In mid-August Jason Klocek, a former BCSR grant winner and now Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Global Religion Research Initiative at Notre Dame, walked us through the aforementioned aspects of his scholarly development, part of his wider journey from coal-town Pennsylvania to Berkeley, with stops in Crete, Turkmenistan, and Washington D.C. along the way.

Klocek also discussed his choice of, and work at, Berkeley, including the role of faculty mentorship in his decision to come to campus, and the impact of chance and failed grant applications on the ultimate shape of his dissertation, "The Cult of Coercion: Religion and Strategic Culture in British Counterinsurgency," which analyzes the perception of religious insurgents by British leaders in three postwar case studies: Cyprus, Mandatory Palestine, and Kenya. Jason has also kindly shared his thoughts on the future of religious studies and offered some useful advice to young scholars studying religion.

You can listen to these conversations, as well as Jason's thoughts on the potential policy applications of his work, in their entirety below, or in thematic segments on our YouTube and SoundCloud pages.

Abstracts of Jason's publications and working papers, as well as more information on his book project and teaching, are available at https://jasonklocek.weebly.com

Best of luck to Jason!

#ReligionInTheWorld

The Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion (BCSR) advances creative and critical scholarship on religion. bcsr.berkeley.edu | @ucbreligion

5 Questions Interview | Synagogues with Cemeteries, Secret Mosques... | Jason Klocek | 9/10/18

The Center for Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry (CICI) was established in 2013 by UC Berkeley’s College of Letters and Sciences: Division of Arts and Humanities with a mission to support the programming and development of several dynamic interdisciplinary research units in the humanities and social sciences.

Currently CICI serves The Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion, The Program in Critical Theory, and the Digital Humanities at Berkeley, three programs led by a highly diverse community of 200 faculty, advisors, scholars and graduate students from nearly 30 campus departments and schools.