Date: March 25-26, 2019

Venue: The Woolf Institute, Cambridge, UK

This conference seeks to address the question how strictly observant religious groups or “fundamentalists” (Harding 2001) challenge two basic principles within contemporary societies: gender equality and the modern state. In the broadest sense, it seeks to address the question, what happens when fundamentalist groups and the state interact concerning questions of gender and sexuality?

Drawing on Martin Riesebrodt’s work on fundamentalism as “patriarchal protest movement” (1992, 2000), the conference seeks to investigate what role gender plays for the persistence of self-identifying strictly observant, fundamentalist, exclusivist, (ultra)orthodox, traditionalist, or socially conservative religious people in their interaction with state actors at different levels.

The conference aims to address the question how particularly the changing role of women and embodied religion within and outside fundamentalist movements poses challenges to established religious authorities (Stadler 2009). The struggle over the role of women is closely connected to the contested relationship between fundamentalists and the nation state (Fischer 2009).

Confirmed Keynote Speaker

Prof Torkel Brekke, University of Oslo and Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)

More information on: The Woolf Institute