Hurd to speak on U.S. global influence amid Gaza conflict

Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, professor of political science and professor and chair of religious studies at Northwestern University, will discuss the intersection of religion and politics in the Gaza war Thursday, April 3, at 4:30 p.m. in the Kresge Little Theatre inside Ripon College’s East Hall.

The talk is sponsored by Ripon College’s Center for Politics and the People (CPP) and is free and open to the public.

In the presentation, Hurd will discuss a chapter in her soon-to-be released book, “Heaven Has a Wall: Religion, Borders, and the Global United States,” to illuminate the recent debate surrounding the United States’ support for Israel in the Gaza war by presenting a longer-range perspective on religion, politics and American borders.

Hurd teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on religion, race, global politics, law, American borders, politics of religious diversity and the U.S. in the Middle East. She advises graduate students interested in these topics as well as international political theory, political ethnography, politics of the Middle East and methods in the study of religion and politics.

She co-directs the Global Religion & Politics Research Group, is a faculty member in the Northwestern Middle East and North African (MENA) Studies Program and is a member of the French Interdisciplinary Group’s Sciences Po Partnership Advisory Committee.

Hurd consults on academic, media and foundation initiatives related to religion and global affairs. She has contributed articles to various publications, including The Boston Review, Public Culture, The Atlantic, Chicago Tribune, Foreign Policy, Globe and Mail, Al Jazeera English and The Huffington Post.

She has authored other books including “The Politics of Secularism in International Relations” and “Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion” and has been co-editor of “Politics of Religious Freedom,” “Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age,” “At Home and Abroad: The Politics of American Religion” and “Theologies of American Exceptionalism.”