Deadlines
Religion in the Public Sphere
Speakers
Keynote
When God and Caesar Mix: Religion, Secularism, and the Public Sphere
David Campbell is the Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy at the University of Notre Dame and the chairperson of the political science department. His most recent book is Seeking the Promised Land: Mormons and American Politics (with John Green and Quin Monson). He is also the co-author (with Robert Putnam) of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, which has been described by the New York Times as intellectually powerful, by America as an instant classic, and by the San Francisco Chronicle as the most successfully argued sociological study of American religion in more than half a century. American grace has also received both the 2011 Woodrow Wilson Award from the American Political Science Association for the best book on government, politics, or international affairs and the Wilbur Award from the Religious Communicators Council for the best non-fiction book of 2010.
Prof. Campbell is also the author of Why We Vote: How Schools and Communities Shape Our Civic Life, the editor of A Matter of Faith: Religion in the 2004 Presidential Election, and a co-editor of Making Civics Count: Citizenship Education for a New Generation. As an expert on religion, politics, and civic engagement, he has often been featured in the national media, including the New York Times, Economist, USA Today, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, NBC News, CNN, NPR, Fox News, and C-SPAN.
Repressing Religion: Civic Consequences in Russia and Central Asia
Kathleen A. Collins is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia (New York: Cambridge University Press, February 2006), which won the Central Eurasia Studies Society Book Award for Social Sciences. She has published articles on challenges to democratization and economic reform, political Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus, and religious repression in various journals and edited volumes, including Comparative Politics, World Politics, the Journal of Democracy, Europe-Asia Studies, Political Research Quarterly, the Brown Journal of International Affairs, and Asia Policy. She is currently writing two new books, tentatively titled: The Rise of Islamist Movements: Islam and State in Central Asia and the Caucasus (under contract, Cambridge University Press), and Muslim Politics: Islam, Politics, and Public Opinion in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan. Collins has received grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the MacArthur Foundation, the Kellogg Institute, the United States Institute of Peace, IREX, and NCEEER, among others. She previously did consulting for ICG, the UNDP, NBR, USAID, and other organizations.
Roundtable Chairs
Faith, Public Trust, and the Revival of Democratic Citizenship
Kevin R. den Dulk (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin at Madison) is the Paul B. Henry Chair in Political Science and the Executive Director of the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College, a Christian liberal arts college in Grand Rapids, Michigan. An award winning teacher, his scholarly work focuses especially on how religion works through civil society to foster democratic citizenship, both in the United States and abroad.
Civil Society in the American Muslim Community
Nadia Oweidat (Ph.D., Oxford University) teaches history at Kansas State University. For the past ten years, Dr. Oweidat has dedicated her research to identifying strategies for promoting critical thinking, tolerance, and pluralism in the Middle East. In the process, Dr. Oweidat has co-authored several studies for the Rand Corporation. Her expertise spans issues such as Islamic extremism and counter-terrorism, the relationship between Iran and the Arab world, the radicalization of Muslim youth, and the Arab Spring.
The Role of Faith in Combatting Religious Prejudice
James Patton is President and CEO at the International Center for Religion & Diplomacy (ICRD), and directs its Columbia Program. He explores the relationship between religious motives, religious actors and key areas of instability around the world, seeking ways in which this key source of identity and motivation can be incorporated into strategies for reducing violent conflict.
The Religious ‘Other’ and Jewish Civil Society
Dr. Andrew C. Reed studied modern Russian and Jewish history at Arizona State University and holds Masters degrees from Oxford University (Slavonic Studies) and Cambridge University (Jewish – Christian Relations). One of the major themes within his work is the development and history of relations among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. He recently conducted research in St. Petersburg, Russia on the state of human rights and religious freedom issues in Eastern Europe. At Brigham Young University, he teaches comparative religion courses and church history and is currently a Richard L. Evans Fellow of Religious Outreach.