Department of Religious Studies

This class examines Europe’s diverse religious landscape by looking at how questions of church and state variously effect Christians, Muslims, and Jews living in the European Union and its member states. Topics covered include the so-called “headscarf debates” and the place of religious symbols in public; religion and violence like the Troubles in Northern Ireland, using the TV show “Derry Girls” to think about how identity conflicts inflect everyday life; and European discourses about migration, both about the 2015 “crisis” of Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa and about inter-European migration in the aftermath of the outbreak of war in Ukraine, to think about how religion and identity shape security politics.

Through these cases and more, students will learn about the history of church-state relations in Europe, gain an understanding of how historical events like the Cold War have shaped religious policy, and develop informed opinions on contemporary issues about religion and the state affecting the EU today.

Instructor: Alina Williams
Credits: GenEd S&H and World Culture, CASE S&H

• S&H
• What are CASE requirements?