Mark Juergensmeyer - Global Religion and Society

Global Religion and Society

In the first decade of the 21st century, Juergensmeyer extended his interests in religion and social order into a global context. In an edited book of essays, Global Religion: An Introduction, (later expanded and published as The Oxford Handbook of Global Religion), Juergensmeyer outlined three aspects of globalized religion: the global diaspora of peoples and their cultures, the global dispersion of religious ideas, and the religious responses to multicultured, globalized societies—often involving the creation of new religions and new forms of religiosity. These themes were central to a three-year project Juergensmeyer conducted in conjunction with the Halle Center for Global Learning at Emory University, and which resulted in the edited volume, Religion in Global Civil Society. From 2007 to 2009, Juergensmeyer chaired a working group on secularism and religion in international affairs for the Social Science Research Council. In the introduction to the coedited volume of essays related to the project, to be published under the title Rethinking Secularism, Juergensmeyer explored the problems created by thinking of social reality as a dichotomy between secular and religious categories, and raised the possibility of understanding the moral and spiritual dimensions of public order in a global and transcultural age.

Juergensmeyer lives in Isla Vista and Goleta, California, adjacent to the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara.