Religious pluralism – challenge or opportunity?
Tuesday 28 September 2021, 11.00am to 11.50am BST
Is the presence of different religious groups in society a source of conflict – or a resource for social flourishing? Cambridge Interfaith Programme researchers discuss how religious conversion provokes debates about national identity in Europe, how religious groups negotiate shared sacred spaces and challenges and opportunities presented by violent-sounding scriptural texts.
Join Professor Esra Ozyurek, Dr Daniel H Weiss and Dr Safet HadžiMuhamedović for this fascinating conversation on religious conversion. Following the discussion, there will be an opportunity for the audience to ask questions to the panellists.
Speakers
Professor Esra Özyürek
Professor Esra Özyürek joined the University of Cambridge in 2020 as Sultan Qaboos Professor of Abrahamic Faiths and Shared Values. She is the Academic Director of Cambridge Interfaith Programme, based in the Faculty of Divinity. As a social anthropologist and ethnographer, Professor Özyürek’s research and teaching explore the tension between universalism and particularism in religious and post-religious belief and value systems. Her study of German converts to Islam featured in the April 2021 issue of CAM magazine.
Dr Daniel H Weiss
Dr Daniel H Weiss is the Polonsky-Coexist Senior Lecturer in Jewish Studies in the Faculty of Divinity. His research and teaching focus on Jewish thought and culture, rabbinic literature, philosophy of religion, and interreligious relations. Along with Dr Julia Snyder, he is co-leader of the Cambridge Interfaith Programme’s ‘Scripture & Violence’ impact project (www.scriptureandviolence.org) and co-editor of the book Scripture and Violence (Routledge, 2020).
Dr Safet HadžiMuhamedović (Hughes Hall 2009)
Dr Safet HadžiMuhamedović is a research associate with the Cambridge Interfaith Programme. His anthropological research focuses on syncretism, shared rituals and the afterlives of religious plurality in post-conflict spaces. He is the curator of the Shared Sacred exhibition (2021, sharedsacred.com) and the author of Waiting for Elijah: Time and Encounter in a Bosnian Landscape (Berghahn, 2018).
Booking information
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