Denis Lacorne, Senior Research Fellow at CERI (Centre d’Etudes et des Researches Internationales), Sciences Po
Is secularism (laïcité) compatible with religious tolerance? In raising this question, Professor Lacorne will explore the impact of secular regimes on religious tolerance, emphasizing religious symbols and the space granted to religious symbols in the public square. In drawing examples from France, the United States and Italy, he will attempt to demonstrate that a nominally secular state is not necessarily a neutral or blind state with regard to religious beliefs. While the secular state does regulate the presence of religious symbols, this regulation can be mild—for instance, nativity scenes allowed under certain conditions—or aggressive and even punitive when it prohibits ostentatious religious clothings, such as the hijab, the niqab or the burquini in the public square. The wall of separation between church and state is rarely “high and impregnable” and the institutional tolerance of religious symbols varies widely according to countries and regimes of secularism.
Denis Lacorne has written extensively on religion in the United States and the politics of toleration in general. He turns to history to trace the development of modern conceptions of toleration and to find precedents for new ways we can understand and apply it. In his recent book The Limits of Tolerance (2019), translated from Les frontières de la tolérance (2016), Lacorne distinguishes the “modern” definition of tolerance from predecessors and alternatives. He associates this modern account with European thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, including Locke and Voltaire, who rendered tolerance a necessary condition to uphold a right to religious belief, practice and conscience. Drawing from older practices of tolerance, he uses history to mark the uniqueness of the “multicultural” regimes of toleration that have become common for nations that have seen considerable influxes of immigration from minority religions since the last decades of the twentieth century.
*UPDATE 9/7/21 – THIS EVENT WILL BE ONLINE ONLY. PLEASE REGISTER TO RECEIVE ZOOM LINK FOR THE WEBINAR.
Sponsored by Endowed Fund for the Study of Religious Tolerance. Co-sponsored with the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion.
Friday, Apr 27, 2018 – Sunday, Apr 29, 2018 All Day Event
Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall, and 370 Dwinelle Hall | UC Berkeley Location is ADA accessible
he UC Berkeley Center for Race and Gender Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project (IRDP); Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies, University of Leeds, UK; Islamophobia Studies Journal & Re-Orient Journal; Islamophobia Studies Center, Center for Islamic Studies at GTU; and Zaytuna College
PRESENT
THE ROAD TRAVELED: THE 9TH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL ISLAMOPHOBIA CONFERENCE
April 27th: Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall
April 28th – 29th: 370 Dwinelle Hall
UC Berkeley
A Conference and Discussion on the topic of “Religion and Humanitarianism in the New Age of Nationalism” is happening today and tomorrow (3/16-17, 2018) at UC Berkeley Matrix (820 Barrows Hall).
Scroll down to see the Conference Program and the Poster.
The Program of the event:
Friday, March 16
08:45am-09:30am Registration & Refreshments at Matrix
09:30am-10:45am John Shattuck Keynote
10:45am-11am Break
11am-1pm Panel 1: “Religion and Xenophobic Nationalism”
What has been the role of religion— churches, institutions of civic society,
intellectuals—in the creation and political successes of forms of exclusivist nationalist
rejection of moral universalism? Two images might be worth unpacking: a crucifix
behind a razor wire fence guarding the Hungarian border and devout Poles saying their
rosaries in defense of the nation against migrants.
Opening comments: Adam Chmielewski, András Páp, John Connelly
1pm-2pm Lunch
2pm-4pm Panel 2: “Religious Authorities, Laity & Humanitarianism”
What is the relationship between established ecclesiastical authority and
humanitarianism? What are the internal debates and fracture
lines within particular religious communities and especially among the laity on issues like
immigration and gender/sexual equality that figure so prominently in thinking about
moral universalism.
Opening Comments: Jodok Troy, Molly Worthen, Olivia Wilkinson
4pm-5:30pm Wine Reception at Matrix
18:00-21:30 Dinner by Invitation.
Saturday, March 17
09:30am-10am Registration & Refreshments
10am-12pm Panel 3 “What Is To Be Done: The Role of International Business, NGO's, and States”
What roles can or should important non-religious actors like international business,
NGOs, and States play in mitigating the anti-humanitarian impulses of the new religious
nationalists and nationalisms.
Opening comments: Bennett Freeman, Tehila Sasson, Sam Moyn
12pm-1pm Lunch
1pm-3pm Panel 4: “What Is To Be Done: Religious Institutions & Humanitarianism”
What roles can or should various religion-based institutions play in mitigating the anti-
humanitarian impulses of the new religious nationalists and nationalisms?
Opening Comments: Rev Prof Jane Shaw, George Rupp
3pm-4pm Wrap-Up Discussion
Opening comment: John Shattuck
“Scholars working around the world often come under threat of persecution or harassment, whether from oppressive governments or other sources. They may also be displaced by forces beyond their control, such as war or natural disasters. This panel discussion will focus on how universities and other institutions can support scholars who are persecuted or harassed because of their ideas and actions, or who are forced to leave their homes for other reasons.”
This Panel is a part of Social Science Matrix’s new Solidarity Series. To read more about the Series please click here.
We are excited to introduce our workshop “Shared Sacred Sites” From the Mediterranean to the United States: Perspectives on Pluralism, which will take place in New York City on March 29th, at Graduate Center, CUNY.
This workshop is a part of the international Shared Sacred Sites exhibition that will open on March 27th, at New York Public Library, CUNY Graduate Center, and Morgan Library and Museum. The exhibition will remain open until June 30th.
Our workshop is supported by the grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art’s Building Bridges Program, and The Achelis and Bodman Foundation.
We are delighted to invite the GTU community and other friends of the Center for Islamic Studies to join CIS faculty, students, alumni, and invited guests at a very special event celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union.
We extend our gratitude to all who have supported our work over the years, and look forward to our continued work together. Come celebrate with us on Thursday, December 7, in the GTU Library.
Place: Graduate Theological Union Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. , Berkeley, CA , 94709
Time: 4:30-8:30pm
Event Schedule:
4:30-5:30 Tour the Knowledge and Diversity exhibition and meet/greet students, faculty, and visiting scholars in Islamic Studies
5:45-7:15 Formal presentations, featuring remarks from invited guests, as well as GTU President Riess Potterveld, Dean Uriah Kim, CIS Director Munir Jiwa, and current students in Islamic studies at the GTU
7:15-8:30 Reception with vegetarian appetizers, desserts, and beverages.
On December 8th, please join us in the talk by Dr. Elizabeth Alexander of Columbia University titled “Total Life is What We Need: Self-determination and Black Arts Collectives” from 12-1:30 PM at Alumni House at UC Berkeley.
SHARED SACRED SITES EXHIBITION IN THESSALONIKI, GREECE 2017
On September 23, 2017, we opened Shared Sacred Sites exhibition in Thessaloniki, Greece. Part of the international multi-year Shared Sacred Sites project, the exhibit engages the public in conversations about tolerance and coexistence among religious groups. This exhibition is hosted by three local institutions of art and culture: Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, and Yeni Cami, and funded by generous grants from Stavros Niarchos Foundation and Nicholas J. and Anna K. Bouras Foundation. On the first day in Thessaloniki, the exhibition attracted hundreds of visitors.
By Elena Vanessa Caroline Kempf
By Elena Vanessa Caroline Kempf
By Elena Vanessa Caroline Kempf
By Vatsal Naresh
By Vatsal Naresh
History of “Shared Sacred Sites” Exhibition
“Shared Sacred Sites” is a touring exhibition that communicates the themes of religious tolerance among communities without defaulting to the hollow rhetoric of “a dialogue of cultures and religions.” The exhibition makes the experience of shared sacred sites accessible to new audiences, through a medium of multimedia exhibit featuring a variety of themes. The exhibition in France at the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (MuCEM) described: “it seems vital, amid debates about the clash of civilizations, to demonstrate that alienation and abhorrence of the other are not the required modalities of interaction between the religions of [the] Mediterranean.”
Significant to exhibition are also host-cities, which themselves are sites of convergence of multiple traditions and cultures. The exhibition was first launched in 2015, at the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (MuCEM) in Marseilles, France and drew more than 120 000 persons in four months. From November 2016 to February 2017, it was featured at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, Tunisia. On September 23rd 2017 it launched in Thessaloniki, Greece and will remain open until December 2017. In March 2018, “Shared Sacred Sites” will travel to New York City, NY. Exhibitions in Istanbul, Turkey and Berkeley, California are under development.
Thessaloniki, a city of sharing
Lithography Hulusi Mehment 1891. From Parallaxi Magazine.
Thessaloniki is a significant city in its rich history of diversity—religious and secular. Throughout the history of the Ottoman Empire, Thessaloniki was one of the most vibrant multi-ethnic and multi-religious trading cities of the empire. Its conviviality attracted all different religious communities and became known throughout the Empire. To this day, the city neighborhoods preserve vestiges of this interfaith cohabitation and collaboration.
Retracing the city’s multicultural past recently became even more vital amidst the rise of intolerant and exclusionary politics in different regions of the world. Once in the past, the city’s diverse character was violently dismantled by the annihilation of its Jewish population during the Nazi occupation. Today, the narratives of tolerance become particularly critical as Greece finds itself in the middle of a double financial and a humanitarian refugee crisis at the margins of Europe and at the crossroads of human flows and mobility across the Balkans and the Mediterranean.
Though this exhibition, we aim to revisit the city’s legacy of sharing, tolerance and diversity. Considering current debates of inclusion and exclusion, borders, encounters and interactions in Europe, the “Shared Sacred Sites” exhibition offers an alternative view of the Mediterranean as an open, shared and networked space and sheds light to both historical legacies of coexistence and contemporary cases of faith communities living and praying together.
By Elena Vanessa Caroline Kempf
The Three Sites of Exhibition
The three sites of the exhibit, The Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art (MMCA), Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, and Yeni Cami reveal different aspects, both historic and contemporary, of “sharing the sacred.” We communicate the main themes of sharing through the photographic materials and films, modern and contemporary art pieces, ethnographic material, bibliographical sources that tell the stories of both the past and present of the crossovers of religious communities.
The Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art (MMCA) exhibition provides the visitor with an experience that blends anthropological research and contemporary art. The anthropological encounter tells of shrines dedicated to prophets and patriarchs, to Mary and shared saints. The works of contemporary art, present a different locus for notions of sharing the sacred. Photographs, works of art, icons, and anthropological evidence are interwoven to evoke religious coexistence. With contemporary art, the exhibition raises questions concerning the power of religious symbols and practices that stand simultaneously at the core or at the edge of religion and faith.
By Vatsal Naresh
By Vatsal Naresh
At the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography (ThMP) the exhibition presents a visual journey through the diverse geographies and communities of the Mediterranean. Places of coexistence and active sharing are revealed, next to cases where territorial disputes lead to conflict and physical separation. The exhibition uses multiple photographic approaches, where archival material meets contemporary documentary photography and scientific fieldwork research blends with the vernacular photo keepsakes of the pilgrims and devotees themselves.
By Manoël Pénicaud
By Vatsal Naresh
At Yeni Cami, the exhibition presents a historical narrative of Thessaloniki, privileging a religious osmosis that occurred between the three religions as they accommodated to living together. Daily contacts, popular religious interactions, testimonies of travelers and the coexistence in particular sacred spaces and iconic monuments of the city are highlighted as treasured fragments of an experience now lost and a memory largely erased: that of Thessaloniki as a city once shared by different ethnic and religious communities.
By Dimitris Papadopoulos
By Dimitris Papadopoulos
Below is a description of the exhibit in Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, reported by the museum’s news medium.
A journey through geographies and communities of shared sacred places
The exhibition at the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography unfolds in eight sections, where three distinct levels of photographic narration, one historic, one purely documentative and one artistic, are interwoven. We travel in regions where geography, history and tradition, social conditions and mixed communities crafted unique examples of cohabitation, of shared sacred sites and practices among groups of different religions.
Our tour begins from the “Holy City”, Jerusalem, sacred to all three monotheistic religions, where coexistence occurs, but in parallel and profoundly segregated ways. Divisions in the Holy Land become even more apparent in the section of the “Walls”.
The next sections on “Mountains” and “Islands” show us various communities, with lesser or greater isolation, from North Africa to the Aegean, where peaceful coexistence and the sharing of sacred sites constructed a common ground. Here the example of some Christian monasteries in Syria is high lightened as the confront the tragedy of civil war.
Through the numerous scattered “Sites of the Virgin” we encounter the timeless worship of Mother Mary by both Christians and Muslims, while in the section “Caves” we learn about exorcism rituals and about the legends of the Seven Sleepers that crosses through regions, cultures and religions.
Towards the end of the exhibition, the “In-betweens” of religious traditions and practices – and their hybridity – are explored in the Balkan region, while the makeshift worship places of immigrants in Greece are revealed in the section “From one coast to the other”, where a photographic project brings together diverse ethnic and religious communities and their experience.
Along with visual and interactive material, the exhibition also offers cultural events and performances that are open to the public.
By Vatsal Naresh
On September 24th, “Shared Sacred Sites in the Balkans and the Mediterranean: International Workshop” was held at the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography as a part of the exhibition program, where international and domestic academics and artists discussed the state of religious pluralism and sharing in places of convergence of cultures.
Workshop Program
Workshop Program
On the opening date of the exhibition, Yeni Cami hosted a concert by Savina Yannatou, a talented singer, songwriter and composer, who captivated the crowd with her magical voice and exuberant charisma. Although her main repertoire consists of Greek traditional music, she also experiments with free jazz ans avant-garde styles.
By Vatsal Naresh
By Vatsal Naresh
Lessons from the Past
When religions converge, the resulting crossovers are not devoid of ambiguity and can sometimes also lead to conflict. But among the examples of partition and division in the Mediterranean worlds, there are also examples of inconspicuous and often silent sharing. The presence of shared sacred sites reveals the permeability of the frontiers between religious communities the dogmas of which seem incompatible.
The exhibition will be featured in Thessaloniki until December 2017. In parallel, the exhibition is adapted in Paris, France at the National Museum of the Immigration History from October 2017 to January 2018. In 2018, the Shared Sacred Sites project will reemerge in Marrakesh, Morocco at the Museum of the Confluences from December to March 2017. After Morocco, you can follow our exhibition in New York City, USA at three central cultural and educational institutions – New York Public Library, Morgan Library and Museum, and Graduate Center, CUNY – from March to July 2018.
We would like to thank Stavros Niarchos Foundation along with the Nicholas J. and Anna K. Bouras Foundation, and the Mayor and the City of Thessaloniki for making the exhibition possible.
Travis Zadeh, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies; Director of Undergraduate Studies for Modern Middle East Studies, Yale University
Monday, November 27, 5-7pm
Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall, UC Berkeley
Please join us for the Berkeley Public Theology Program lecture on November 27, Monday 5pm – 7pm at Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall, UC Berkeley. We welcome Travis Zadeh, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and the Director of Undergraduate Studies for Modern Middle East Studies at Yale University.
Islam plays a powerful role in American public discourse. Across this often contentious landscape, numerous voices can be heard defining and contesting the nature of Islam. These definitional problems also shape academic debates, where the seemingly basic question of what is Islam has received renewed attention. This lecture addresses the place and history of Islam in the modern academic study of religion in light of discursive structures that are designed to contain and delimit the meaning of Islam.
Travis Zadehis a scholar of Islamic intellectual and cultural history. His areas of interest include frontiers and early conversion, Qur’anic studies, eschatology, mythology, mysticism, pilgrimage and sacred geography, encyclopedism, cosmography, classical Arabic and Persian literary traditions, material and visual cultures, Islamic studies in the digital humanities, vernacularity and language politics, comparative theories of language and translation, secularism, colonialism, Islamic reform, science, magic, miracles, and philosophies of the marvelous.
Please join us for the third Israel Studies Colloquium of the Fall 2017 semester. We welcome Gayil Talshir, the 2017-2018 Israel Institute Visiting Professor at San Jose State University. She is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Science at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she directs the Center for Advanced Public Policy Makers.
Prof. Talshir’s research focuses on the crisis of legitimation of advanced democracies. She is currently involved in an international project on Democracy and Inequality where she is working on a report on the state of Israeli democracy for the Shasha Center for Strategic Studies.
Her talk is entitled: “Israeli Democracy in Crisis? Between Governability and Governance.”
Please join us in the Goldberg Room (297 Boalt Hall), at 12:15pm, on Thursday, November 9. We look forward to seeing you there. Please share this talk with your colleagues and graduate students. We welcome your RSVP by email to Rebecca Golbert at rlgolbert@law.berkeley.edu so we can anticipate the number of lunches to order.
