International
Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs
The Berkley Center at Georgetown University was created in the office of Georgetown's President, Dr. John J. DeGioia, in March 2006. The Center is designed to build on Georgetown's strengths: academic excellence; Washington, DC, location; international reach; and a Catholic and Jesuit tradition open to other faiths and the wider secular world. Generous support from William R. Berkley, a member of the University Board of Directors, has enabled the Center's rapid growth.
The Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship
Ethnicity is now seen as a major feature of the social structure, personal identity, transnational networks and political conflict across the world. It is seen by some as challenging existing social hierarchies and conceptions of citizenship, and by others as introducing a new tribalism and threatening democracy and economic development.
The Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol has been set up in recognition of the importance of ethnicity to the study of contemporary societies and polities, and prospects for social justice and social cohesion. This new interdisciplinary Centre, located in the Department of Sociology, co-ordinates and promotes the study of ethnicity in two broad areas:
Ethnicity and state structures, cultural pluralism and its institutionalism, the politics of multiculturalism and other forms of 'difference', including gendered ethnicity and ethno-religious identities, minority rights and human rights, challenges to secularism, the nation-state and other aspects of existing conceptions of citizenship.
Ethnicity and socio-economic structures with a special focus on racialised exclusion, inter-generational poverty, labour markets, health, education, ethnic stratification and social mobility, ethnic competition and ethnic networks as a local, national and transnational economic resource.
The Center for the Study of Religion
The Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University is a major academic initiative that aims to encourage greater intellectual exchange and interdisciplinary scholarly studies about religion through diverse perspectives of the humanities and social sciences. Founded in 1999, the Center is committed to scholarly research and teaching that examines religion comparatively and empirically in its diverse historical and contemporary manifestations.
Center for the Study of Religion
The Center for the Study of Religion at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) was established in June 1995 under the auspices of Dean Pauline Yu of the Humanities Division, in order to coordinate research and give a more visible campus presence to the study of religion.
Current world developments continue to demonstrate the need for creating effective interdisciplinary institutions and approaches for rethinking the significance of the relations between religion and community. Moreover, we can anticipate that new strategies developed in the analysis of these religious phenomena will continue to result in fresh approaches to the study of culture in general.
The growing need for understanding religion and culture in modern contexts as well as in ancient ones, urged scholars of UCLA to bridge the gap between public and academia and among the academic departments related to the study of religion. Thus, the Center grew out of an informally organized group of faculty and students interested in religion.
Centre for Law and Religion
The Centre for Law and Religion at Cardiff University was established in the summer of 1998 to promote research and its dissemination in this field. Its activities are carried out in relation to the theory and practice of substantive law concerning religion, the focus being principally upon religious law and national and international law affecting religion, with regard to their historical, theological, social, ecumenical and comparative contexts.
Dynamics in the History of Religions
The Dynamics in the History of Religions Research consortium, based at Ruhr University, shares the conviction that the contemporary state of religion(s) can only be understood on the background of historical perspectives - and that historical perspective always includes references to contemporary issues. The overall aim of the Research Consortium is to develop a typology of religious contacts in order to contribute to theories of cultural tranfers.
Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life
The Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life at Columbia University works to bring together scholars and students in religion, cultural anthropology, history, political science, economics, social psychology and other allied fields to sustain multi-disciplinary analysis, reflection and response to historical and contemporary issues that are of great significance. The Institute also engages political and economic figures and policy practitioners, as well as religious and cultural leaders, in its programs. The scope of the Institute encompasses a broad range of phenomena, but also focuses on questions relating to the role of difference, identity, and practice within larger national and international contexts. While seeking to understand the bases of conflict and unrest, it examines traditions, practices and historical examples that demonstrate the potential for understanding, tolerance and ecumenical values within religious traditions, as well as patterns of social institutions that may facilitate coexistence and mutual support. By taking an expansive rather than a restricted view of religious thought and practice, the Institute recasts the traditional opposition between the secular and the religious in ways that promote innovative approaches to familiar problems.
J.M Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies
Baylor University established the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies in 1957, so named in honor of an outstanding alumnus, distinguished author, and ardent advocate of religious liberty and the separation of church and state. The Institute is the oldest and most well established facility of its kind located in a university setting. It is exclusively devoted to research in the broad area of religion, politics, and society and committed to the separation of church and state and the advancement of religious liberty around the world.
The Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life
The Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life was established at Trinity College in 1996 to advance knowledge and understanding of the varied roles that religious movements, institutions, and ideas play in the contemporary world; to explore challenges posed by religious pluralism and tensions between religious and secular values; and to examine the influence of religion on politics, civic culture, family life, gender roles, and other issues in the United States and elsewhere in the world.
The Max-Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity
Established in November 2007. It replaces the Max-Planck-Institute for History. Although MPI-MMG makes use of many resources inherited from the previous institute – particularly its buildings – MPI-MMG is an entirely new research initiative of the Max-Planck-Society. Prof. Dr. Steven Vertovec was inaugurated as the Institute’s first Director in November 2007. In November 2008, Prof. Dr. Peter van der Veer accepted the position as Director of the Department of Religious Pluralism.
The Pluralism Project
The Pluralism Project: World Religions in America at Harvard University is a decade-long research project, with current funding from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, to engage students in studying the new religious diversity in the United States. We will explore particularly the communities and religious traditions of Asia and the Middle East that have become woven into the religious fabric of the United States in the past twenty-five years.