in every country of the world.
Religion, Policy, and Social Transformation in Southeast Asia, 2014-2016
The Luce Foundation, New York, in Collaboration with the Institute on Cross-Cultural and Religious Research (ICRS), Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
The Two Pluralisms: Toward a New Paradigm on Modernity & Religion, 2014-2016
The Templeton Foundation is sponsoring this research project on the co-existence of different religious communities in the same society, as well as the relaiton of these communities to a secular discourse that dominates in important sectors of modern society. There are several workshops and a publication to come.
Global Migration and the New Cosmopolitanism: Religion, Public Ethics, and Citizenship in Plural Societies, 2013-2015
A comparative study of migration, religious diversity, and the changing discourses and practice of citizenship in Paris, Amsterdam, Montreal, Boston, and Los Angeles, with special attention to Muslim, Catholic, and secularist perspectives. In collaboration with Dr. Scott Appleby and the “Contending Modernities” project at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Notre Dame University.
Religious Revivals in China’s Economic Core, 2010-2015
Religious Revivals in China’s Economic Core, directed by CURA’s Robert Weller, focuses on understanding the relations between religious and civil life in China’s most developed region–the provinces in the lower reaches of the Yangzi River. The research phase took place in 2010-2012. The research team covers the entire range of religious life in the region. An edited book based on the work is in press in Chinese, and in preparation in English.
Secularism and Its Adversaries, 2011-2015
Secularism and Its Adversaries, directed by Peter Berger, aimed to address key policy questions concerning the place of secularism, secularity, and public religion in democratic politics.
Religion, Conflict, and Civic Education in Deeply Plural Societies: Programs on and for Pluralism, Public Policy and Citizen Education, 2010-2012
Religion, Conflict, and Civic Education in Deeply Plural Societies was co-directed by both Robert Hefner and Adam Seligman. This three-year project examined, and sought to conduct research on and develop educational resources for addressing the challenge of religion and citizen inculturation in deeply plural societies.
International Summer School on Religion and Public Life (ISSRPL)
The ISSRPL was an innovative program that provided insights and skills to community leaders of diverse religious, ethnic, racial and national backgrounds to facilitate them to work together with those of different backgrounds, traditions and world views. The central premise of the program was that the challenge of peaceful coexistence is not advanced by downplaying the very real differences between religious, ethnic and national affiliations, but rather in increasing sensitivity to and respect for these differences while maintaining one’s own identity and simultaneously creating and exploring methods of living together with “the other”.
Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism in the Next Generations: Implications for Democracy, Civic Education, and Economic Ethics, 2010-present
Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism in the Next Generations: Implications for Democracy, Civic Education, and Economic Ethics is co-directed by Peter Berger and Robert W. Hefner. This project examines cultural developments among second and third generation Evangelicals and Pentecostals in different countries around the world, highlighting the implications of these communities’ expansion for political participation, citizenship, and economic morality.
Emerging Evangelical Intelligentsia, 2007-2011
An Emerging Evangelical Intelligentsia was a three -year research project under the directorship of Timothy Shah and James Wallace. The project examined the emergence of a new generation of evangelical intellectuals in the United States, both the secular academy and the broader public sphere, and explores the phenomenon’s implications for citizenship, civility, and American public life.
Shari’a Politics and U.S. Policy, 2008-2011
Shari’a Politics: The Cultures and Politics of Movements for the Implementation of Islamic Law, directed by Robert W. Hefner was a three-year project examining the ideals and practices of modern shari’a movements in eight Muslim-majority countries, and their implications for citizenship, gender relations, and social pluralism.
Religion, Social Movements, and Progressive Reform in Latin America, 2010-present
Religion, Social Movements, and Progressive Reform in Latin America examines the role of religious actors in social and political life across Latin America. The project aims to foster a heretofore uncommon dialogue between researchers on social movements and scholars of religion in Latin America.
Annual Summer Seminar on Public Religion and Modern Social Life, 2002-2010
Annual Summer Seminar, directed by Peter Berger and co-sponsored by the Boston University School of Theology, provided students with a two week intensive seminar on religion and world affairs. Topics included, among others, religious globalization; religion, plurality, and violence; and new religious movements.
Between Relativism and Fundamentalism
Between Relativism and Fundamentalism explores the theological and institutional resources in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions for engaging the plurality and challenge of the modern era in a manner neither ethically relativistic nor religiously fundamentalist.
Spiritual Narratives in Everyday Life
Spiritual Narratives in Everyday Life examines the contemporary diversity and vitality of American religiosity through extended comparisons of the narratives through which faith-oriented citizens understand and enact their beliefs.
Civil Democratic Islam: Prospects, Comparisons, and Policies for a Changing Muslim World, 2002-2004
Civil Democratic Islam aimed to carry out comparative research to determine the policies and circumstances that can best promote the consolidation of a civil and democratic Islam. This project brings together fifteen senior scholars to conduct research and prepare reports on the social and intellectual resources for, and obstacles to, pluralist democratization in the Muslim world.
Enduring Reform: Progressive Activism and Business Visions of Change in Latin America’s Democracies
Enduring Reform documents a degree of business openness to progressive reform that would have been unthinkable before the 1990s in Latin America.
The Toleration Project: A Cross-National Study of Inter-Religious Tolerance
The Toleration Project is designed to identify and explore the resources for tolerance and pluralism intrinsic in the three revealed religions-Judaism, Christianity, and Islam-in a global context, with a particular emphasis on the relevance of these resources to educational practice.
Orthodox Christianity and the Construction of Civil Society and Democracy is Russia
Orthodox Christianity and the Construction of Civil Society and Democracy in Russia aims to bring together scholars and political and ecclesiastical leaders from Russia and the West to foster an informed debate and promote rigorous examination of the role of civil society in contemporary Russia.
Economic and Political Potential of the African Charismatic Churches
Economic and Political Potential of the African Charismatic Churches seeks to explore the strength of the Pentecostal movement in Africa.
Engaged Religions and the Public Good in Chinese Societies
Engaged Religions and the Public Good in Chinese Societies explores the resurgence of religion in contemporary China, and examines the implications of China’s diverse particular religions for cultural and civil life.
A Study of the Role of Corporations in Developing Societies
The Role of Corporations in Developing Societies seeks to determine the role of corporate activity in developing societies, and the lasting impacts on both institutional and diffuse situations.
The Newest African Americans: Identity and Incorporation among Recent West African Immigrants to the U.S.
The Newest African Americans posits questions related to the percolating issues of ethnic and racial identity in the American context particularly in relation to the native-born black populations.
Madrasas, Modernity, and the Future of Muslim Higher Education, 2004-2005
Madrasas, Modernity, and the Future of Muslim Higher Education was directed by Robert W. Hefner and was a comparative research project on madrasas and religious education in eight Muslim-majority countries.
Madrasas, State Islamic Universities, and Civic Education in Indonesia, 2004-2005
Madrasas, State Islamic Universities, and Civic Education in Indonesia was co-directed by Dr. Azyumardi Azra and Robert W. Hefner, with the support of the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Civil Society and Social Pluralism in Yogyakarta, 2000-2001
Civil Society and Social Pluralism in Yogyakarta, directed by Robert W. Hefner, was a training and research project with the Lembaga Kajian Islam dan Sosial (Institute for Islamic and Social Studies, a democratic Muslim non-governmental organization), Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Southeast Asian Pluralisms: Social Resources for Civility and Participation in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, 1998-2000
Southeast Asian Pluralisms, directed by Robert W. Hefner, was a three country project involving sixteen senior researchers examining ethnoreligious pluralism, conflict, and democratic citizenship in multicultural Southeast Asia.