Berkley Center

Rajeev Bhargava is director of the Parekh Institute of Indian Thought at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi, where he has worked since 2005. His writings include What is Political Theory and Why Do We Need It? (2010) and The Promise of India’s Secular Democracy (2010).

José Casanova is one of the world's leading scholars in the sociology of religion and a senior fellow at the Berkley Center, where his work focuses on globalization, religions, and secularization. He is also professor emeritus at Georgetown University, where he previously taught in the Department of Sociology and the Department of Theology and Religious Studies. During 2017 he was the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the North at the U.S. Library of Congress' John W. Kluge Center, where he worked on a book manuscript on Early Modern Globalization through a Jesuit Prism. He has published works on a broad range of subjects, including religion and globalization, migration and religious pluralism, transnational religions, and sociological theory. His best-known work, Public Religions in the Modern World (University of Chicago Press, 1994), has become a modern classic in the field and has been translated into several languages, including Japanese, Arabic, and Turkish. In 2012, Casanova was awarded the Theology Prize from the Salzburger Hochschulwochen in recognition of his life-long achievement in the field of theology. Casanova is a member of the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Dr. Samia Huq is a research fellow at the Centre for Peace and Justice at BRAC University as well as an associate professor and interim dean of humanities and social sciences at BRAC University in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She obtained her Ph.D. from Brandeis University, where her research explored women’s religious discussion groups in urban Bangladesh. Her current research includes cultural activism of Bengali Muslims of East Pakistan and the impact of secondary secular and madrasa education on gendered norms and practices. Dr. Huq has worked on the Global Life Stories Project with Musawah: For Equality in the Muslim Family, and is one of Musawah’s global advocates. In addition, she coordinates the BRAC University-Georgetown University Speakers' Forum series on faith and development.