Conference on Religious Heterodoxy and Modern States at Yale University

On March 28 and 29, Yale University hosted a conference on Religious Heterodoxy and Modern States. The conference was sponsored by a number of units across the university, including the South Asia Studies Council. The conference brought together prominent academics engaged with questions of secularism, religious freedom and citizenship rights across a range of national cases. 

Questions of religious difference, liberty and freedom are on various intellectual agendas right now across the social sciences and humanities, and are animating new questions about secularism and religion and the relationship between the two. Organized by Dr. Sadia Saeed, Associate Research Scientist at the Department of Sociology and Visiting Fellow at the South Asia Studies Council, and Gulay Turkmen-Dervisoglu, sociology graduate student, the conference was driven by a focus on the issue of religious heterodoxy. Specifically, it interrogated how modern states define and manage questions of internal religious differences, and, more broadly, legitimate and deviant expressions of public and private religiosity.

Instances of modern states adjudicating among internal religious distinctions, in the process bestowing on them legal, legislative, cultural or political significance, abound across the globe and religious traditions. Some contemporary examples include the Ahmadiyya community in Indonesia and Pakistan, Bahai’s in Egypt and Iran, Falun Gong in China, a host of internal Jewish distinctions in Israel, and Alevis in Turkey. These cases suggest that modern states oftentimes intervene with more intensity with respect to religious groups that are sites of internal religious difference.

The conference featured presentations by scholars who are deeply engaged with these empirical cases and broader theoretical questions. Talks included cases as diverse as China, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, Western Europe and United States. Academic disciplines that were represented were almost as diverse at the cases themselves. These included sociology, anthropology, political science, history, law, and religious studies. Presenters explored themes in arenas ranging from courts, constitutional debates, official nationalisms, citizenship rights, transnational spaces, and religious ideologies. Two presenters in particular focused on the specific case of Pakistan. Dr. Humeira Iqtidar, Lecturer of politics at Kings College London, spoke about Blasphemy Laws in Pakistan in the context of the recent upsurge of attacks on Christian communities. Professor Michael Nijhawan of York University discussed the dilemmas faced by Pakistani youth in Canada who belong to the Ahmadiyya community.

In addition to the South Asia Studies Council, the conference was sponsored by Council on Middle East Studies, Council on East Asian Studies, European Studies Council, and the Center for Comparative Research.

See www.yale.edu/macmillan/cmes/heterodoxy for conference details.