Religion and Conflict MPhil Pathway | Faculty of Divinity

Religion and Conflict MPhil Pathway | Faculty of Divinity
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Religion and Conflict MPhil Pathway
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Religion and Conflict
The aim of the pathway in Religion and Conflict is to offer students the opportunity to pursue advanced study in a vibrant and rapid developing field of considerable contemporary importance. Claims and counterclaims about the causal relationship between religion and conflict appear regularly in scholarly literature, as well as the discourse of religious leaders, the media, and policy-makers, across the globe. Religious motivations are, for example, widely cited as a principal cause of terrorism in the world today, and sacred texts are regularly said to contain the potential to incite hatred, as well as, paradoxically, to be indispensable tools in conflict resolution. The pathway is intended to equip students to critically evaluate such claims and provide them with the knowledge and intellectual skills necessary to become informed contributors to current debates about the place of religion in conflict.
Students taking the pathway will have the opportunity to engage with major theoretical approaches and research methods employed in the field as well as the chance to scrutinise a number case studies, textual, historical and contemporary, from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. In addition to allowing a deeper engagement with the specific subjects analysed and introducing them to the complexity necessarily inherent in the field, the case studies will provide a means of exploring the wider implications of questions raised by the study of religion and conflict more generally. Students will also undertake a sustained piece of research in the form of the dissertation, that will allow them to engage with a topic in depth. The pathway will provide a firm foundation for those who wish to pursue further postgraduate studies, but it is also intended to give those that do not, a critical understanding of religion and conflict that will prove extremely valuable in other contexts.
The Religion and Conflict pathway comprises two taught modules, a language
or
skills exercise, and a dissertation. Students typically take the Introduction to the Study of Religion and Conflict in Michaelmas Term, followed by one of the following modules in Lent Term: Ethnographic Approaches to Religion and Conflict
or
The Religion, Politics and Policies of Democratic Backsliding
or
Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and ‘Christian Europe’. Modules are assessed by a 5,000-word essay each by the end of the term in which the module is taught.
Students are free to choose the subject of each essay. The subject of each essay must be agreed with the supervisor and approved by the Module Coordinator and Degree Committee. The essay titles must relate closely to the subject of at least one seminar in each module undertaken in the pathway.
The dissertation is the principal element within a student's overall portfolio of assessed work.  Of not more than 15,000 words in length, the dissertation is the fruit of a student's own original research, conducted under the guidance of an expert academic supervisor. Students who wish to write a dissertation in the area of Religion and Conflict must have completed Modules within the pathway. In addition to dissertation supervision, three pathway-specific study-skills seminars will be offered.
In addition to the assessed essays, and dissertation, students will normally undertake the exercise specific to the Religion and Conflict pathway. However, in consultation with the Pathway Coordinator, they may opt for one of the other options offered. See the Exercise section for details.
Modules in 2025-2026:
1.
Theories and Issues in the Study of Religion and Conflict
2.
Contemporary Religious Conflict: Ethnographic Approaches
Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and ‘Christian Europe’
The Religion, Politics and Policies of Democratic Backsliding
Module 1. Michaelmas Term. Theories and Issues in the Study of Religion and Conflict
Module Coordinator:
Justin Meggitt,
jjm1000@cam.ac.uk
This module will seek to introduce students to the critical study of religion and conflict by scrutinising current theoretical debates about the place of religion in a variety of forms of conflict, from genocide to domestic violence, and by closely analysing indicative and emblematic scriptural, historical, and contemporary case studies.
Module aims
To provide a critical overview of the dominant theories of the relationship between religion and conflict.
To examine in-depth questions raised by the study of the scriptural, historical, and contemporary dimensions of religion and conflict by means of specific case studies.
To introduce, analyse and problematise a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of religion and conflict.
Module objectives.
By the end of the module, students should be able to:
Critically evaluate the prevalent theories of the relationship between religion and conflict.
Develop an informed understanding of the claims made about religion’s role in contemporary conflict.
Understand historiographical debates concerning the role of religion in past conflicts and the ways these conflicts continue to shape the present.
Analyse claims about the relationship between religious texts and acts of violence in current scholarship.
Seminar topics
Seminar 1. Introduction to Key theories and Issues in the Study of Religion and Conflict
This seminar offers a critical introduction to leading theories on the relationship between religion and conflict. It will examine how religious ideas, practices, and institutions contribute to inciting, legitimising, or mitigating violence, from genocide to domestic abuse. Special attention will be given to definitional challenges and their implications, as well as competing claims about causality.
Seminar 2. Contemporary Case Studies: Terrorism and the Military
In this seminar two case studies will be examined. The first will focus on the 'religious turn' in terrorism studies, especially the so-called 'New Terrorism' thesis that emerged in the late 20th century and gained salience after 9/11. The claim that a new, religious form of terrorism has appeared, that is distinguishable from earlier kinds by its indiscriminate use of violence and disinterest in this-worldly strategic goals, will be critically analysed. The second case-study will explore the experiences of Rastafari serving in the UK Armed Forces, a community which represents several tensions as members of a deeply anti-colonial and often anti-violent faith group but employed in professions which revolve around violence and death by employers with inextricable imperialist histories. The session will examine how Rastafari personnel (re/)interpret core philosophies in contexts which can feature ignorance surrounding Rastafari faith alongside racism and discrimination.
Seminar 3. Contemporary Case Study: Polarisation in the USA
This seminar will examine the role of religion in current American politics. Looking through the lens of a theologian, and anthropologist, a political scientist and an historian, this session explores socio-economic, theological, cultural and historic dimensions to evangelical support for the MAGA-movement. Based on the sources, students will consider how ‘religion’ explains this support and reflect on the consequences of polarisation in church life.
Seminar 4: Historical Case Study: Slavery, Others, and the Emergence of the Human in Early Modern Period
This seminar will consider the contested role of religion in early modern Atlantic and Mediterranean slaveries, and the theological and legal concepts used to both justify and criticise its practice. It will examine the dominant historiographical debates and their contemporary interpretations, paying particular attention to such themes as conversion, holy war, orientalism, and race, as well as addressing questions about legacy and memorialisation.
Seminar 5. Scriptural Case Study: Book of Revelation
This seminar will focus on the contextual and interpretative history of the Book of Revelation, and hermeneutical approaches associated with its implication in violence. It will explore contested readings of the themes of persecution, suffering, martyrdom, judgement and vengeance found in current critical literature on Revelation, and debates about their real, metaphorical and mythic qualities, as well as the gendered representations of violence and victimhood. The reception history of Revelation, as it relates to acts of violence — and anti-violence — will also be examined.
Assessment.
The module is assessed by a 5,000 word essay due at the end of term. The subject of each essay must be agreed with the supervisor and approved by the Module Co-ordinator and Degree Committee. The essay titles must relate closely to the subject of at least one seminar in the module.
Sample essay questions
Students can choose to focus on specific religious texts, traditions, or historical events in formulating their question but the following suggestions may prove helpful.
Seminar 1: Theories of Religion and Conflict
What is the relationship between religion and conflict?
Is religious violence a secular myth?
Can we speak of a ‘return of religion’ in the 21st century?
Can we think of religion separate from its (institutional) tradition?
Seminar 2: Contemporary Case Study: Terrorism and the Military
Does religion cause terrorism?
How have philosophies/theologies identified externally as 'anti-violent' been reinterpreted in violent contexts?
How are historical experiences of colonial violence understood/experienced by faith communities serving within the UK Armed Forces?
Seminar 3: Contemporary Case Study: Polarisation in the USA
Is one’s religious identity part of one’s political preference, or is one’s political preference part of one’s religious identity?
Was ‘Jesus at the Capitol’ representative of evangelicals in the MAGA-movement?
Seminar 4: Historical Case Study: Slavery, Others, and the Emergence of the Human in Early Modern Period
How significant were theological concepts in the construction of race in the early modern period?
Were enslaved people in the early modern Mediterranean victims of a religious conflict?
Seminar 5: Scriptural Case Study: Book of Revelation
Can sacred texts incite violence?
Does the eschatological hope of the
Book of Revelation
ameliorate or accentuate violence?
How are Indigenous epistemological lenses utilised to interpret violent imagery within Revelation?
Module 2. Lent Term. Ethnographic Approaches to Religion and Conflict
Module Coordinator:
Joseph Webster (
jw557@cam.ac.uk
This module will introduce students to anthropological approaches to the study of religious conflict, and will do so primarily through critical examination of ethnographic case studies, while also considering the role of anthropological theory in explaining ethnographic data. The empirical focus will be on contemporary Protestant fundamentalism in Britain and America, but we will also examine the relationship between these versions of Protestantism, and the religiosity of the ‘far right’.
Module Aims
To provide a critical overview of anthropological methods and theories relevant to the study of religious conflict.
To critically examine several key ethnographic case studies to better understand the contemporary dynamics of religious conflict, considered within a specific and grounded context, namely Protestant fundamentalism in the UK and US.
To consider how anthropological approaches to the study of religious conflict might differ from other approaches, especially emic theological approaches embraced by the Protestant fundamentalist groups covered in the module.
Module Objectives
By the end of the module, students should be able to:
Understand what anthropological theory and ethnographic case studies bring to the study of religious conflict.
Critically evaluate a range of ethnographies of religious conflict to assess their theoretical insights, as well as their methodological strengths and weaknesses.
Understand and evaluate the intellectual worth of the broader anthropological approach to religious conflict, as related to moral and cultural relativism, an empirical focus on particularism and cultural difference, and a commitment to reflexivity and self-critique.
Seminar topics
Seminar 1. Exclusive Brethren Antichrists: Accusations of Evil and Political Conflict on the Aberdeenshire Coast
In this lecture/seminar we will discuss the case of the Exclusive Brethren, a socially separatist religious group who eagerly anticipate the imminent apocalypse. By examining the premillennial dispensationalism of Brethren ‘founding father’ John Nelson Darby, we will attempt to understand the relationship between contemporary politics and the imagination of future religious conflict. Among other topics, we will track various Brethren identifications of the Antichrist as a way to consider how accusations of this-worldly evil may be fertile ground for the development of social processes of ‘othering’ – processes which are crucial for sustaining and reproducing religious conflict.
* Key ethnography: Webster, J. (2013)
The Anthropology of Protestantism: Faith and Crisis among Scottish Fishermen
Seminar 2. The Religion of Orange Politics: Fraternity and Hate in Scotland and Northern Ireland
In this lecture/seminar we will discuss the Protestant commitments of the Orange Order and other loyalist groups active in Scotland, as well as their connection to ‘post-Troubles’ Northern Ireland. By questioning what we might mean by ‘sectarianism’, and by interrogating why, according to some in the Orange Order, religious bigotry and hate are morally good, we will attempt to rethink the social role of conflict in the production of social cohesion. From fraternal drinking and football violence, to contentious parading and political campaigning, this session will examine the role of religion in imagining and enacting ethno-nationalist conflict between Catholics and Protestants since signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
* Key ethnography: Webster, J. (2020)
The Religion of Orange Politics: Protestantism and Fraternity in Contemporary Scotland
Seminar 3. Racism and Islamophobia: The Religion of the Far-Right in Contemporary Britain
In this lecture/seminar we will examine how racism and Islamophobia come to take on religious expressions within certain white-majority communities in Britain. At issue is how far-right politics – as both a narrative and a form of activism – deploys the notion of Britain as a ‘Christian nation’ to the exclusion of those they regard as somehow culturally or ethnically incommensurable with Britain’s (imagined) ‘Christian heritage’. Seen as an ‘invented tradition’, Britishness may be actively redefined as a kind of religion, with civic nationalism giving way to ethno-religious nationalism as a result. By examining ethnographic accounts of the National Front and the English Defence League, this session will consider what happens when religious identity becomes inseparable from claims about ‘race’, as well as from experiences of racism.
* Key ethnography: Pilkington, H. (2016)
Loud and Proud: Passion and Politics in the English Defence League
Seminar 4. American Protestant Fundamentalism: From ‘Cultural Wars’ to Political Violence
In this lecture/seminar we move from Britain to the United States to consider how Protestant exceptionalism produces cultural conflicts that sometimes spill over into actual religious violence. By re-examining Susan Harding’s ethnographic account of Jerry Falwell’s ‘Moral Majority’ and comparing it to imaginations of religious and political conflict at the heart of ‘Survivalist’ and ‘Prepper’ culture, this session will consider what, if anything, has changed in over 40 years of American Protestant ‘Culture Wars’. With the rise of nationalist populism under the Presidency of Donald Trump, to what extent is American Protestant Fundamentalism an ally of such conflicts, or might the relationship between Trump and radical Christianity be other than we often assume?
* Key Ethnography: Harding, S. (2000)
The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics
Sample essay questions
In order to facilitate ethnographic comparison, students must choose to focus on two or more ethnographic case studies covered in the module when formulating their question, with at least one being taken from the ‘key ethnographies’ listed at the bottom of each seminar description. Other ethnographies can be selected by the student, in consultation with the Course Coordinator. When selecting ethnographies, the following sample essay questions may prove helpful:
Seminar 1: Exclusive Brethren Antichrists: Accusations of Evil and Political Conflict on the Aberdeenshire Coast
How does anticipating a future apocalyptic conflict change life in the present?
Beyond the moral condemnation of specific individuals, what might the social and cultural impact be of identifying various Antichrists?
Seminar 2. The Religion of Orange Politics: Fraternity and Hate in Scotland and Northern Ireland
Is religious hate good?
In what way is football hooliganism akin to religious conflict?
Seminar 3. Racism and Islamophobia: The Religion of the Far-Right in Contemporary Britain
Can ‘race’ be a religion? / Can religion be a ‘race’?
How important is the process of ‘othering’ in creating and perpetuating religious conflict?
Seminar 4. American Protestant Fundamentalism: From ‘Cultural Wars’ to Political Violence
What is the role of language in stimulating religious conflict?
Are religious conflicts really cultural conflicts in disguise?
Module 3. Lent Term. Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and ‘Christian Europe’
Module coordinators: Prof. Esra Özyürek (
ego24@cam.ac.uk
) and Dr Daniel Weiss (
dhw27@cam.ac.uk
European Christendom has been marked by two notable forms of hatred: antisemitism/anti-Judaism and Islamophobia. In this module we will explore both phenomena independently, as well as in relation to one other. Some scholars argue that these two forms of hatred are essentially different, as Judaism has often been conceived of as a category internal to ‘Christian Europe,’ while Islam has often been conceived as external to it; hence, antisemitism functions as the hatred of an ‘internal enemy’ and Islamophobia as the hatred of an ‘external enemy.’ Other scholars, conversely, argue that Jews and Muslims have often been imagined in very similar terms, or even as one and the same. In this module we will explore the religious and racial dimensions of these two minorities, whether conceived of as inside or precisely at the cultural margins of a ‘Christian Europe.’ As we examine these dynamics historically, philosophically, theologically, and anthropologically, we will aim to understand how they have formed and challenged understandings of the meanings and possibilities of the idea of ‘Europe.’
Seminar 1: Jews and Muslims in Christian Theology
Anidjar, Gil. (2003) The Jew, the Arab: A History of the Enemy. Stanford University Press.
Carter, J. Kameron (2008) Race: A Theological Account
Heschel, Susannah. (2008) The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible In Nazi Germany. Princeton University Press.
Kalmar, Ivan. (2012) Early Orientalism: Imagined Islam and the Notion of Sublime Power. London: Routledge.
Mufti, Amir (2007) Enlightenment in the Colony: The Jewish Question and the Culture of Postcolonial Culture. Princeton University Press.
Shohat, Ella. (2020). The Split Arab/Jew Figure Revisited. Patterns of Prejudice.
Soulen, R. Kendall (1996) The God of Israel and Christian theology
Topolski, Anya. (2020). The dangerous discourse of the ‘Judaeo-Christian’ myth: masking the race–religion constellation in Europe. Patterns of Prejudice.
Westerduin, Matthea. (2020). Questioning religio-secular temporalities: mediaeval formations of nation, Europe and race. Patterns of Prejudice.
Seminar 2: From Anti-Judaism to Antisemitism
Adorno, Theodor and Max Horkheimer. (1997) Dialectics of Enlightenment
Bauman, Zygmunt. (1997) Postmodernity and its discontents.
Hochberg, Gil. (2020). From ‘sexy Semite’ to Semitic ghosts: contemporary art between Arab and Jew. Patterns of Prejudice.
Hess, Jonathan. (2002). Germans, Jews and the Claims of Modernity
Nirenberg, David. (2013) Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition. New York: Norton
Raz-Krakotzkin, Amnon. (2015). “Secularism, the Christian Ambivalence Toward the Jews, and the Notion of Exile.”
Said, Edward. (1981). Covering Islam.
Seminar 3: Islamophobia
Kumar, Deepa (2012). Islamophobia and The Politics of Empire. London: Verso.
Fekete, Liz. (2009). A Suitable Enemy: Racism, Migration, and Islamophobia in Europe. Pluto.
Rana, Junaid. (2011). Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in the South Asian Diaspora. Duke University Press.
Runymede Report (1997) Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All
Silverstein, Paul. (2005) Immigrant Racialization and the New Savage Slot: Race, Migration, and Immigration in the New Europe. Annual Review of Anthropology.
--- (2010) The Fantasy of Violence of Religious Imagination: islamophobia and anti- Semitism in France and North Africa. In Islamophobia/Islamophilia. Indiana UP.
Seminar 4: Jewish-Muslim connections in Europe
Baer, Marc. (2020) German, Jew, Muslim, Gay: The Life and Times of Hugo Marcus. Columbia University Press. Stranger/Sister documentary
Brann, Ross (2021) Iberian Moorings: Al-Andalus, Sefarad, and the Tropes of Exceptionalism
Bunzl, Matti. (2007) Antisemitism and Islamophobia: Hatreds of Old and New in Europe.
Gilman, Sander. (2014) The Case of Circumcision: Diaspora Judaism as a Model for Islam? Esther Romeyn, ‘Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: spectropolitics and immigration’, Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 31, no. 6, 77–101.
Katz, Ethan. (2015) The Burdens of Brotherhood: Jews and Muslims from North Africa to France
Klug, Brian. (2013) Interrogating new Antisemitism. Ethnic and Racial Studies 36(3): 468-482.
Meedeb, Abdelwahab and Benjamin Stora. (2014) A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day. Princeton University Press.
Meer, Nassar (2014) Racialization and Religion: Race, Culture, and Difference in the Study of Antisemitism and Islamophobia. London: Routledge
Stroumsa, Sarah (2019). Andalus and Sefarad: On Philosophy and Its History in Islamic Spain
Module 4. Lent Term: The Religion and Policies of Democratic Backsliding
Module Co-ordinator: Dr Marietta van der Tol,
mdcv2@cam.ac.uk
Module Outline
This module offers students an opportunity to explore ideologies and practices behind the label ‘democratic backsliding’ and the many ways in which religion
is
invoked, lived and contested. Students will study the contexts of Europe, Russia, the United States, India, Israel, Turkey and Brazil, as well as engage the many transnational configurations of ideas, practices, and movements. As such, the module draws on a combination of religious studies, politics, and international relations.
The module will equip students to handle a spectrum of concepts with a measure of sophistication, including ‘illiberalism’, ‘conservatism’, ‘anti-liberalism’, and ‘authoritarianism’, ‘nationalism’, ‘populism’, ‘civilisationalism’. Through engagement with literature as well as primary sources and policy briefings, students will learn about the importance of language and how language may be used flexibly to speak to a wide range of constituencies.
The module provides students with a robust introduction to legal, governmental, and especially constitutional dimensions to democratic backsliding and resilience, and how these impact ‘liberal’ and ‘illiberal’-leaning democracies differently. Students will learn about the difference between legality and legitimacy, and study threats to judicial independence.
Students will engage with transnational and geopolitical aspects of democratic backsliding, its relevance for the Russo-Ukrainian war, and new fault lines emerging in global politics. Throughout, students will study the different roles that religion plays as a source of both democratic backsliding and resilience, which inevitably question the binary of the sacred vs the secular, and open conversations about diffuse meanings of religion in politics.
Module Structure
Defining the concepts: illiberalism, conservatism, anti-liberalism, authoritarianism
Nations, civilisations, and ‘the people’
Law,
legalism and legitimacy
Flexible coalitions, transnational organisations
Seminars
The paper is comprised of 4 two-hour seminars. Students are expected to read widely and be ready to discuss the literature based on selected primary sources in
class. Further readings are intended to guide students who want to explore topics in greater depth.
Assessment
The module is assessed by a 5,000-word essay. Essay questions will be provided.
Seminar 1: Defining the concepts: illiberalism, conservatism, anti-liberalism, authoritarianism
Readings for this week focus on definitions of illiberalism, conservatism, anti-liberalism and authoritarianism. While ideas associated with these concepts and ideologies may
overlap in the
context
of democratic backsliding, it is important to look at particular socio- political contexts to determine the significance of such overlaps.
For
example, conservatism has different social, moral, and economic resonances in Russia, the USA and Europe –
students are invited to reflect on the question to what extent conservatism is constitutive of practices of democratic backsliding,
aka ‘illiberalism’.
Seminar 2: Nations, civilisations, and 'the people'
Readings for this week focus on how religion relates to nationalism, populism and
civilisationalism. Looking at distinctions between
‘believing’, ‘behaving’,
and
‘belonging’,
students are invited to reflect on the nature of political claims on religion and the
relationship between political and religious authorities. Students will critically engage the meaning of ‘the secular’, ‘the West’ and ‘liberalism’, and consider to what the nature is of the supposed ‘return of religion’ in the public sphere on a national, local, and regional
scale.
Seminar 3: Law, legalism and legitimacy
Readings for this week look at the spectrum of governmental practices that constitute democratic backsliding, sometimes described as ‘forging’, ‘bending’, or ‘breaking’ the law.
Students will take a closer look at democratic institutions, studying the impact of democratic backsliding on the independence and functioning of the highest courts in
Poland, Hungary and Israel. Moreover, students will learn about the concepts of legality and legitimacy, and the way in which the relationship between the two can be
fundamentally disrupted by broad political references to ‘the people’ – and the potential impact thereof on the rights of religious, ethnic or sexual minorities.
Seminar 4: Flexible coalitions, transnational organisations
Readings for this week focus on the role of religion in the formation of flexible
transnational networks and coalitions operating across the far-right spectrum. Students will learn about ways in which Russian Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism are conscripted in these networks, especially on political contentious matters relating to gender, sexuality, feminism, abortion, and the family. Students will also learn about the extent to which transnational coalitions navigate different demands on a national, regional and international level, and familiarise themselves with the key-incongruences that pertain to geopolitical interests, NATO, and the future of Ukraine.
Sample essay questions
Is religion constitutive to the transnational configurations of illiberalism?
Does legitimacy rely on legality or does legality rely on legitimacy?
Are ‘Forging’, ‘Bending’, and ‘Breaking’ a matter of legal interpretation?
Are there similarities between the religious rhetoric of Holy Rus and the MAGA- movement?
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