BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Nepal: National Imaginaries, Ethnographic Anxieties, and Geopolitical Power ABSTRACTThis talk examines China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Nepal to argue that infrastructure is a symbolic project of national development imaginaries, a process and practice of state formation, and a vector for […]

BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES China’s Islamic Outreach to the Middle East ABSTRACTThroughout its existence, the People’s Republic of China has depended on Chinese Muslims to foster relationships in the Arab world. But Beijing’s strategies for engaging its Muslim population in foreign outreach have changed dramatically over time. This lecture will focus on […]

BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES Supporting the Faith, Building the Empire: Imperial Japan’s Islamic Policies in World War II  ABSTRACT This talk will examine some of the ways that the Japanese Empire curried favors to Muslims in China, and later throughout East Asia, in the lead up to and throughout World War II. […]

BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES Religion as Infrastructure: Congolese Migration, Diaspora, and Religious Networks ABSTRACT In the last two decades, African charismatic and (neo)-Pentecostal communities have arisen in many metropolises globally. Questioning a traditional notion of infrastructure that focuses solely on architectures and utilities, Dr. Heck will show in her presentation, how revival […]

BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity ABSTRACT No contemporary figure is more demonized than the Islamist foreign fighter who wages jihad around the world. Spreading violence, disregarding national borders, and rejecting secular norms, so-called jihadists seem opposed to universalism itself. In a radical departure […]

BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES The Politics of Muslim Infrastructure in Tanzania ABSTRACTKariakoo is an old residential area in the city of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. In recent decades, it has transformed into a super-dense commercial district. Droves of people converge in its streets every day to trade goods which go on […]

BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES The New Faith Roads in Southeast Asia: Dynamics of a Circulatory Missionary Process ABSTRACTThis lecture on proselytizing to/from Southeast Asia is a critical reflection on a major shift in the world’s religious balance, with geopolitical, sociological and economic implications. Our mapping of religious mutations and issues in Southeast […]

BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES Circulations and Convergences: Mecca in the Conceptions and Mobilities of Chinese Muslim Diasporas in Saudi Arabia ABSTRACTMecca is often viewed through the angles of the pilgrimage, empires, Saudi foreign policy, and a source of religious movements elsewhere. While building on such transnational angles, this talk proposes to view […]

BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES Making the Muslim World in the Age of Britain’s Steam and Print Initiative ABSTRACTEuropean Imperialism during the long 19th century was characterized by increasing connectivity and mobility across Asia due to infrastructure grid of steamships and trains, telegraph lines and printing press. Symbolized by the opening of the Suez […]

BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES History Written in Advance: The Temporal Politics of Learning Mandarin for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Zambia ABSTRACTOver the last decade, there have been a proliferating number of Mandarin-language Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations in Zambia. These congregations are almost exclusively composed of local Zambians who have learned Mandarin as a second […]

BRINFAITH RELIGION AND EMPIRE PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES Infrastructure and Connectivity across the Karakoram-Pamir Watershed, since 1918 ABSTRACTLocated at the crossroads of Central, East, and South Asia, the watershed that divides the Karakoram and Pamir mountains today also serves a geopolitical function in marking the territorial boundary between the People’s Republic of China and Pakistan. This […]