Hefner Invited to Center for Shared Civilizational Values Board
Robert Hefner, Professor of Anthropology and of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was invited to serve on the international board of advisors for the Nahdlatul Ulama-initiated “Center for Shared Civilizational Values” in Indonesia.
The Center, which will be formally launched in the fall of 2021, seeks to expand and accelerate the work of Humanitarian Islam and the Movement for Shared Civilizational Values. It will do so by providing a unique institutional platform that seeks to bridge cultural, religious and ideological differences in order to foster the emergence of a global civilization endowed with compassionate and tolerant character. The center is an institutional and internationalist arm of the “Movement for Shared Civilizational Values,” which was established in Indonesia by the leadership of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU).
With some 60-70 million members, NU is the largest Muslim educational and social welfare organization both in Indonesia and in the world. Since 2015, NU has sought to position itself as the initiator of a multi-religious Movement for Shared Civilizational Values. Learn more about NU on their website.
Robert Hefner has directed 19 research projects and organized 18 international conferences, and authored or edited nineteen books. He is former president of the Association for Asian Studies. At CURA, he directed the program on Islam and civil society since 1991; coordinated interdisciplinary research and public policy programs on religion, pluralism, and world affairs; and is currently involved in two research projects: “The New Western Plurality and Civic Coexistence: Muslims, Catholics, and Secularists in North America and Western Europe”; and “Sharia Transitions: Islamic Law and Ethical Plurality in the Contemporary World.” You can read more about Professor Hefner on his faculty profile.