The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs seeks a more just and peaceful world by building knowledge and advancing cooperation through research, teaching, and dialogue.
A comprehensive examination of religion and norms is critical to address complex global challenges.
The open engagement of religious and cultural traditions with one another can promote peace.
Inspired by the Document on Human Fraternity, in spring 2023 the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, together with the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity and the Muslim Council of Elders, piloted the Human Fraternity Dialogues, a unique platform for students from around the world to engage in meaningful conversations rooted in the principles laid out in the Document. The program assembled 109 students from around the globe, representing a vibrant spectrum of religious affiliations and cultural backgrounds. Driven by an imperative to unite people across religious, national, racial, and political lines, Georgetown University, the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity, and the Muslim Council of Elders also co-hosted a one-day student conference centered on giving a voice to the next generation of global citizens. On September 19, 2022, undergraduate and graduate students gathered from 11 universities across the Washington, DC, area, representing 17 nations as well as diverse religious and cultural backgrounds.
Read more about "Building Interreligious Solidarity: A Global Student Conference."
Learn more about the Human Fraternity Dialogues.
During the spring 2023 semester, the International Association of Jesuit Universities (IAJU) completed a successful pilot of its Global Citizenship Curriculum Project. Inspired by Jesuit Superior General Rev. Arturo Sosa’s 2018 call for “education for world citizenship,” the project brings students across the global Jesuit network of 200 colleges and universities into dialogue about the meaning and practice of global citizenship. Thirty-six professors from 20 Jesuit institutions incorporated a shared Global Citizenship Course Module (readings and recorded lectures) into diverse courses ranging from Theological Anthropology to Human Rights in Africa and Sociology of the Philippines. A highlight of the project was a series of 37 online dialogues that brought together 500 students from 12 different countries to share their perspectives on global citizenship with one another. Lively discussions centered on two foundational questions: “What does global citizenship mean to you?” and “How can young people have a positive impact as global citizens?”
Interfaith Dialogue on Global Issues Slider
In Christian writings and homilies through the centuries, “Pharisee” has served as a label for one who is hypocritical, self-righteous, legalistic, or money-loving. Unfortunately, the image has fed—and continues to foment—negative perceptions of Jewish people. A February 6, 2023, program explored what we know—and don’t know—about these teachers of the past who are also in some ways the predecessors of all forms of modern Judaism.
How do and can religious, interreligious, and intrareligious networks mobilize their strengths and partnerships in support of peace and development? How can they support and prod global institutions and leaders facing multiple global crises? What are the prospects for a “culture of encounter” (a phrase often used by Pope Francis) that fosters dialogue and collaboration across the religious-secular divide? Berkley Center Senior Fellow Katherine Marshall addressed these questions with Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, a leading voice in calling for action across the wide agenda of issues for sustainable development, as well as an influential advisor to multilateral and national leaders and religious bodies.
Religious communities are vital in identifying and addressing many key issues in the Western Hemisphere. Participants at June 2023 conference on “The Interreligious Forum: Promoting Human Dignity in the Americas” considered how interreligious cooperation can address inequality, the refugee and migrant crisis, anti-corruption, democracy and human rights, and post-pandemic health issues with their associated long-term financial impacts. Each speaker at the forum brought deep insight and experience to these pressing issues. Berkley Center Senior Fellow Katherine Marshall delivered opening and closing remarks in addition to serving on the organizing committee. This event was co-organized by Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs; the Latin American and Caribbean Council of Religious leaders; Religions for Peace; the G20 Interfaith Forum Association; and the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University.
In October 2022, the Berkley Center launched the Global Interfaith Monitor, a newsletter that tracks key news, events, and publications across the shifting landscape of interfaith cooperation. It is part of the Berkley Center’s program on Revitalizing Global Religious and Interfaith Networks. Beginning with biweekly updates and then shifting to monthly releases, the Berkley Center released 13 editions of the Global Interfaith Monitor throughout the 2022-2023 academic year.
The G20 Interfaith Forum has convened annually since 2014 in the G20 host country and offers a platform where networks of religiously linked institutions and initiatives engage on global agendas. The forums have considered wide-ranging issues, including economic systems, the environment, women, humanitarian aid, health, education, freedom of religion or belief, global security, human rights, and the rule of law. Since 2017, Berkley Center Senior Fellow Katherine Marshall has served on the G20 Interfaith Association Advisory Council and contributed to the recommendations and policy briefs developed by the G20 Interfaith Forum.
In March 2020 the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University; the World Faiths Development Dialogue; and the Joint Learning Initiative launched a collaborative effort to track and analyze the distinctive religious dimensions of the unfolding COVID-19 crisis. The project created an array of articles and blogs, sent hundreds of highlight summaries via email, and cultivated a living resource repository. As we slowly and unevenly move out of the COVID-19 pandemic, the scope of the project has now shifted towards an exploration of its long-term impacts and ways in which religious communities, working together, can address global health and related challenges.
Read more about the Religious Responses to COVID-19 project.
From July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, the center hosted events that ranged from book talks and panel discussions to multi-day, international conferences.
Over 2,000 people attended our virtual and in-person events over the last year, allowing center programming to engage a wider audience than ever before.
Our library of over 1,500 event videos from the last 17 years continued to garner attention.
Catholicism and Global Governance Video Player
Just war thinking rooted in classical and Christian thought has become a foundation for moral reflection on issues of war, peace, and security. Basic just war principles such as "proper authority," "just cause," and the protection of non-combatants are now the foundation for international laws restraining war; U.S. military doctrine is informed and constrained by these principles in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Congressman Jerry McNerney's House Resolution 1009 asks that Congress make them a formal part of its debates when considering the use of force. This event brought together experts on just war tradition and national security affairs to discuss the context and content of HR 1009.
When Berkley Center and Georgetown colleague Rev. Drew Christiansen, S.J., passed away in April 2022, he left behind a significant legacy applying the rich tradition of Catholic social teaching to issues of peacebuilding, just war, nuclear disarmament, and environmental justice. This two-day conference gathered influential scholars and practitioners who honored his contributions and explored current and future challenges related to these topics. Panels addressed interreligious peacebuilding, with a focus on the Middle East; just war, peacebuilding, and non-violence; current challenges in nuclear arms control and disarmament; and fostering environmental justice.
Watch all the recorded sessions here.
Read more about the event.
Drawing on his recent book, Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis (2022), John McGreevy, the provost of the University of Notre Dame, explored the surprising history of Catholics and democracy in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. This Berkley Center Lecture addressed how ideas of representation have circulated from the political to the religious realm (and back again) with powerful ramifications for the contemporary global church. Berkley Center Director Thomas Banchoff provided introductory remarks.
As codified in the Lateran Treaties of 1929, permanent neutrality is a unique and central tenet of Vatican diplomacy. Through this lens, The Vatican and Permanent Neutrality (2022), edited by Marshall J. Breger and Herbert R. Reginbogin, traces the fast-paced 150 years of the Vatican’s spiritual and moral contributions to world affairs, starting from the fall of the Papal States in 1870 to the present day. This online event, led by co-editors Breger and Reginbogin and featuring several of the book’s contributors, addressed historical perspectives and contemporary implications of permanent neutrality, from the Holocaust and the Cold War to the current war in Ukraine.
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Presently over 100 million people have fled their homes because of conflict, persecution, and violence, and forced displacement seems to have become a permanent feature of our global landscape. Monsignor Robert J. Vitillo is secretary general of the International Catholic Migration Commission. A trained social worker, Msgr. Vitillo has years of experience working with refugees, including positions with Catholic Charities, Caritas Internationalis, and the United Nations. Vitillo currently chairs a Working Group of Global Catholic Humanitarian agencies responding to Ukraine. This event discussed what Catholic social teaching means for responding to refugees and other displaced people, with a particular focus on Ukraine. Berkley Center Senior Fellow Rev. David Hollenbach, S.J., moderated the discussion. The event was introduced by Elizabeth Ferris, director of the SFS Institute for the Study of International Migration.
The war of aggression of the Russian Federation on Ukraine, which has received the vocal support of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), led the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) to announce in its May 2022 Synod that it was officially severing its ties with the Moscow Patriarchate. Recent probes by the Ukrainian government towards the UOC have exposed the still-existing ties between the UOC and the ROC and the collaboration of some members of the UOC hierarchy and clergy with the occupying Russian forces. Those efforts have also raised questions about the threats which these government actions may pose to religious freedom and to the established patterns of religious pluralism in Ukraine. Eric Patterson, a Berkley Center research fellow and president of the Religious Freedom Institute, moderated the expert panel discussion.
U.S. President Joe Biden pledged to pursue a comprehensive plan to end homelessness and his administration has made affordable housing a top priority, proposing measures to ease rental prices and improve financing opportunities for home construction and purchases. Underlying these policy proposals is the commitment to a fundamental principle, as articulated by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia L. Fudge, that “Justice in housing is everyone realizing the fundamental truth: housing is a human right.” In this event, HUD Deputy Secretary Adrianne Todman expanded on the administration’s work for making that vision a reality. Deputy Secretary Todman delivered brief remarks and then joined Berkley Center Senior Research Fellow Elisa Massimino in a conversation.
Watch the February 7, 2023, discussion.
Read coverage of the event.
At this event for Georgetown students, Ioana Cismas, co-director of the Centre for Applied Human Rights and a reader at the York Law School, shared about her work researching and providing legal and policy advice in public international law, human rights law, international humanitarian law, law and religion, and transitional justice.
Student organization Hoyas for Human Rights (HHR) partnered with organizations from across campus to provide programming and information related to human rights during its first-ever summit on March 31, 2023. The Berkley Center hosted an informational table for students to learn how they can develop and incorporate their interest for religion and human rights through our various student programs. HHR co-founder Gwyneth Murphy (SFS’23) is an undergraduate in the Berkley Center’s religion, ethics, and world affairs (REWA) minor program. She emphasized the importance of partner organizations for helping students engage meaningfully in human rights work and scholarship, as she attributes much of the inspiration for Hoyas for Human Rights to her REWA courses.
Our primary activities revolve around a core set of faculty members whose research agendas drive all other center activities, from teaching and student programs to public outreach. Faculty programs do not merely manifest in the form of publications and a few public events, but connect to a vast set of global networks that shape academia, national and international policymaking, and public opinion.
Center senior fellows and senior research fellows authored commentary pieces placed in the New Yorker, the Washington Post, and La Civiltà Cattolica, among other outlets.
Senior fellows and senior research fellows published several research articles and book chapters in edited volumes.
The late Rev. Drew Christiansen, S.J.’s edited volume was published this past year. Rev. Gerard J. McGlone, S.J., also contributed a foreword to a memoir.
The center released several reports, policy briefs, working papers, and white papers from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023.
Faculty Scholarship Slider
Berkley Center Senior Fellow
Walsh School of Foreign Service
At a 2017 Vatican conference, Pope Francis condemned nuclear weapons. Forbidden: Receiving Pope Francis's Condemnation of Nuclear Weapons (Georgetown University Press, February 2023)—edited by the late Berkley Center senior fellow Rev. Drew Christiansen, S.J., and Carole Sargent—presents essays from moral theologians, defense analysts, conflict transformation scholars, and nuclear arms control experts, with testimonies from witnesses to show how we might achieve a nuclear-free world.
Berkley Center Senior Research Fellow
At the age of 48, Rev. Patrick C. Goujon, S.J., suddenly remembered what a priest had done to him for four long years, beginning when he was 7 years old. Rev. Gerard J. McGlone, S.J., contributed a foreword to Precarious: A Survivor of Clerical Abuse Remembers (Georgetown University Press, 2023), a memoir that tells the story of how Goujon learned to survive the shock of this revelation and to live as a believer.
Berkley Center Senior Fellow
Department of Government
To date, the studies on the religious dimension of immigration across religions and countries are rare. They also have the disadvantage of focusing almost exclusively on the religious identities of Muslim immigrants. In a book chapter entitled “Nexus of Religion and Immigration: Islamicized and Securitized,” published in the Oxford Handbook of Religion and Contemporary Migration (Oxford University Press, 2023), Jocelyne Cesari identifies two structural components of the nexus between religion and immigration: the disconnection of religious and national identities experienced by migrants and the fact that their religion is in the minority in their new country of residence.
Berkley Center Senior Fellow
Department of Sociology
Continuing bonds with the deceased are essential and ongoing aspects of bereavement. In China, the annual ritual of grave sweeping involves family members visiting the graves of their loved ones to offer items and conversation. This open-access article entitled “Maintaining, Relinquishing, and Adapting Bonds in Bereavement: A Qualitative Study of Grave Sweeping in China,” co-authored by Becky Yang Hsu and published in SSM-Mental Health, explores how continuing bonds may be maintained through the ritual of grave sweeping.
In recognition of religion’s ongoing geopolitical relevance, many foreign ministries become more attentive to religion—establishing new units or envoy positions focused on analyzing religious dynamics and engaging religious groups around the world. The diplomats who are the designated point people on issues of religion and international affairs within their respective ministries often face similar challenges: resource constraints, insufficient training, bureaucratic resistance, and leadership that may make too little—or too much—of religious engagement. TPNRD is a forum of diplomats from Europe and North America who have engagement with religious and faith-based groups in their portfolios, coordinated by project director Judd Birdsall. TPNRD meets regularly, hosts briefings, commissions policy reports, manages the Religion & Diplomacy website, and pursues collaboration through working groups focused on the geopolitics of religion, religious literacy training, conflict and peacebuilding, and the fostering of inclusive societies.
The Geopolitics of Religious Soft Power project represents a multi-year, cross-disciplinary effort to systematically study the use of religion in foreign affairs. In the second phase of the project starting in 2022, the role of religion in the foreign policy of emerging powers such as China, India, and Russia—particularly with respect to the Western Balkans, the Middle East, and South/Southeast Asia—is an area of significant focus. Since 2020, the program has organized an ongoing webinar series featuring scholars from around the world whose work focuses on GRSP-relevant themes, and this series will continue during the second phase. Aspects of this new phase of project work—particularly those dealing with the impact of religious geopolitics on peace and stability around the world—will be implemented in partnership with the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, where project director Peter Mandaville will be on special assignment from 2022 to 2024.
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This two-day conference addressed various issues that arise at the point where East Asian thought intersects with contemporary moral psychology and cultural psychology, and it explored the ways in which the study of East Asian philosophy can be relevant not just to what can be learned from traditional Confucian texts, but to understanding the experiences of contemporary people.
This event was co-sponsored by Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, the Center for the Contemporary Study of East Asian Classics and Critical Confucianism (CCECC) at Sungkyunkwan University, and the National Research Foundation of Korea. The co-sponsors also thank the Institute of Confucian Philosophy and Culture (ISCP) and Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture (JCPC) at Sungkyunkwan University for their support.
For the past 40 years moral theology has understood its history to be rooted in the early medieval penitential manuals. This Costan Lecture argued that those manuals were rooted, not simply in a confessional practice, but much more in the context of what today we would call spiritual direction, not focusing on sins but rather pursuing holiness. The 8th Annual Costan Lecture in Early Christianity was delivered by Rev. James Keenan, S.J., an American Jesuit priest and scholar who is the Canisius Chair, director of the Jesuit Institute, and vice provost of global engagement at Boston College.
This event was co-sponsored by Georgetown University's Department of Theology and Religious Studies and Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.
In a sequel to the first “Faith, Feminism, and Being Unfinished” event in 2018, the Georgetown University community gathered on DC Emancipation Day to explore the writings of moral theologian Anne E. Patrick, SNJM (1941-2016). A panel of theologians and thought-leaders discussed her 1975 essay “A Conservative Case for the Ordination of Women.” The conversation was in part a response to the October 2022 release of the Vatican synod document “Enlarge the Space of Your Tent,” which reflects a global call for inclusivity, including expanded roles for women in the Catholic Church.
This event was sponsored by Georgetown University’s Women’s Center, Gender+ Justice Initiative, Georgetown Women’s Alliance, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, Office of Mission & Ministry, and Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.
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Rabbi Dr. Abraham Skorka, a senior research fellow for Jewish studies and Jewish-Christian relations at Georgetown University, received an honorary doctorate from the Department of Theology of the University of Trnava in Slovakia. Pope Francis then sent Skorka, his long-time friend, a letter in May 2023 to congratulate him and recall his commitment to interreligious dialogue, faith, and human rights.
Professor Jonathan Ray, the Samuel Eig Professor of Jewish Studies in Georgetown University’s Department of Theology and Religious Studies and a faculty fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, served on the program committee for the Medieval Academy of America’s ninety-eighth annual gathering in Washington, DC, from February 23 to 26, 2023. This organization is a scholarly community committed to deepening, broadening, and sharing knowledge of the medieval past in an inclusive and equitable way.
Read coverage of the Medieval Academy of America’s 98th annual gathering.
Senior Research Fellow Amelia (Amy) Uelmen was featured in an episode of AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast to discuss her work at the intersections of faith, morality, and law and give tips for trying to connect with people we disagree with on thorny issues.
In this working paper published in November 2022, Julia Mourão Permoser explains that countries across Europe have been confronted with pro-migrant solidarity movements that engage both organized civil society and local political actors. She contends that the church asylum movement in Germany has revived the ancient practice of solidarity, drawing upon both its history and symbolism. The movement has also reshaped social and political contours. Though church asylum has sparked controversy and elevated tensions between religious communities and governments, activists justify their actions on normative grounds.
From the Berkley Forum Slider
“Since the pandemic, religious communities have gained visibility and credibility in the management of global crises and when it comes to forced migration, international organizations are undoubtedly paying greater attention…It is undeniably a challenge to take into account several religious dimensions of the refugee crises that are simultaneously at play in any given situation.”
“Religious and non-religious humanitarian actors, institutions, and systems would benefit from a more thoughtful, deliberate, and strategic mutual recognition and engaged dialogue…The challenge ahead is to deepen appreciation for the distinctive strengths and challenges for religiously linked actors in the humanitarian system, and to point to practical steps towards the dialogue and action that we recommend.”
“All world religions thus affirm that we ought to treat others as we wish to be treated. This Golden Rule is found in virtually all religious traditions…Thus there is solid evidence that religious traditions all assert normative duties to assist displaced people who are facing grave threats to their well-being. These traditions, when rightly interpreted, can make important contributions to the protection of displaced persons.”
The Berkley Center offers a number of ways for students to get involved, including conducting research through our global fellowship programs, taking courses through our minor, working as student assistants at the center, and participating in experiential learning through the Doyle Engaging Difference Program.
Our approach to student programs at the Berkley Center is grounded in the Jesuit value of caring for the person (cura personalis), a central tenet of the Georgetown University education. Our programs are animated by the center’s mission of bringing together scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and students to seek a more just and peaceful world by building knowledge and advancing cooperation through research, teaching, and dialogue.
Our student offerings are also deeply informed by the Doyle Engaging Difference Program’s mission to equip students and faculty with the skills necessary to thoughtfully engage matters of difference in integrated spaces of teaching and learning, in and outside the classroom. As campus collaborators on the Doyle Program, the Berkley Center seeks to implement this vision through guided academic and professional mentorship and extended learning opportunities that transcend the classroom, helping students connect their Georgetown experiences to local and global communities.
Show evidence of global awareness, particularly interreligious and intercultural competencies, by engaging in discourse and practice on matters of political, religious, social, economic, and racial differences.
Demonstrate analytical skills and the ability to clearly articulate complex issues in research and digital scholarship.
Illustrate interdisciplinary knowledge integration and intellectual curiosity in traditional and experiential learning spaces.
Center faculty taught courses across the Georgetown campus, from the College of Arts & Sciences and the School of Foreign Service to Georgetown Law.
This academic year, the Berkley Center supported Doyle Seminars on a wide range of subjects—from modern philosophy to anti-colonialism and disability narratives.
Over summer 2022, fellows conducted research on Jesuit educational initiatives in England, Portugal, and the United States.
The Doyle Global Dialogue provides a platform for Georgetown students to reflect on interreligious and intercultural engagement while studying abroad.
Student assistants are integral to the work of the center, where they contribute to faculty research projects and support communications and outreach efforts.
In 2022-2023, 21 students participated in the Doyle Global Dialogue (DGD), a peer-to-peer conversation among students studying internationally. This year, DGD participants explored the challenges and possibilities of intercultural exchange, and the global diversity of the cohort allowed for rich reflection across lines of difference. Read about their experiences by clicking on each highlighted country.
This map displays the countries of origin for members of the 2022-2023 DGD cohort, which included three students studying at the Georgetown University campus in Qatar and two international students based at the Washington, DC, campus.
DGD Student Reflections Slider
Home Country: Nepal
School: Georgetown University in Qatar
“So, although I have found myself sitting a little bit straighter and being more meticulous with my words to be taken seriously, the positive experiences in this country far outweigh the bad. America, more specifically Georgetown University, has allowed me and my roommates to find refuge in our culture and religion, and for that, I am forever impressed and grateful.”
Home Country: Indonesia
School: Georgetown University (Main Campus)
“In Taipei, cultures of the world rest against each other. Somehow both bustling and soothing, the city is a tapestry of opposites: traditional architecture preserved by modern innovations, spiritual discipline intertwined with the rhythm of nine-to-five jobs, and individuality shining through commonality. It is hard not to fall in love.”
Home Country: United States
School: Georgetown University (Main Campus)
“My time abroad cultivated a new perspective that perhaps we’re doing something wrong, or even missing something altogether. American university campuses, social media platforms, and political discussions have become hyper-polarized. Valid and much-needed discussions around race invoke deeply personal experiences that offer invaluable perspectives to public policy. Yet, stepping outside the ring for a brief moment, I can’t help but wonder if we’re becoming more divided. Switzerland’s unity around shared values has certainly been a refreshing and uplifting experience for this particular Hoya that challenged me to rethink how we engage differences.”
Home Country: China
School: Georgetown University (Main Campus)
“Coming back to the United States, I don’t know how to identify as Christian without identifying as a believer, but for five years I have struggled to reconcile these sides of myself, and I feel a lot of hope for reaching that. I’ve often found myself in spaces where I see things through my secular lens or my Christian lens, but this semester in Almaty was one of the first spaces where I could be both at once.”
Home Country: Nigeria
School: Georgetown University (Main Campus)
“While I wish I could spend a semester in every country to gain a fuller understanding, I am satisfied with the widened perspective that I have gained from this trip. Even if I forget the details of my experiences, the fact that I was able to meet and learn from real people grants me a more empathetic understanding of those from faraway cultures, pushing me past a U.S.-centric world belief. I believe that experience will be something profound to take back to Alabama, aspiring to combat the ever-growing 'us vs. them' mindsets in my home country.”
After the initial three-part conversation series in spring 2021, the Doyle Conversations about Anti-Racism in Higher Education continued to bring together students, faculty, and staff at Georgetown University for four sessions during the 2022-2023 academic year. Sponsored by the Doyle Engaging Difference Program, the series invited members of the Georgetown community to share strategies and tools related to anti-racist work across campus. The Doyle Program also offered a special session as part of the Teaching, Learning, and Innovation Summer Institute (TLISI) in May 2023. Events in the series explored anti-racist work in a wide variety of settings at Georgetown, from the curriculum and classroom pedagogy to student life. In each event, leaders from across the university reflected on their anti-racist work as part of a panel discussion. By fostering critical dialogue about race in its complexity, the event series helped to advance the conversation about racial justice on campus and beyond.
Religion, Ethics, and World Affairs Minor Video Player
The Religion, Ethics, and World Affairs (REWA) program offers a minor for Georgetown Main Campus undergraduate students administered through the Berkley Center. The REWA minor gives students an opportunity to explore the role of faith and values across topic areas including international relations, comparative politics, and history and cultures. The Spring 2023 REWA Student Symposium was held on April 22, 2023.
Explore the Hoya Paxa blog series.
Read more about how the symposium showcases students’ interreligious and intercultural competency and intellectual curiosity.
related | Explore Berkley Center student projects.
Faculty-Led First-Year Seminars Slider
Senior Fellow, Berkley Center
Director, American Pilgrimage Project
The Search (IDST 010-21) sought to understand the personal search through rich accounts in literature—books in which author and reader venture forth together in order to make sense of their lives and the world around them—and the different ways a search can be framed through the art of narrative.
Executive Director, Berkley Center
Associate Professor of the Practice, Department of Government | Adjunct Professor, Georgetown Law
Creating and Making: The Moral Craft of Life (IDST 010-15) explored philosophical and theological visions of craft, labor, and creativity, and their connections to moral and political life, as a way to think about how our laboring, crafting, and creating is a fundamental part of what constitutes the good life.
Senior Fellow, Berkley Center
Professor of the Practice, Walsh School of Foreign Service
Pandemic Responses: Practice and Ethics (INAF 100) examined human rights and ethical issues linked to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as focused on how local and global institutions respond to humanitarian challenges.
2022 ESJ Fellows Slider
SFS'23
Project Location: Mobile, Alabama (United States)
Craig conducted research at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. During her three weeks at Spring Hill College, a small Jesuit college, her research focused on support systems that sustain students throughout their time in college, and how those systems are influenced by the school’s Jesuit values.
C'23
Project Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Hengelbrok conducted research at the Fundação Gonçalo de Silveira (FGS). During her three weeks in Lisbon, Portugal, she shadowed, interviewed, and participated in projects at FGS, a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing inequalities within their communities through the development of global citizenship and care for the common good. Her research focused on the methodologies and practices that FGS employs in order to foster global citizenship, while also examining the impact of the 48-year long dictatorship on the role of civil society organizations within the Portuguese education system.
SFS'23
Project Location: United Kingdom
Uniyal conducted research at three public and four private Jesuit schools in England. During his three weeks in England, he sought to understand the complexities of balancing social justice, character development through value-based education interventions, and financial stability at Jesuit schools across England. His research specifically focused on the Jesuit Pupil Profile, a value-oriented educational program aimed at building well-rounded and active students.
The Theology and Culture Community Dinner Group serves as an informal community-building space for law students and graduate students from different disciplines to exchange ideas about topics of interest. Students take turns choosing (brief) readings, sparking the discussion, and also providing an entry point for those who may not have had time to read that week. The group meets every other week at the Georgetown University Law Center.
Learn more about the Theology and Culture Community Dinner Group.
The Berkley Center and Georgetown’s Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies partnered during the 2022-2023 academic year to pilot a series of seminars on theology in Arabic. Georgetown students and faculty are invited to participate in reading Arabic theological texts in translation through these seminars, which will function as reading groups with an emphasis on exposure to theological reasoning and the personal voice of the authors from original Arabic texts. As familiarity with key topics develops, so too will familiarity with Arabic in its shared theological vernaculars across world religions: i.e., on the basis of terminology and overarching themes, and as a vehicle of personal expression.
Elene Chkhaidze (SFS’25) was selected as the Berkley Center-Pulitzer Center international reporting fellow for summer 2023. She explored the role of religion in the Cyprus conflict. Her project centers religious leaders and visual elements to document the role religion could play in reconciliation efforts.
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REWA Minor
"Inspired by my engagement in interreligious dialogue while at the Berkley Center, I was motivated to teach abroad after undergraduate at an international university that cultivates interreligious solidarity."
Doyle Undergraduate Fellow
"My work with the Berkley Center has helped me understand how faith compels people to respond to political and social issues. These lessons are vital to my research and advocacy on issues related to environmental justice and migrant rights."
