In another example of the political Right adopting protest methods generally associated with the Left, November 20th's "Manhattan Declaration" by American Christian leaders promises to follow the example of civil disobedience set by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement.

The Social Science Research Council's Dissertation Proposal Development Workshop (DPDF), which gives graduate students in the humanities and social sciences an opportunity "to conduct preliminary research and prepare dissertation research and funding proposals," is now fielding applications for its 2010 competition. Fellowships will be awarded in six research fields, including After Secularization: New Approaches to Religion and Modernity, under the guidance of Vincent P. Pecora, Gordon B. Hinckley Professor of English at the University of Utah, and Jonathan Sheehan, Associate Professor of History at the University of California - Berkeley.

At CTheory.net, Nitasha Kaul considers how we may or may not be able to contextualize the motivations and strategies of terrorists.

At the New York Times, Patricia Cohen reviews Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People, a recent best-seller in Israel that is now available in English. A scholar of modern France from Tel Aviv University, Sand explicitly presents his book as an attempt to undermine the twin notions that the "Jewish people"  share a single ancestry and that this people share ancestral rights to the land of Israel.

Under Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, Pope Benedict XVI met with more than 250 (mostly Italian) artists to "renew the Church's friendship with the world of art."

Samuel G. Freedman, in the New York Times, reports on the increasingly prevalent commitment of young evangelicals to social justice work.

In the New York Times, Kenneth J. Wolfe argues that Benedict XVI's decision to return to older forms of liturgy is not a throwback, but a sign of a pope in touch with a younger generation of Catholics.

At In These Times, Kristian Williams reviews Judith Butler's Frames of War.