Religious Violence

Undergraduate / Graduate

Are there "proper" or "improper" practices of religion? Is it at best a matter of private belief, to be kept separate from or protected by the state? Or is it something that at times requires the state's intervention? Does religion represent the last vestiges of the premodern world, or is it something that is integral to modern life? To answer these questions, we will call on anthropologists and other social scientists and theorists to understand, first, what is "religion," and then what is, can be, or should be its relationship to gender, the nation, and the modern state in various historical and geographical locations, with particular attention to the Middle East and South Asia.