Religion and Global Politics across Disciplines and Publics
The conference “Religion and Global Politics across Disciplines and Publics” is the culmination of the Ansari Institute’s 2025-26 Global Fellows program. During the academic year, six postdoctoral scholars shared their books-in-progress with a team of mentors drawn from among senior Notre Dame faculty members specializing in one or more dimensions of religion and global politics. During the course of thirteen online seminars, this group of Global Fellows and their mentors critiqued the manuscripts produced by the Global Fellows and discussed the larger theoretical, historical, cultural and political issues and themes which they raise.
The symposium will identify new insights and arguments developed in these studies, focusing, inter alia, on how transnational religions and local faith communities sustain themselves and thrive or retreat within various democratic and autocratic political contexts; the impact of government repression on religious practice and public presences; how states partner with (and sometimes instrumentalize) religions; and, what case studies of religious violence, religious conflict management and faith-based diplomacy tell us about the ubiquitous and ambivalent roles religions play in society, culture and politics.
Though informed by the research and scholarship of the Global Fellows and their mentors, this is not a book workshop, but rather a series of panels designed to stimulate rigorous debate and discussion with the assembled audience.