Religion and the Republic: Book Launch & Discussion

Join us for a book launch and discussion with Carol Ferrara, sociocultural anthropologist and assistant professor at Emerson College and author of Muslim and Catholic Experiences of National Belonging in France (September 2024), and Kirsten Wesselhoeft, Associate Professor of Religion at Vassar College and author of Fraternal Critique: The Politics of Muslim Community in France (March 2025). Moderated by Kimberly Arkin, Associate Professor of Anthropology.

Ferrara's book explores how experiences of national identity and belonging differ for French Muslims and Catholics respectively and what these differences tell us about the causes and dynamics of minority marginalization in plural secular societies. Wesselhoeft's book is an exploration of ways that discord binds rather than divides communal life, through an ethnography of French Muslim activism.