Release date: Feb. 20, 2008
Contact: Elaine Justice at 404-727-0643 or elaine.justice@emory.edu

Emory to Host International Conference on Religious Extremism

Emory University will bring together 21 noted scholars from Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other major world religions March 3-4, for an international conference examining religious extremism through a new comparative perspective.

"The Wrathful God: Religious Extremism in Comparative Perspective" has been organized by professors Vincent J. Cornell of Emory, Kurt Anders Richardson of McMaster University and Shlomo Fischer of Tel Aviv University, and will provide a forum for some of the most important writers and thinkers in their respective fields. Keynote speakers include Bruce Lawrence of Duke University, David Novak of the University of Toronto, R. Scott Appleby of Notre Dame University, and Akeel Bilgrami of Columbia University.

Is religious extremism a shared tradition across religious faiths? Is the God of extremism different from the God of mainstream religious traditions? Is it possible to be "critically orthodox" as an antidote to religious extremism without abandoning the central tenets of a tradition? Emory's "Wrathful God" conference will address these and other questions, says conference co-organizer Cornell.

Cornell, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies at Emory, notes that the concept for the conference grew out of discussions among Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars at their yearly meeting at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.

"Studies of religious extremist texts at the 2005 session of this conference revealed a striking similarity," says Cornell. "At times, the discourses of these texts were so similar as to be virtually indistinguishable from each other." He and his colleagues suggested that religious extremism might be viewed as a tradition in its own right. The Emory conference will examine this hypothesis by comparatively considering key varieties of extremist discourse.

Special attention will be devoted to the monotheistic or "Abrahamic" traditions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, says Cornell. For comparative purposes, he adds, Hindu and Buddhist extremism also will be examined.

"Participants in the conference were invited because of their expertise in the study of religion, society and religious extremism, and because of their willingness to 'think outside of the box' in formulating new paradigms of analysis," says Cornell.

In addition to theological issues, participants will examine religious extremism from sociological and social-psychological perspectives–and from the perspective of technology and ideology. While at Emory, participants also will plan an edited volume based on the conference.

The conference will be held at Emory's Michael C. Carlos Museum reception hall. The event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. To view the conference schedule, paper abstracts, complete list of participants and details, see www.ICIS.emory.edu, or contact Kate Bennett, 404-727-4663, kate.bennett@emory.edu, or Art Linton, 404-727-5352, art.linton@emory.edu.

"The Wrathful God: Religious Extremism in Comparative Perspective" is sponsored by Emory's Institute for Comparative and International Studies (ICIS); Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding Initiative; Candler School of Theology; Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies; Department of Religion; South Asian Studies Program; the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies; and the Hightower Fund.

Emory University (www.emory.edu) is one of the nation’s leading private research universities and a member of the Association of American Universities. Known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities, Emory is ranked as one of the country's top 20 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most comprehensive health care system.

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