BCSR is proud to share with the community a Faculty Spotlight with Henrike Lange, who holds a joint appointment in the Departments of History of Art and Italian Studies. …

BCSR faculty and affiliates are offering a wide variety of courses related to religion in spring 2021, spanning diverse fields including Anthropology, Buddhist Studies, Classics, Comparative Literature, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Ethnic Studies, History, History of Art, Italian Studies, Jewish Studies, Near Eastern Studies, and Political Science! …

In case you didn’t have a chance to attend BCSR live-online events this semester, recordings are available on our website! …

Accompanying the online reflection “Enthralled Subjects: Cults, Conversion, and Quarantine Fixations,” Poulomi Saha and Grace Goudiss provided resource recommendations on the topics of popular media surrounding “cults,” faith, and the history of “cults”/new religious movements. …

Accompanying the online reflection “The Work of Salvation, the Salvation of Work: Searching for Belonging in an Age of Global Precarity” Carolyn Chen provided resource recommendations on the topics of work, capitalism, and religion. …

Accompanying the online reflection “Crossing Divides in a Precarious Future: The White Working Class and the Upcoming General Election” Arlie Russell Hochschild provided resource recommendations on the topics of American right, the polarization of politics, and the dismantling of the working class. …

Accompanying the online reflection “The Textures of the Soul: Isolation Throughout History and Religion” Niklaus Largier provided resource recommendations on the topics of religion, history, and isolation. …

Accompanying the online reflection “From Providentialism to Epidemiology: Understanding Pandemics through History” Thomas W. Laqueur provided resource recommendations on the topics of democracy, religion, medicine, government, and death from a historical perspective. …

As part of the Berkeley Democracy and Public Theology Program, BCSR’s Public Forum on Religion and Pandemic brings together scholars and the public to address the current pandemic and its commensurate crises.

Asking what it means to live, write, and think in the present moment, these conversations explore the intersection between religion and timely topics such as the environment, public health, elections and democracy, religious freedom, and nationalism in order to foster public dialogue and reflection. …

Now in its eighth year, UC Berkeley’s interdisciplinary Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion appreciatively announces that it has received a $500,000 grant spanning three years from the Henry Luce Foundation to examine how theology has influenced, and continues to influence, democratic practices. Professors and BCSR Co-Directors Karen Barkey (UC Berkeley) and David Marno (UC Berkeley), and Professor and BCSR Co-founder Jonathan Sheehan (UC Berkeley), will be the Principal Investigators. …

Dear Friends of BCSR,

We hope that this letter finds you and your loved ones healthy and well as we return to a fall semester unlike any in recent history. Facing unparallelled challenges from the pandemic, the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion endeavors to grow our scholarship and community. We want to thank all of you who continue to support us, and to give you an update on the Center’s new programs and exciting initiatives. …

BCSR is proud to share a sample of recent accomplishments, publications, awards, and news from affiliated faculty from spring and summer 2020. Please join us in congratulating our affiliated faculty members Robert Alter, Karen Barkey, Robert Braun, Charles Hirschkind, Ethan Katz, Henrike C. Lange, Rita Lucarelli, Joanna Picciotto, Ronit Stahl, Jonathan Sheehan, and Francesco Spagnolo on these achievements! …

We are proud to share that over the summer we made some updates to the BCSR website and social media presence in order to boost the visibility of the study of religions at Berkeley. Be sure to like/follow us on Facebook and Twitter for all of the latest updates! …

Due to ongoing changes designed to help limit coronavirus (COVID-19) risk on campus, the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion regretfully announces that the following events have been POSTPONED until further notice. …

As part of our ongoing interview series, BCSR recently caught up with Basit Iqbal, who was a 2018 recipient of a BCSR summer research grant. He is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta. He received his PhD from the UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology with a designated emphasis in critical theory in December 2019. …

As part of our series spotlighting UC Berkeley graduate student research, BCSR recently had the opportunity to sit down with Madeline Lesser, a PhD student in English. Her dissertation is titled “Bad Prophets: the Aesthetics of Uncertainty in Revolutionary England.” BCSR: Could you tell us about your doctoral research topic more broadly and how you feel it contributes to the study of religion? …