Menchik Discusses Spread of Moderate Islam During AICIS Plenary
On November 1, 2022, Jeremy Menchik, Associate Professor of International Relations at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, delivered a plenary address at the Annual International Conference on Islamic Studies (AICIS) on the spread of moderate Islam in Indonesia and the wider world.
In his remarks, Menchik addressed two main questions: how can moderate Islam be effectively implemented in the public sphere, and what are the internal and external challenges to identity politics? In addressing the first question, Menchik discussed his ongoing research on what political, economic, and cultural forces give rise to efforts to try to spread ideas. By looking at historic movements that have tried to propagate ideas – the Christian missionary and liberate internationalist movements for example – he argues that moderate Islam can learn a lot about the challenges of universalizing a certain set of ideas.
Menchik’s full remarks can be viewed below. For further details from AICIS, visit the conference’s website.
Jeremy Menchik is an Associate Professor in the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and a faculty affiliate in Political Science and Religious Studies. His first book, Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance without Liberalism (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explains the meaning of tolerance to the world’s largest Islamic organizations and was the co-winner of the 2017 International Studies Association award for the best book on religion and international relations. His work has appeared in the academic journals Comparative Studies in Society and History, Comparative Politics, International Studies Review, Politics and Religion, Asian Studies Review and South East Asia Research as well as in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. His recent research focuses on social movements, the politics of modern religious authority, and the origins of the missionary impulse. Read more about Professor Menchik on his faculty profile.