Coping With Defeat? A Roundtable Discussion on Islam and Catholicism in Modern States

October 27, 2022 | 4:00 - 6:30 PM | Gasson 100 | Registration Required

How do religions that have grown accustomed to political rule cope with the loss of their political authority in modernity? And how might they learn to coexist, peacefully, with the modern state? In his latest book, Coping with Defeat, Clough Center Director Jonathan Laurence sheds new light on these questions by offering a comparative analysis of two religions not often treated together: Roman Catholicism and Sunni Islam. Drawing on extensive original research in Vatican and Ottoman archives, and dozens of interviews with contemporary public officials, Laurence documents centuries of religious and political institution-building, right up to the present day. Strikingly, he argues, Catholicism and Sunni Islam have historically employed analogous strategies for responding to the loss of their political power. And for this reason, their comparison has much to teach contemporary democracies–and contemporary religious leaders–about how to combat religious extremism, preserve the spiritual authority of religious traditions, and promote civil peace in polarized societies.

Since its release in 2021, Coping with Defeat has already attracted attention in the academy and the public sphere. The Wall Street Journal called the book a “refreshing, provocative work,” and the Economist described it as a “closely argued, contrarian piece of scholarship.” In 2022, the American Political Science Association recognized it as the best book in religion and politics published within the last two years.

This fall, the Clough Center brings the conversation to the Boston College campus, with “Coping with Defeat: A Roundtable Discussion on Islam and Catholicism in Modern States.” At this event, four eminent scholars from multiple disciplines–each a specialist in Catholicism, Islam, or both–will engage the book and its author in debate. As Christianity and Islam continue to shape public life around the world in unexpected ways, the issues at stake could scarcely be more relevant, or more contentious. Please join us for this inaugural event in the Clough Center’s newly launched program on “Religion and Democracy.”


Schedule

4-5:45: Program
5:45-6:30: Reception

Speakers

Karen Barkey

Karen Barkey

Karen Barkey is the Charles Theodore Kellogg and Bertie K. Hawver Kellogg Chair of Sociology and Religion at Bard College. Her research has been engaged in the comparative and historical study of the state, with special focus on its transformation over time. Her work has explored state society relations, peasant movements, banditry, and opposition and dissent organized around the state. Her main empirical site has been the Ottoman Empire, in comparison with France and the Habsburg and Russian Empires. She also pays attention to the Roman and Byzantine worlds as important predecessors of the Ottomans. Barley’s book Empire of Difference (Cambridge University Press, 2008) explores issues such as diversity, the role of religion in politics, Islam and the state, as well as the manner in which the Sunni-Shi’a divide operated during the tenure of the Ottoman Empire—topics that remain relevant today. Her recent publications include Negotiating Democracy and Religious Pluralism: India, Pakistan and Turkey (Oxford University Press, 2021) and Shared Sacred Sites: A Contemporary Pilgrimage (City University of New York Publications, 2018).


Michael Driessen

Michael Driessen

Michael Driessen is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Affairs at John Cabot University, Rome. He received his doctorate from the University of Notre Dame and has been a post-doctoral fellow at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Doha, Qatar, as well as a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. He has published the book Religion and Democratization (Oxford University Press, 2014), and his articles have appeared in Comparative Politics, Sociology of Religion, Politics and Religion, and Democratization. Driessen also serves as an advisor for the Adyan Foundation in Lebanon with whom he has published a number of policy reports, including the 2021 co-edited volume, “Human Fraternity and Inclusive Citizenship: Interreligious Engagement in the Mediterranean,” published in collaboration with the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His new book, “The Global Politics of Interreligious Dialogue” is forthcoming with Oxford University Press.


Massimo Faggioli

Massimo Faggioli

Massimo Faggioli is full Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University (Philadelphia). His books and articles have been published in more than ten languages. He is columnist for the magazines Commonweal and La Croix International. His most recent publications include the books: A Council for the Global Church. Receiving Vatican II in History (Fortress, 2015); The Rising Laity. Ecclesial Movements since Vatican II (Paulist, 2016); Catholicism and Citizenship: Political Cultures of the Church in the Twenty-First Century (Liturgical, 2017); The Liminal Papacy of Pope Francis. Moving Toward Global Catholicity (Orbis, 2020); Joe Biden and Catholicism in the United States (Bayard, 2021). He is co-editing with Catherine Clifford The Oxford Handbook of Vatican II (Oxford UP, 2022), and is under contract with Oxford University Press for the book God’s Bureaucrats: A History of the Roman Curia.


Carol Ferrara

Carol Ferrara 

Carol Ferrara is an assistant professor at Emerson College with diverse academic and professional expertise in anthropology, diversity, pluralism, religion, education, and business. Her research has focused on religion in secular societies, and most prominently, the ways that Muslims and Catholics navigate and negotiate faith, plurality, ethics, and national identity in secular France. She has published multiple articles and book chapters about private Muslim schooling in France. During the 2019-2020 academic year, Carol was awarded the Fulbright-EHESS Postdoctoral Fellowship to pursue new ethnographic research about independent private schooling in France. Carol holds a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from Boston University, a dual MA in Middle East & Islamic Studies and International Affairs from the American University in Paris, and a BS in International Business from the Rochester Institute of Technology. She is a co-Chair of the American Academy of Religion’s “Religion in Europe” Program Unit, and is on the Research Editorial Board of the journal EuropeNow


Shadi Hamid

Shadi Hamid

Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an assistant research professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Seminary. He is also a contributing writer at The Atlantic, where he writes a monthly essay on culture and politics. His new book is The Problem of Democracy: America, the Middle East, and the Rise and Fall of an Idea (Oxford University Press). His previous book, Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World, was shortlisted for the 2017 Lionel Gelber Prize for best book on foreign affairs. Hamid’s first book, Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East was named a Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2014.  He is also the co editor of Rethinking Political Islam with Will McCants.

 


Jonathan Laurence

Jonathan Laurence

Jonathan Laurence is Director of the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy and Professor of Political Science at Boston College. He received a B.A., summa cum laude, from Cornell University, a C.E.P. at Sciences Po, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University. His principal areas of teaching and research are comparative politics and religion and politics in Western Europe, Turkey and North Africa. Prof. Laurence's latest book is Coping with Defeat: Sunni Islam, Roman Catholicism and the Modern State (Princeton University Press, 2021). Previously, The Emancipation of Europe's Muslims, was published by Princeton University Press in 2012, and received awards for Best Book in religion and politics and migration and citizenship from the American Political Science Association. His first book, Integrating Islam: Religious and Political Challenges in Contemporary France, co-authored with Justin Vaïsse, was published by Brookings Institution Press (2006) and Odile Jacob (2007) and named an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice Magazine. Prof. Laurence assumed the Directorship of the Clough Center in spring 2022.

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