Religion in the Age of Mass Politics

Join the New York Society Library and the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research for a special live recording of the Brooklyn Institute’s Podcast for Social Research, as three experts on Middle Eastern culture, history, and politics consider the relationship between religion and mass politics in the modern age. Is religion a source of political stability and social continuity, or an agent of radical change? In what ways have political forces and motivations shaped “timeless” religious beliefs and practices, and vice versa? And how, in light of these considerations, should we understand attempts to create a clear boundary between the religious and the political?

Inspired by Suzanne Schneider’s new book Mandatory Separation: Religion, Education, and Mass Politics in Palestine, this event will explore these thorny questions—so central to contemporary conversations about religion and extremism—drawing on examples from the Middle East, Europe, and the United States.

The event is free with RSVP. To register, contact the New York Society Library Events Office at events@nysoclib.org.

Participants

• Suzanne Schneider

  Suzanne Schneider received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the Department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University. An interdisciplinary scholar working in the fields of history, religious studies, and political theory, Suzanne’s research interests relate to Jewish and Islamic modernism, religious movements in the modern Middle East, the history of modern Palestine/Israel, secularism, and political identity. She is the author of Mandatory Separation: Religion, Education, and Mass Politics in Palestine (Stanford University Press) and a regular contributor to The Revealer: A Review of Religion and Media. She is currently working on a book about religious violence in the modern age. In her capacity as BISR’s Deputy Director, Suzanne oversees program execution, development initiatives, and institutional partnerships.

• Ajay Singh Chaudhary

  Ajay Singh Chaudhary is the executive director of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and a core faculty member specializing in social and political theory. His research focuses on social and political theory, Frankfurt School critical theory, political economy, media, religion, and post-colonial studies. He has written for the The Guardian, Los Angeles Review of Books, Quartz, Social Text, Dialectical Anthropology, The Jewish Daily Forward, Filmmaker Magazine, and 3quarksdaily, among other venues. Ajay is currently writing a book on the politics of climate change.

• Anthony Alessandrini

  Anthony Alessandrini is a professor of English at Kingsborough Community College-CUNY and is on the faculty of the MA Program in Middle Eastern Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, where he is also a member of the Committee on Globalization and Social Change. He is the author of Frantz Fanon and the Future of Cultural Politics: Finding Something Different; the editor of Frantz Fanon: Critical Perspectives; and the co-editor of “Resistance Everywhere”: The Gezi Protests and Dissident Visions of Turkey. He is a Co-Editor of Jadaliyya E-Zine and a contributor to Status Audio Journal.

Event Schedule

Thursday, 6:00-8:00pm
May 31, 2018

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