“If you wait until the moment when you are at the barricades, and then try to have a dialogue, it’s too late,” said University of Notre Dame professor of anthropology Cynthia Mahmood, who spoke at Emory in December as part of the University’s newly launched initiative on Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding. “I want to submit to you that in order to create a world of less violence, we have to find out in a serious way why people [want to kill].”
Mahmood, who has spent the last 15 years working with militant groups – specifically Sikh separatists in the Punjab region of India – stressed the urgency and necessity of long-term dialogue with extremists in order to solve religious conflicts peacefully.
This type of engagement is just one objective of Emory’s Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding initiative, which draws on Emory’s strengths in religious studies to address the causes of conflict between and within religions and to promote peaceful societies.
The lecture series is the inaugural activity of the initiative and will run every semester, bringing distinguished scholars and experts who have made significant contributions internationally in the fields of religion, conflict and peacebuilding to share insights with the Emory and Atlanta community as it embarks on new scholarship and outreach related to these themes. The series launched November 8 with the lecture “When Reality Rears its Ugly Head: Can Religion Move us Forward in the Face of Conflict?” by Edward Queen, director of the D. Abbott Turner Program in Ethics and Servant Leadership at Emory’s Center for Ethics.
Laurie Patton, Winship Distinguished Research Professor of Religion, who spearheaded the initiative and the lecturer series, has been working on the project since she joined Emory six years ago.
“We felt that there could be a lot of room for engagement in the area of religion, conflict and peacebuilding. People usually look at peacebuilding in terms of international relations and diplomacy or else in terms of political science only,” said Patton of the lecture series. “We thought that an interdisciplinary approach that includes a lot of humanistic voices as well would be also very important.”
Although religious studies have always been strong at Emory, with a number of scholars engaged in research on religious traditions from around the world, Patton said she is particularly pleased that a new university-wide initiative is now in place to bring them together around a central theme. “I realized that what we [religious scholars] have in common is that we all teach about conflicts between religion or within religious traditions,” she said. “We decided that this initiative is a wonderful way to begin to shape a common conversation.”
An official initiative was made possible this year because of several things coming together at once – the interest of Emory scholars of religion, an administration committed to tackling religious conflict, and community leaders, of whom all saw the urgent need for increased dialogue and understanding in the areas of conflict and religion.
It was one of those Emory moments, Patton said, when all the kindling was there, and you just needed to do the work to light the match.
Emory’s distinctive approach to addressing religious conflict will be to train scholar-practitioners on the ground to work with religious leaders, lay people, peacebuilding professionals, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to draw on the resources of religions for conflict resolution and peacebuilding.
“If we can be one of the go-to places in the nation that really focuses on the role of NGOs and partnerships with NGOs and grassroots organizations, then I think we would have created a unique space for ourselves,” said Patton.
Plans are in place to build a Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding center with the aim of creating a cohesive, intellectual unit where Emory strengths, locally and globally, can connect with the larger discourse in religion and conflict. The search for a director of this center begins next year.
Lecture Series Schedule of Events:
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Edward Queen, director of the D. Abbott Turner Program in Ethics and Servant Leadership at Emory’s Center for Ethics
Download lecture
Wednesday, December 13, 2006, 4:30 - 6:30 p.m.
Jones Room, Woodruff Library
Cynthia Mahmood, senior fellow, Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and associate professor, University of Notre Dame
Monday, January 22, 2007, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Jones Room, Woodruff Library
Mohammed Abu-Nimer, associate professor, American University's School of International Service in International Peace and Conflict Resolution (Washington, DC), and Director of Peacebuilding and Development Institute, American University
Tuesday, February 6, 2007, 4:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Jones Room, Woodruff Library
John Paul Lederach, professor of international peacebuilding, University of Notre Dame; Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
Lederach is a pioneering scholar, mediator, negotiator, peacebuilding practioner, trainer, and consultant.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Location TBA
Marc Gopin, James H. Laue Professor of World Religions; director, Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution; Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University
Gopin analyzes the relationships among world religions, violence, and peacemaking strategies, as well as the role of religion and culture in Arab/Israeli conflict and peacemaking.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007, 12:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Location TBA
David O. Jenkins, director of Faith and the City Program; lecturer in Church and Community; co-director of Contextual Education, Emory University
Jenkins is a specialist in faith-based community development and organizing, community-based experiential learning, and community violence reduction and peacebuilding.
For more information about the speaker series and Emory’s initiative in religion, conflict, and peacebuilding, click here.
