CURA: Mandaville at Religion and World Affairs Colloquium
The Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs (CURA), an affiliated regional studies center of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, hosted the first installment of their Religion and World Affairs Colloquium on September 15, 2017.
The colloquium, which is co-sponsored by the Boston University School of Theology, will feature CURA Fellows sharing critiques and providing valuable insight of in-progress papers. The theme of this year’s colloquium is “Religion and Social Engagement.” The topics will explore the ways in which religious institutions engage with their states and societies, the impact of religious social engagement, the theological and moral ideas behind various forms of social engagement, and other topics related to this broad theme.
The first installment of the colloquium featured Peter Mandaville, Professor of Policy and Government at George Mason University, on “Assessing the Impact of Transnational Religious Soft Power: Theoretical and Methodological Issues.”
The paper is part of a larger research project focused on assessing and understanding the global impact of transnational religious influences—especially funding and programs related to proselytization—emanating from the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Iran, and Turkey. One of the central methodological challenges faced by the project is the question of how to conceptualize and measure the local impact of such influences in third countries. The colloquium presented an assessment framework designed to account for observed variation in the nature and extent of such impacts across a range of country cases.
View the full schedule for the 2017-18 Religion and World Affairs Colloquium, and learn more about the 2017 CURA Fellows.
