Date: Sep 17, 2007

Hofstra Conference to Examine the Politics of Religion-Making

Scholars to discuss how we conceptualize and institutionalize religion on a global scale

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY – An international gathering of scholars will take place at Hofstra next month to discuss the historical and contemporary politics of “religion-making,” the process by which religions are imagined, materialized, commodified and reified locally and internationally.

“The Politics of Religion-Making” conference will take place October 4-6, 2007, beginning at 2 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 4.

Talal Asad, Ph.D., The Graduate Center, City University of New York, will deliver the opening address, "Reflections on Blasphemy." Dr. Asad is regarded as one of the most influential theoreticians of religion in the last two decades, having decisively shaped the critical study of modernity, secularism and religion. Other renowned scholars who will address the conference are José Casanova, The New School; Hent de Vries, Johns Hopkins University; and Tomoko Masuzawa, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Drawing on the latest scholarship from a wide range of disciplines, the conference aims to advance a growing body of scholarship dedicated to the modern genealogies of religion and the secular, and the trajectories of these concepts in the ages of the nation state and capitalist globalization.

Panels will discuss papers on “Terrorism as Religion: Reflections on the Identity Crisis of Secularism;” “Of Conversions and Cartoons: Islamism, Secular Discipline, and the Remaking of Religion;” “Comparative Religion, Competing Universalisms, and the Rise of ‘Mysticism’ as a Modern Religious Category in America and Iran;” and “The Politics of Spirituality: Liberalizing the Definition of Religion.”

For more information contact the Hofstra Cultural Center at (516) 463-5669 or hofculctr@hofstra.edu. A program and information on the keynote speakers are available at: www.hofstra.edu/religionmaking .

Hofstra University is a dynamic private institution where students can choose from more than 140 undergraduate and 155 graduate programs in liberal arts and sciences, business, communication, education and allied human services, and honors studies, and a School of Law.