Next month Whitworth University will welcome Whitworth alumna and assistant professor of political science at Oklahoma State University Laura Thaut Vinson to campus for a lecture, “When Religion Becomes a Source of Violence: Insights from Muslim-Christian Communal Violence in Northern Nigeria.”
Vinson currently teaches courses in comparative politics and international relations, and her research interests are in the areas of ethnic conflict, the politics of global religious change (particularly with the spread of Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity), African politics, and humanitarianism.
She has conducted fieldwork in Nigeria and Kenya, and her lecture will draw from her extensive fieldwork on religious identity and communal violence in Nigeria, according to a press release. She is currently working on a manuscript, based on her fieldwork in Nigeria, that examines the role of informal, local-government power-sharing institutions in shaping religious identity and determining whether it becomes a fault line of communal violence.
“While people all over the world have a heightened fear of terrorism and religious conflict, our understanding of these things is very limited. Dr. Vinson has an ability to explain the deep roots of the problem in a way that goes far beyond the simplistic answers we so often hear. I very much look forward to her lecture,” says Whitworth Political Science Professor Emeritus John Yoder in a press release.
The lecture will be held April 7, at 7:30 p.m. in Weyerhaeuser Hall’s Robinson Teaching Theatre. Admission is free. For more information call 777-3834.
