In mid-August Jason Klocek, a former BCSR grant winner and now Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Global Religion Initiative at Notre Dame, walked us through the aforementioned aspects of his scholarly development, part of his wider journey from coal-town Pennsylvania to Berkeley, with with stops in Crete, Turkmenistan, and Washington D.C. along the way.
Klocek also discussed his choice of, and work at, Berkeley, including the role of faculty mentorship in his decision to come to campus, and the impact of chance and failed grant applications on the ultimate shape of his dissertation, “The Cult of Coercion: Religion and Strategic Culture in British Counterinsurgency,” which analyzes the perception of religious insurgents by British leaders in three postwar case studies: Cyprus, Mandatory Palestine, and Kenya. Jason has also kindly shared his thoughts on the future of religious studies and offered some useful advice to young scholars studying religion.
You can listen to these conversations, as well as Jason’s thoughts on the potential policy applications of his work, in their entirety or in thematic segments on our YouTube and SoundCloud pages.
Abstracts of Jason’s publications and working papers, as well as more information on his book project and teaching, are available on his website.
Best of luck to Jason!
#ReligionInTheWorld
The Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion (BCSR) advances creative and critical scholarship on religion in the world. bcsr.berkeley.edu | @ucbreligion