Hefner to Advise EU Project on Mediating Islam in the Digital Age
Robert Hefner, Professor of Anthropology and International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, served as an advisor and discussant at the October 28, 2019 opening conference for a three-year research project on “Mediating Islam in the Digital Age” held in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
The EU-funded project involves 15 junior and 10 senior social science researchers from Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Spain, and will examine the impact of new digital media in European and Arab-Muslim societies. Hefner is one of four senior researchers invited to serve on the Advisory Board that provides periodic external assessment of the scientific performance of the project.
“The growing involvement of Muslim scholars, activists, and publics in social and other digital media is having a profound effect on patterns of authority and knowledge in the Muslim world,” Hefner said.
Robert Hefner has directed 19 research projects and organized 18 international conferences, and authored or edited nineteen books. He is former president of the Association for Asian Studies. At CURA, he directed the program on Islam and civil society since 1991; coordinated interdisciplinary research and public policy programs on religion, pluralism, and world affairs; and is currently involved in two research projects: “The New Western Plurality and Civic Coexistence: Muslims, Catholics, and Secularists in North America and Western Europe”; and “Sharia Transitions: Islamic Law and Ethical Plurality in the Contemporary World.” You can read more about him here.