Bruce Lawrence: "Minor Matters - African/Asian, Christian/Muslim"

How does minority citizenship function in places of Africa and Asia that have mixed communities, communities that might be religiously marked as Christian/Muslim, though their members also negotiate other cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and locational identities? The key issue is not minorities or religion, but citizenship and public space. Neither Islam nor Christianity is an independent variable, neither Muslims nor Christians, autonomous religious actors. Can one avoid the vortex of circularity while also engaging the everyday pragmatics of citizenship in local contexts that project, but also exceed, their Christian and Muslim identities? That is the challenge that Professor Lawrence will explore with examples from his fieldwork done in Ethiopia and the Southern Philippines.

Bruce Lawrence earned his PhD. from Yale University in the History of Religions: Islam and Hinduism. His research ranges from institutional Islam to Indo-Persian Sufism and also encompasses the comparative study of religious movements. He is Professor Emeritus of Islamic Studies at Duke University. His recent books have included On Violence – A Reader (with Aisha Karim); Messages to the World, The Statements of Osama Bin Laden; The Quran, A Biography; and, with his spouse, Dr. miriam cooke, Muslim Networks from Hajj to Hip Hop.