September 27, 2013 - LAW AND RELIGION FORUM

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

Conference on Educational Justice (Oct. 26)

On October 26, St. John’s University will host the biennal Vincentian Chair of Social Justice Conference. This year’s theme is “Educational Justice: Opportunity, Inclusion and Social Equity for All”:

Historically in the United States, education has served as a consistent and sustainable means of alleviating individual poverty and reducing social inequality. Today, while the developing nations live on that same hope, the developed world has found that education as a poverty reliever and social equalizer has lost ground. The God-given dignity inherent in each person demands that all experience the liberating and enhancing influence of education as a basic human right. During this conference, we will reflect on the manner in which educational policy and practice have in the past and must in the future contribute to poverty alleviation, social advancement and human solidarity.

Details are here.

Posted on September 27, 2013July 27, 2016 by JCPW · 1 Comment

Around The Web This Week

Some interesting law & religion stories from around the web this week:

Jihadist fighters linked to Al-Qaeda have reportedly set fire to statues and crosses inside Christian churches in northern Syria
A suicide attack on a historic church in northwestern Pakistan killed at least 78 people on Sunday in one of the deadliest attacks on the Christian minority in Pakistan in years
An Egyptian court has banned deposed President Mohamed Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood and ordered its funds seized
On Wednesday, Egyptian security forces shuttered the office of the newspaper of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party and confiscated furniture and documents
Abercrombie & Fitch has agreed to revise its “Look Policy” for its store employees as part of a settlement in two religious discrimination cases (more here)
A Pennsylvania mining company is being sued by the federal government on behalf of a worker who refused a biometric headscan because he believes in the Bible’s mark of the beast prophecy
Small groups of Jews are increasingly ascending the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, a sacred site controlled for centuries by Muslims, who see the visits as a provocative
Iranian Jews in the U.S. rejected an invitation to meet President Rouhani, saying that when the President had a chance to redeem himself on the question of the Holocaust, he did not amend his previous statements
Stanley Fish on Ronald Dworkin’s last book, “Religion Without God”

Posted on September 27, 2013July 27, 2016 by JCPW

Newbigin, “The Hindu Family and the Emergence of Modern India”

This October, Cambridge University Press will publish The Hindu Family and the Emergence of Modern India: Law, Citizenship, and Community by Eleanor Newbigin (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London). The publisher’s description follows.

Between 1955 and 1956 the Government of India passed four Hindu Law Acts to reform and codify Hindu family law. Scholars have understood these acts as a response to growing concern about women’s rights but, in a powerful re-reading of their history, this book traces the origins of the Hindu law reform project to changes in the political-economy of late colonial rule. The Hindu Family and the Emergence of Modern India considers how questions regarding family structure, property rights and gender relations contributed to the development of representative politics, and how, in solving these questions, India’s secular and state power structures were consequently drawn into a complex and unique relationship with Hindu law. In this comprehensive and illuminating resource for scholars and students, Newbigin demonstrates the significance of gender and economy to the history of twentieth-century democratic government, as it emerged in India and beyond.