[LCM Events] MIT - Dr. Malise Ruthven - TUESDAY April 5, 2011 - Emile Bustani Middle East Seminar

[Pardis Parsa]

MIT Emile Bustani Middle East Seminar



Fundamentalist & Other Obstacles to Religious Tolerance



Dr. Malise Ruthven

Author/Historian



April 5, 2011

4:30 – 6:00pm

E51-395 (Tang Center, 70 Memorial Drive)

For More information http://events.mit.edu/event.html?id=13572474&date=2011/4/5



Abstract

In this talk Malise Ruthven addresses issues of religious conflict and  
asks “Is - God - or theology to blame?” After exploring the term  
“fundamentalism” he suggests that it is the reification or  
“objectification” of religious symbols, rather than theological  
differences as such, that serve to perpetuate conflicts seen as  
religious. The manner in which symbols are transformed from being  
modes of apprehending spiritual realities (howsoever these are  
understood) into becoming non-exchangeable, and non-negotiable tokens  
of individual or group identity lie at the heart of conflicts  
afflicting many religious traditions at the present time.



Bio

Malise Ruthven is the author of Islam in the World (OUP, 1984, 1991,  
2006), an overview of Islamic faith and history, Torture:The Grand  
Conspiracy (Weidenfeld, 1978); Cairo (Time-Life, 1980); Traveller  
Through Time: A Photographic Journey with Freya Stark (Viking, 1986);  
The Divine Supermarket: Shopping for God in America (William Morrow  
nominated for the 1989 Thomas Cook Travel Award); A Satanic Affair:  
Salman Rushdie and the Wrath of Islam (Chatto & Windus, 1989); Islam:A  
Very Short Introduction (OUP, 1997, 2000 and published in several  
languages, A Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on America (Granta,  
2002);  Fundamentalism: The Search for Meaning (OUP 2004); and A  
Historical Atlas of the Islamic World [with Azim Nanji] (OUP/Harvard  
University Press, 2004 - Winner of the 2005 US Middle East Outreach  
Council Book Award). Gnosticism: A Very Short Introduction,  
commissioned by OUP will appear in 2012 along with Encountering Islam:  
a book of essays, to be published by I B Tauris. Ruthven’s   review  
essays and blogs appear regularly in  the New York Review of Books. In  
2004 London's Prospect magazine ranked Malise Ruthven among the 100  
top public intellectuals in Britain.

Malise Ruthven is a former scriptwriter for the BBC. He holds an MA in  
English Literature and a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from  
Cambridge University. He has taught Islamic studies, cultural history  
and comparative religion at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland,   
Birkbeck College, University of London, the University of California,  
San Diego, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire and at the Colorado  
College, Colorado Springs.


Seminars will be held in building E51, 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge.
http://whereis.mit.edu/?q=E51-145&zoom=16&lat=42.36226996640223&lng=-71.08632802963257&open=object-E51&maptype=mit


Emile Bustani Middle East Seminar: http://web.mit.edu/CIS/bustani/bustani2011spring.htm

contact: pardisp at mit.edu

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