Our eleventh international symposium convened a diverse group of believers and skeptics. As theologins, policymakers, historians, anthropologists, philosophers, scientists, international relation experts, and sociologists, they examined the resurgent status of religion on global and domestic politics.
They considered the geopolitics and the geoculture of the alleged "clash of civilizations" and explored the role of religion in conflict and peacemaking from Ireland to Guatemala, from Bosnia to South Africa. Studying the encounters between religious nationalisms and secular states, they looked at the destruction and plans for reconstruction of multiethnic, multireligious societies; at the religious roots of violence and pacifism; and at the selective interpretation of tradition and memory in confrontations from India's Ayodhya mosque to Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Additionally, they debated the contentious terms of "fundamentalism" and "syncretism"; the role of religion and ritual as cultural resistance; comparative religious ethics and cross-cultural attitudes towards human rights and human values; women and religion; science, faith and the search for order; and the role of religion in American politics.
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