Working Group Chairs
Emmanuel Katongole is Associate Professor of Theology and Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame and chair of ACI Africa. A Catholic priest ordained by the Archdiocese of Kampala, Katongole’s research interests focus on politics and violence in Africa, the theology of reconciliation, and Catholicism in the global South. He is the author of books on the Christian social imagination, the crisis of faith following the genocide in Rwanda, and Christian approaches to justice, peace, and reconciliation. His most recent book is Stories from Bethany: On the Faces of the Church in Africa (Paulines Publications Africa, 2012).
Mun’im Sirry is Assistant Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame and chair of ACI Indonesia. Sirry’s academic interests include political theology, modern Islamic thought, Qur’anic studies, interreligious relations, and Southeast Asian religions and cultures. Sirry’s most recent book, Scriptural Polemics: The Qur’an and Other Religions (Oxford University Press, 2014) examines difficult passages in the Qur’an that have usually been viewed as obstacles to peaceful co-existence among different religious communities.
ACI Africa Participants
Elias Bongmba is the Harry and Hazel Chavanne Chair in Christian Theology and Professor of Religion at Rice University. His research in Cameroon analyzes the land dispute between Ntumbaw and Njirong and the ways that it reflects a postcolonial encounter between religious and secular traditions.
Ludovic Lado of the Jesuit Institute of Human Rights and Dignity and Centre de Recherche et d’Action pour la Paix in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire will lead research examining how cross-cutting influences and competing forms of authority influence the actual construction of family life in Côte d’Ivoire.
Cecelia Lynch is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. Her research examines how religious women (Christian, Muslim, and “Traditional”) in Cameroon deploy their religiosity as resources for asserting rights, growing spiritually, and empowering themselves economically.
Ebenezer Obadare is Associate Professor of sociology at the University of Kansas. He will study the explosion of Pentecostalism in Ghana and Nigeria and analyze its political impact in the face of deteriorating state institutions.
ACI Indonesia Participants
Zainal Abidin Bagir is the Director of the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies at the Graduate School of Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He will collaborate with Robert Hefner to focus on the possibilities of local and national collaboration for scaling up pluralism.
Nicholas Adams is Professor of Philosophical Theology at the University of Birmingham. Along with Eckhard Zemmrich, Adams’s research analyzes interreligious literarcy among Javanese youth.
Robert Hefner is Professor of anthropology and Director of the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs (CURA) at Boston University. He will collaborate with Zainal Abidin Bagir to focus on the possibilities of local and national collaboration for scaling up pluralism.
James Hoesterey is Assistant Professor of Religion at Emory University. His research analyzes Indonesia’s Department of Foreign Affairs as a site of diplomacy as interfaith relations.
Mohamad Nasir is Lecturer at Faculty of Islamic Law and Graduate School, State Institute of Islamic Studies Mataram whose research treats Muslim-Hindu-Christian Relations in Lombok.
Arskal Salim of Western Sydney University is researching the relationship between intra-Islamic and inter-religious relations in post-conflict Aceh, Indonesia.
Nelly van Doorn-Harder is Professor of Islamic Studies at Wake Forest University. She researches the role of women in building the capacity for pluralist co-existence in Indonesia with a focus on the role of Komnas Perempuan and the Koalisi Perempuan.
Eckhard Zemmrich is a member of the Theological Faculty at Humboldt-University, Berlin. Along with Nicholas Adams, Zemmrich’s research analyzes interreligious literacy among Javanese youth.