News

Cambridge research indicates the difference made by religion during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sriya Iyer, Professor of Economics and a member of the Cambridge Interfaith Research Forum, is co-author of two recently-released studies.A Cambridge Working Paper in Economics, issued this week, draws information from nearly 4,000 UK residents surveyed durin…

In December, the Cambridge Interfaith Programme co-hosted a fifth event in the series Religion, ethnicity, and politics in German, Dutch and Anglo-American contexts: nationalism and the future of democracy. This participatory research workshop was organised jointly by Sophia Johnson (Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge), Dr Marietta van der Tol (Blavatn…

The organisers of the 2024 Entangled Otherings workshop invite responses to this call for papers:There is nothing new, in essence, about social tensions concerning monitoring, speech and silence surrounding Islamophobia and antisemitism in Germany, much of the Western world, and elsewhere; indeed, it has been clear to various observers since the ea…

Our quarterly update entered inboxes this morning. Non-subscribers can view this and other updates in the MailChimp archive, or download a PDF copy below.These mailings provide an overview of upcoming events, highlight news and activities, and promote opportunities to engage with the Cambridge Interfaith Programme’s work. This issue begins with new…

Dr Daniel Weiss (Divinity) and Professor Napoleon Katsos (Linguistics) are celebrating news that their pilot work on God and Human Speech has been rewarded by a multi-year full grant from the John Templeton Foundation.The full project now has the title, God, Language and Diversity: Spiritual Flourishing in Neurodiverse and Multilingual Communities.…

The Cambridge Interfaith Programme has released a report from research carried out as part of the 18-month project Water Efficiency in Faith & Diverse Communities. Funded by the Ofwat Innovation Fund, the research is part of a collaboration with Cambridge Water, South Staffordshire Water, other water industry actors and ecological organisations.Tod…

CIP is pleased to be partnering with the Faculty of Divinity and the Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CRASSH) to invite applications for funded Visiting Fellowships for scholars from the Global South under the theme Religious Boundaries.Themed call: Religious BoundariesApplications are invited from scholars whose res…

Autumn 2023 brought another tranche of applicants from outside the Faculty of Divinity to join the Cambridge Interfaith Research Forum, all of whom we are now pleased to welcome as members. Researchers often connect with us in hope of fostering or enhancing collaborations that advance their research agenda. The Research Forum provides a particular …

The Arabic word Qantara (قنطرة) means bridge. Qantara.de provides journalistic coverage connecting the Islamic world with Germany.Qantara’s Claudia Mende interviewed CIP Academic Director Professor Esra Özyürek about her ethnographic research among Muslims in Germany. The interview is available in English and German.Here is an extract:“Ms. Özyürek,…

Dr Alexandra S Ilieva, Teaching Associate of Buddhist Studies, reports from the launch of Dr Ankur Barua’s debut novel—held at the Faculty of Divinity on 8 November 2023: The intention was to read aloud from various chapters from Ankur’s book in an effort to spark discussion surrounding questions of religious identity, Orientalism, colonialism, and…

Researchers at the University of Cambridge are marking UK Inter Faith Week (12—19 November 2023) with a series of events exploring how religion influences our attitudes to and use of water. The theme was chosen in response to ongoing research funded by the Ofwat Innovation Fund and participating UK water companies. The project stakeholders are hopi…

“Sie haben mehr als zehn Jahre untersucht, wie deutsche Muslime in den Fokus der Holocaust-Aufarbeitung gerückt sind. Warum gerade in Deutschland?”“You’ve spent more than a decade investigating how Germany Muslims became the focus in coming-to-terms-with the Holocaust. Why Germany?”So begins an extended interview between Zeit Online and Professor E…

In 2017, a New York Times opinion piece cited the work of CIP’s Dr Daniel Weiss to make a case that Christians should support gun control. The writer, Richard Parker, drew on an article Daniel had published in the Journal of Religious Ethics.As part of a wider body of work on religious responses to violence, Daniel was weighing up how Thomas Aquina…

Researchers in the field of religious studies are invited to contribute their expertise to help identify authorial editorial bias across in different branches of Wikipedia. Existing research demonstrates that the problem is often one of absence.BackgroundIn 2021, research funded by the Wikimedia Foundation found that Western artists were over-repre…

Dr Ankur Barua (pictured, right) is Senior Lecturer in Hindu Studies at the University of Cambridge. Immersed in inter-religious relations all his life, he found new inspiration under the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic: The extra alone time prompted him to record and share versions of devotional chants he had been taught as a young child. Th…