Description
For more than two decades, studies of religion have focused on its public presence, an idea that covers a wide range of phenomena: from the Iranian Revolution and the Polish Solidarity movement in the 1970s and ‘80s, to contemporary Hindu nationalism in India and declarations that Zambia is a “Christian country.” Clearly, religion has not become disentangled from the state; it is not a strictly private affair; and, as the authors of this proposal write, “it certainly has not died.”
In order to understand how religion becomes public, Columbia University’s Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life (IRCPL) proposes an interdisciplinary project that will create a network of scholars from Columbia and other institutions to study the changing dynamics of interactions among religious communities in the modern world. The project will focus on Africa and South Asia, where diverse religious populations have long histories of negotiating their mutual presence in changing public spaces. Both regions are also shaped by transnational forces of proselytization and religious reformism, especially in the name of Islam, Christianity and Hinduism. Both regions are shaped by the colonial experience, and more recently by flows of people from the countryside into cities, generating new forms of encounter and communication. The project aims to bring scholars into conversation across the boundaries of religious traditions and regions, including the little-studied flows of ideas, practices and peoples between South Asia and Africa.
Activities will include an annual conference, out of which edited volumes will be produced, as well as podcasts to be created by Columbia School of Journalism students. Two postdoctoral research fellows will be in residence each year, one specializing in Africa and one in South Asia; the fellows will teach one course per semester and will co-teach, with a senior faculty member, a graduate seminar on “Public Religion.” The seminar will include extended field trips (5-10 days): in one year, to Africa, in the second year to South Asia, to apply coursework learning to actual case studies and sites. In addition to a research paper based on the trip, each student will produce a podcast. A dedicated website will showcase the project. Other activities include a public speaker series and summer research fellowships for students.
The project co-directors are Katherine Pratt Ewing, an anthropologist and professor in the department of religion and the South Asia Institute, and Matthew Engelke, a specialist on Christianity in Africa and currently a professor of anthropology at London School of Economics. Engelke will join Columbia in July 2018 as professor of religion and director of IRCPL, a position currently held by Ewing. More than a dozen distinguished Columbia faculty from diverse disciplines have agreed to serve as senior advisors or member of a working group that will advise the project.
The project will be housed at IRCPL, and will be carried out in collaboration with Columbia’s South Asia Institute and the Institute of African Studies. One outcome of the project should be a closer working relationship and joint programming between these regional institutes, in conjunction with the IRCPL.
Luce funds would cover conferences, one postdoctoral fellow each year, field research and class trips, a speaker series, and modest administrative costs. IRCPL and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences will provide $285,000 toward the project, including the cost of a second postdoctoral fellow.
The HRLI has made grants to Columbia since the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) established a new Center for Democracy, Toleration and Religion. In 2009 a second grant enabled the Center to extend its reach to Columbia constituencies beyond SIPA; and in 2013, a third grant supported three interrelated projects on practices of religious cooperation and inclusive cultures.
