Internal writing seminar, SDU - May 10 2023
International Guest Lecture by Professor Bron Taylor, Florida: Radical Environmentalism - March 24, 2023
Lecture by Laura Feldt in Groningen at the Centre for Historical Studies - January 18, 2023
Read more about the lecture here.
Lecture by Laura Feldt and Klazina Staat with the Extreme Beliefs Project, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam - January 19, 2023
The lecture was recorded and can be viewed here.
Radical Redemption – What Terrorists Believe - May 18, 2022
Zoom-seminar with Professor Beatrice de Graaf: Wednesday, May 18, from 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Organized by the DFF-Total Devotion Research Project
In Radical Redemption: What Terrorists Believe, historian and terrorism researcher Beatrice de Graaf looks beyond acts of terrorism and their consequences and explores how convicted terrorists narrate their extreme beliefs. To discover what terrorists believe and how that belief brings them to commit their deeds, she recorded the life stories of almost thirty convicted terrorists, that were in prison over the past ten years. Most were Dutch detainees convicted for jihadist terrorism, but she also includes accounts by non-Western terrorists (Indonesian, Syrian and Pakistani jihadists and Boko Haram members in Cameroon) and Western right-wing extremists – all in jail over the past decade. First of all, she unpacks how their stories are all unique, but how there is one common denominator: a desire for significance, sense and meaning in lives that are often lacking in prospects and fulfilment. Yet, rather than focusing on the ‘doxis’ of these extreme beliefs, however, it is their lived orthodox praxis that they mostly speak about. In the second place, this study then continues and combines a historical perspective, with qualitative radicalization studies and concepts from the sociology of religion and social psychology (‘quest for significance’, ‘the redemptive self’), to identify and analyze ‘How convicted terrorists developed 1) narratives of radical personal redemption, where 2) ideology and praxis (the whole of actions and words) were combined, and were 3) validated by a perceived group or support base – or, instead, became contaminated in the course of time’.
Worldviews and Emotions in the Social Study of Radical Religion - April 21, 2022
In this presentation, based on worldview analysis in the form developed by Mark Juergensmeyer and Mona Kanwal Sheikh, Mona Kanwal Sheikh will discuss the relations between worldviews, emotions, and conflict escalation and what a focus on emotions can bring to the study of radical religion.
https://syddanskuni.zoom.us/j/61565123790
The Appeal of Bloodshed: Narrative and Emotion in the Islamic State’s Propaganda – January 28, 2022
Pieter Nanninga, University of Groningen
Why are people prepared to sacrifice their lives for a group that has become infamous for its bloodshed? Research on radicalisation tends to focus on societal factors and the role of religious texts and doctrines in the process. The ‘pull’ of extremist movements and organisations is less well understood. In this talk, Pieter Nanninga (University of Groningen) will explore the appeal of the Islamic State by focusing on the narratives expressed in the group’s media releases. In particular, he will address the role of emotion in these narratives, suggesting that the emotional involvement of supporters is a key factor in understanding their radical devotion.
https://syddanskuni.zoom.us/j/69064137072
Conceptualizing Radicalization: Behavioral, Cognitive, and Affective
With Rik Peels, Amsterdam, PI of the ERC Extreme Beliefs Project: Friday March 25, from 2-3 p.m.
In this lecture, I address the contested issue of whether we should use the concept of radicalisation. I do so head-on by developing and defending a conception of radicalization that combines the main approaches in the literature, namely the so-called monist and pluralist ones as well as the absolutist and relativist ones. After formulating various desiderata, I address objections that might be leveled against using the notion of radicalization. I then show what the four main approaches to radicalization in the literature, namely monism and pluralism as well as absolutism and relativism, amount to (§4). Subsequently, I show how the insights of the four approaches can be combined in such a way that their strengths are taken on board and their weaknesses circumvented. I argue that proper concepts of radicalisation have behavioural cognitive, and affective components.
Zoom-link: https://syddanskuni.zoom.us/j/62749023660