The Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University (ASU) invites applications for Postdoctoral Research Scholars for two projects:

1. Recovering Truth: Religion, Journalism and Democracy in a Post-Truth Era
This project encourages scholars, journalists, and students to deliberate on, and create new platforms for thinking and communicating about, the pursuit, meaning, discovery, and recovery of truth in democratic life. Under the direction of principal investigators John Carlson and Tracy Fessenden, both professors of religious studies, this project draws deeply from the methods of religious studies, theology, ethics, political thought, journalism, philosophy, and other disciplines to examine assumptions and initiate a new public conversation about truth in a “post-truth era.” It fosters collaborations between scholars and journalists that will help each group to write more richly and accessibly. More generally, this project encourages scholars and journalists to join one another in reflection about democratic life and the moral and civic principles on which it depends. We are especially interested in exploring the place of theology in democracy: the role that different beliefs about reality, transcendence, moral principles, and other truth claims have played—and might play—in animating democratic life. By exploring theology as a resource for examining truth claims, our project deepens the capacity of journalists and academics alike to seek and stand for truth.

2. Beyond Secularization: Religion, Science and Technology in Public Life
This project, led by Gaymon Bennett, J. Benjamin Hurlbut, and Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, seeks to document, analyze, and reflect on the interplay of science, religion and technology in the contemporary “post-secular” moment. The project will explore some of the way the categories of science, technology, religion and secularity and the boundaries between them are conceived, enacted and/or problematized in public life. The project is organized around three central research areas: (a) imaginations of “progress” and “innovation” that have informed science and technology in the public/political sphere; (b) communities and cultures of innovation in which hybridized notions of techno-scientific and spiritual progress shape social forms and practices; and (c) new religious/spiritual subjectivities, identities, and movements that frame social possibilities for and constraints upon new and alternative imagination of progress.

The anticipated start date for either position is as early as July 1, 2020 and negotiable to August 15, 2020. The deadline for completed applications for both positions is December 31, 2019.

For the full calls for applications, including job descriptions, eligibility, and application processes, visit the Center’s website.