Just in time for the Christmas Wars, the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies has published papers from a symposium on state-sponsored religious displays that the Center co-sponsored with our our sister school, the Libera Universita Maria SS Assunta (LUMSA), in Rome last year. The papers compare the treatment of such displays in the United States and Europe. Contributors include Silvio Ferrari of the University of Milan (“State-Supported Display of Religious Symbols In The Public Space”); Thomas Berg of the University of St. Thomas (“Can State-Sponsored Religious Symbols Promote Religious Liberty?”); Monica Lugato of LUMSA (“The ‘Margin of Appreciation’ and Freedom of Religion: Between Treaty Interpretation And Subsidiarity”); and Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain of the US Court of Appeals (“Religious Symbols and the Law”). There’s also an introduction by me. You can download the articles here.
2014 Conference on Christian Legal Thought — Public Engagement With Law and Religion: A Conference in Honor of Jean Bethke Elshtain
I’m very pleased to announce the 2014 Conference on Christian Legal Thought, sponsored by the Lumen Christi Institute at the University of Chicago and the Law Professors Christian Fellowship. The conference occurs in conjunction with the annual AALS meeting, which is being held in Manhattan this year. This year’s conference celebrates the life and thought of Professor Jean Bethke Elshtain and explores the theme of public engagement with law and religion.
The schedule is below, and you can register here. I hope to see many Forum readers there.
Friday, January 3, 2014, 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm
The University Club
One West 54th Street, New York, NY 10019
Conference Topic: Public Engagement With Law and Religion: A Conference in Honor of Jean Bethke Elshtain
Noon: Registration, Luncheon, and Opening Remarks
1:15 pm – 2:45 pm: Session One. Public Engagement With Law and Religion: The Thought of Jean Bethke Elshtain
Chair: Zachary R. Calo (Valparaiso University School of Law)
Thomas C. Berg (University of St. Thomas School of Law)
Eric Gregory (Princeton University, Department of Religion)
Charles Mathewes (University of Virginia, Department of Religious Studies)
2:45 pm – 3:00 pm: Coffee Break
3:00 pm – 4:30 pm. Session Two. Public Engagement With Law and Religion: Journalistic Perspectives
Chair: Marc O. DeGirolami (St. John’s University School of Law)
Matthew Boudway (Associate Editor, Commonweal)
Susannah Meadows (Columnist, New York Times)
Rusty R. Reno (Editor, First Things)
4:45 PM – 5:15 pm: Vespers
5:15 pm: Reception
The Tragedy of Religious Freedom at Stanford Law School
Next Monday, I will be discussing The Tragedy of Religious Freedom at Stanford Law School’s Center for Constitutional Law, which is headed by the eminent Michael McConnell and directed by Jud Campbell. The format of discussion is a conversation, and I’m confident that we will have a very good and interesting one.
The details: Monday, November 11, 5:30-7:30, Student Law Lounge. Registration instructions may be found here.
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.
CFP: the Fifth Annual Religious Legal Theory Conference at Emory Law School
I am delighted to announce a call for papers for the Religious Legal Theory Conference, now in its fifth year. Mark and I were pleased to host the conference in its second incarnation, where the theme was Religion in Law, Law in Religion.
This year’s conference is being put together by the superb Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory Law School, which is directed by the éminence grise of law and religion, John Witte. The theme this year is A Global Conversation: Exploring Interfaith and International Models for the Interaction of Religion and State. The conference will be held on February 24-25, 2014. Paper proposals are due November 30, 2013, with notification shortly thereafter. Please contact Dr. Mark Goldfeder of Emory Law School with your proposal.
Below the fold, the conference description and details of the call for papers. Read more
Call for Papers: “Cuius Regio, Eius Religio”
The Legal History Blog has a call for papers for an upcoming conference at the Jagiellonian University in Poland, “Cuius Regio, Eius Religio.” The conference will take place in December 2013. Details are here.
Conference: The Lateran Pacts and the Jews (Oct. 24-25)
On October 24-25 in New York, the Centro Primo Levi, the NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli Marim, and the Museum of Tolerance will co-sponsor a conference, “The Lateran Pacts, the Rights of Jews and Other Religious Minorities”:
In view of the upcoming 85th anniversary of the Lateran Pacts and the current debates on the position of the Church toward the Jews during Fascism and World War II, Centro Primo Levi has invited an interdisciplinary group of scholars to closely examine and discuss the legal, social, political and economic aspects of this redefinition of the relations between Church and State in Italy and in totalitarian Europe.
The conference will offer an overview of the Lateran Pacts, the background of negotiations between Mussolini and Pius XI as well as an analysis of the ways the Pacts affected Italian society, the rights of minorities vis-à-vis family law, education, public moral, protection of minority rights, with a particular focus on the subsequent re-organization of the Jewish communities. Scholars will present new research on the changes to the civil and penal codes brought about by the Pacts, as well as the reforms of key public institution that became necessary in order to make them compatible with a state religion.
Looks interesting. Details are here.
Video of the European Religious Freedom Bandwagon Conference
Check out the full video of this very interesting conference, which was put on by the Berkley Center down at Georgetown. One interesting part of the video is Professor Tom Farr’s statement that the Berkley Center will be focusing in the next several years on the relationship of economic and religious freedom, on the one hand, and political and religious freedom, on the other. (h/t Pasquale Annicchino)
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.
Conference on Religious Diversity and Governance (Oct. 2-4)
Francisca Pérez Madrid (University of Barcelona) has organized what looks to be a wonderful conference next month in Jerusalem, “Religious Diversity Governance: Territorial and Personal Law.” The conference will take place at Hebrew University from October 2-4. Here’s the description:
Because we regard the places we live as the centre of our legal structure and relations, the concept of law has always been closely tied to the notion of territory. But because our social life extends beyond the relations each person has with a territory and makes us members of larger communities and social groups, we also need to establish systems of peaceful coexistence. While territoriality and personality are therefore dramatically different legal systems, they can still operate side by side as “communicating vessels” which influence and complement one other like two sides of the same coin and two different ways of applying law.
For countries characterised by internal cultural, ethnic or religious diversity, the possibility that we might make the territorial and the personal principle more mutually compatible becomes particularly interesting and this is where the State of Israel occupies a unique position in the world. Maintaining as it does the Millet system of law, which it inherited from the Ottoman Empire and which grants each of the State’s recognized ethno-religious communities exclusive or concurrent jurisdiction in areas of personal and family law, the question becomes the following: Can the application of the personal principle to diverse groups facilitate peaceful coexistence in a plural state? Our Symposium will seek to answer this and to provide an opportunity to debate the resolution of conflicts in which human rights are put at risk.
The conference program is here.