A symposium on the history, present state and future of religious violence in the Christian and Muslim context. It will focus on one dimension in particular of crusade and jihad: the tendency for struggles inspired by religious belief to evolve over time into a form of pietistic practice. Topics to be discussed will include religious motivations for surveillance, territorial expansion and military aggression; multi-sectarian states as vectors of instability as well as engines of cultural generation; and conversion and mobility as human rights and as legislative and policing issues.

Speakers: Asma Afsaruddin, chair and professor of Near Eastern languages and cultures, and adjunct professor of religious studies, Indiana University; Christopher MacEvitt, associate professor of religion, Dartmouth College; Stuart A. Wright, professor of sociology and chair, Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Criminal Justice, Lamar University. Organizer: Karla Mallette, CES director, U-M.