Religion in Times of Crisis,

The book was a joint venture between the ASR and the European Sociological Association’s (ESA) Sociology of Religion Research Network and features chapters by scholars who are members of both associations.

The book includes chapters by current ISE PhD student Vladimir Kmec and ISE Belfast alum Joram Tarusarira, who is completing his doctoral studies at the University of Leipzig.

Each chapter explores how religion is alive and well all over the world, especially in times of personal, political, and social crisis. Even in Europe, long regarded the most “secular” continent, religion has taken centre stage in how people respond to the crises associated with modernity, or how they interact with the nation-state. Scholars working in and on Europe offer fresh perspectives on how religion provides answers to existential crisis, how crisis increases the salience of religious identities and cultural polarization, and how religion is contributing to changes in the modern world in Europe and beyond. Cases from Poland to Pakistan and from Ireland to Zimbabwe, among others, demonstrate the complexity and ambivalence of religion’s role in the contemporary world.

This Friday, 15 August, from 1.00-2.30 pm, Gladys Ganiel will take part in an editor meets critics discussion at the ASR’s annual meeting in San Francisco.

The session was organised by Series Editor William Swatos of Baylor University and the discussants are Giuseppe Giordan, University of Padua, Anthony J. Blasi, University of Texas–San Antonio, and Lynn Davidman, University of Kansas.

The Table of Contents is as follows:

Preface: Of Crises and Challenges (William H. Swatos, Jr, Baylor University)

Introduction: Religion in Times of Crisis (Gladys Ganiel, Heidemarie Winkel, Christophe Monnot)

Part I: Religion and the Crisis of Modernity

Music, Branding and the Hegemonic Prosumption of Values of an Evangelical Growth Church (Tom Wagner, Royal Halloway University)

Religion as a Response to the Crisis of Modernity: Perspectives of Immigrants in Ireland (Vladimir Kmec, Trinity College Dublin)

The Electronic Frontier of Catholicism in Poland: An Answer to the Crisis of Religious Community? (Marta Kolodziejska, University of Warsaw)

“I Doubt. Therefore, I Believe”: Facing Uncertainty and Belief in the Making (Anne-Sophie Lamine, Strasbourg University)

Part II: Religion, Crisis and the Nation-State

Religion in Times of Crisis in Zimbabwe: A Case Study of Churches in Manicaland and its Theodicy of Liberation (Joram Tarusarira, University of Leipzig)

Religion, Homosexuality, and Contested Social Orders in the Netherlands, the Western Balkans, and Sweden (Mariecke van den Berg, David J. Bos, Marco Derks, R. Ruard Ganzevoort, Milos Jovanovic, Anne-Marie Korte) and Srdjan Sremac)

Parliamentary Hereticization of the Ahmadiyya in Pakistan: The Modern World Implicated in Islamic Crises (Ali Qadir, University of Tampere, Finland)

Being Recognizable in Order to Overcome the Crisis: The Ambivalence of Islamic Actors’ Struggle for Visibility in France and Switzerland (Christophe Monnot, University of Lausanne and Alexandre Piettre, Diderot University)

From Haskalah to Reinterpretation of Tradition: A Crisis in American Reform Judaism in the 21^st Century (Martina Topic, Centre for Research in Social Sciences and Humanities, Zagreb, Croatia)

Prof. Jude Lal Fernando, who was the keynote speaker for the event, graduated from ISE (M.Phil., Ph.D.) and is currently Assistant Professor in Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Dialogue in ISE.  Jude Lal’s primary areas of expertise are in the role of religion in conflict and peace, and ethno-nationalisms, geopolitics and human rights. Prior to his arrival in Ireland Jude Lal had been a leading practitioner in interreligious dialogue and a human rights/peace campaigner.  Since locating in Ireland, Jude Lal became one of the founding members (with Prof. Iain Atack, Head of the Confederal School) of the Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka (IFPSL) which organized the People’s Tribunals on Sri Lanka (Successor to Bertrand Russel/Sartre Tribunals), which were held in Trinity College Dublin and in Bremen, Germany. He has widely travelled both for academic purposes and human rights campaigns to Asia, Europe and Latin America and just returned from China, Korea and Japan.

In Jude’s address he spoke passionately about the importance of linking theory and practice and the way in which his years in ISE had provided him with the space to work out this interaction.

For Prof. Jude Lal’s full address please click here.

Dr Wilson served in the security forces during the Troubles, and later in corporate counsel in London. In 1998 he facilitated the historic accommodation between the Apprentice Boys and the Bogside Residents.  His doctorate was on the origins of the Orange Order, and his most recent research was a case study of the 2012/13 loyalist flags protest.

Thanks to Brian O’Neill and Benedikt Quosigk for photographs)

The discussion focused on the role of women in peace-building in Northern Ireland and on the cross-border dimension to that role.

For further information about the Slándáil Studentship please click here: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AIZ638/slandail-project-phd-studentship/.

A Post Specification can be viewed here.

For directions to the ISE-LI Building please click on this link: http://goo.gl/purj5.

The scholarship, which is fully funded by Honey Bee Nepal, is administered via the Irish School of Ecumenics Trust, which supports the work of the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin. It is open to candidates who have a demonstrated interest in conflict resolution, peacebuilding, international politics and / or human rights and who intend to work in this area on their return to Nepal.

The Honey Bee Nepal Scholarship is worth a total of €31,000 from which university fees and a stipend will be paid.

For further information and guidelines please click here.

For an application form please click here.