Mark Juergensmeyer

Mark Juergensmeyer 2015

Mark Juergensmeyer (born November 13, 1940 in Carlinville , Illinois ) is an American sociologist and religious scholar.

Juergensmeyer is Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies and Director of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara .

He works on topics such as religious violence, conflict resolution, and South Asian religions and politics. He first became internationally known with his work Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence , published in 2000 . In 2003 he received the Grawemeyer Award for his services in religious studies, in 2004 the Silver Award from the Queen Sofia Center for the Study of Violence in Spain and in 2007 the Unitas Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York .

He has been a regular commentator in the US media since the events of September 11th . He is a member of the United Methodist Church. He has been married to Sucheg Chan since 1969.

theses

Juergensmeyer argues that the revival of religious politics at the beginning of the 21st century is largely due to the loss of belief in secular nationalism in an increasingly globalized world. Globalization has accelerated this trend towards the religious.

For Juergensmeyer, religion is a means of aggravating political conflicts. It serves as legitimation and includes an absolute claim. For the future, Juergensmeyer sees both opportunities for the ideologies of the secular and religious nation-state to converge and the likelihood of further conflicts.

Fonts (selection)

• Religion as Social Vision: The Movement Against Untouchability in 20th Century Punjab. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982
• Radhasoami Reality: The Logic of a Modern Faith. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. 
• The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993
• Terror in the name of God: a look behind the scenes of violent fundamentalism , Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2004 (English: Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence , 2000)
• Gandhi's Way: A Handbook of Conflict Resolution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005 
• The globalization of religious violence. From Christian Militias to al-Qaeda , Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-86854-209-7 ( Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State, from Christian Militia to al Qaeda , 2008) (reviews from Tonia Schüller and Ludwig Watzal ; PDF; 54 kB)

Web links

• Homepage
• Homepage at the University of California