Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Panel: “Fault Lines of Faith” (Nov. 21)

On November 21, the Foreign Policy Association in New York City will host a panel, “Fault Lines of Faith: Reporting from Myanmar, Bosnia and Northern Ireland”:

For the past two years, the long-repressed country of Myanmar has been undergoing a fragile transition to more democratic practices. But with freer speech and assembly have come new tensions between the majority Buddhists in the country and minority Muslim populations. More than half the country’s provinces have seen violence, with hundreds of people dead; a Buddhist nationalist movement has been rising in popularity despite allegations that it is stirring anti-Muslim sentiment.

Kira Kay and Jason Maloney will screen and discuss their reporting from Myanmar, and also from two other locations profiled in the “Fault Lines of Faith” series, Northern Ireland and Bosnia. While they vary widely in geography and culture, the regions profiled in the “Fault Lines” series share multiple root causes to their sectarian tensions: questions of nationhood and self identity; marginalization from political power and resources; a climate of human rights abuse and lack of access to justice. The series title depicts these deep societal challenges as much as the more obvious tensions at the surface of these conflicts.

Details are here.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Call for Papers: Alternative Dispute Resolution and Jewish Law

The Aspen Center for Social Values and the Jewish Law Association have announced a call for papers for a conference, “Alternative Dispute Resolution: Is this the future of law?”:

The Conference seeks to engage scholars of Jewish studies, and Law & Religion, on the theme “Alternative Dispute Resolution: Is this the future of law?”, with a particular focus on religious courts of arbitration. Our approach is interdisciplinary, and we welcome proposals for papers from scholars of all fields, including history, law, cultural studies, and the social sciences. We envision panels on some of the following themes, and we welcome submissions that have a historical perspective as well as a contemporary one:

• Recent Developments in ADR

• Marriage, Divorce, & ADR

• Enforcing Religious Arbitration

• Islamic Law in America

• ADR: Are Jewish Courts a Good Model for Success?

Comparative perspectives are also welcome.

The deadline is November 30. Details are here.

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The Top Five New Law & Religion Papers on SSRN

From SSRN’s list of most frequently downloaded law and religion papers posted in the last 60 days, here are the current top five. Since last week, all of the authors have remained in the same spots on the list; Zoe Robinson remains at #1; Andrew Koppelman remainst at #2, Ian C. Bartrum remains at #3; Caroline Mala Corbin remains at #4; and Jeremy M. Christiansen remains at #5.

1.What is a ‘Religious Institution’? by Zoe Robinson (Depaul University College of Law) [286 downloads]

2. ‘Freedom of the Church’ and the Authority of the State by Andrew Koppelman (Northwestern University School of Law) [171 downloads]

3.Book Review: ‘The Tragedy of Religious Freedom’  by Ian C. Bartrum (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) [116 downloads]

4.Corporate Religious Liberty by Caroline Mala Corbin (University of Miami School of Law) [113 downloads]

5.‘The Word[ ] ‘Person’…Includes Corporations’: Why the Religious Freedom Restoration Act Protects Both For- and Nonprofit Corporations by Jeremy M. Christiansen  (University of Utah- S.J. Quinney College of Law) [98 downloads]

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Grewal, “Islam is a Foreign Country: American Muslims and the Global Crisis of Authority”

Next month, New York University Press will publish Islam Is a Foreign Country: American Muslims and the Global Crisis of Authority by Zareena Grewal (Yale Islam is a Foreign CountryUniversity).  The publisher’s description follows.

 In Islam Is a Foreign Country, Zareena Grewal explores some of the most pressing debates about and among American Muslims: what does it mean to be Muslim and American? Who has the authority to speak for Islam and to lead the stunningly diverse population of American Muslims? Do their ties to the larger Muslim world undermine their efforts to make Islam an American religion?

Offering rich insights into these questions and more, Grewal follows the journeys of American Muslim youth who travel in global, underground Islamic networks. Devoutly religious and often politically disaffected, these young men and women are in search of a home for themselves and their tradition. Through their stories, Grewal captures the multiple directions of the global flows of people, practices, and ideas that connect U.S. mosques to the Muslim world. By examining the tension between American Muslims’ ambivalence toward the American mainstream and their desire to enter it, Grewal puts contemporary debates about Islam in the context of a long history of American racial and religious exclusions. Probing the competing obligations of American Muslims to the nation and to the umma (the global community of Muslim believers), Islam is a Foreign Country investigates the meaning of American citizenship and the place of Islam in a global age.

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Lyons, “The Civilizing Mission in the Metropole: Algerian Families and the French Warfare State During Decolonization”

This month, Stanford University Press will publish The Civilizing Mission in the Metropole: Algerian Families and the French Welfare State During Civilizing MissionDecolonization by Amelia H. Lyons (University of central Florida).  The publisher’s description follows.

France, which has the largest Muslim minority community in Europe, has been in the news in recent years because of perceptions that Muslims have not integrated into French society. The Civilizing Mission in the Metropole explores the roots of these debates through an examination of the history of social welfare programs for Algerian migrants from the end of World War II until Algeria gained independence in 1962.

After its colonization in 1830, Algeria fought a bloody war of decolonization against France, as France desperately fought to maintain control over its most prized imperial possession. In the midst of this violence, some 350,000 Algerians settled in France. This study examines the complex and often-contradictory goals of a welfare network that sought to provide services and monitor Algerian migrants’ activities. Lyons particularly highlights family settlement and the central place Algerian women held in French efforts to transform the settled community. Lyons questions myths about Algerian immigration history and exposes numerous paradoxes surrounding the fraught relationship between France and Algeria—many of which echo in French debates about Muslims today.