Peter van der Veer is director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity at Göttingen. His work focuses on religion and nationalism. Specifically, he is interested in a syntagmatic structure linking four concepts – religion, magic, secularity, and spirituality – and how they’ve emerged entangled in global colonial encounters between East and West. He also works on issues of refugees and religion, in addition to other modern global encounters, primarily between Asia and Europe.

In this sixth conversation in the Global Religious and Secular Dynamics Discussion Series, van der Veer will join Berkley Center Senior Fellow José Casanova to talk about his comparative work linking India, China, and the West, as well as his training of the next generation of anthropologists, social scientists, historians, and religious studies scholars working on religion in Asian global cities. Van der Veer will also discuss his forthcoming co-edited volume, Refugees and Religion: Ethnographic Studies of Global Trajectories (2021), and the COVID-19 pandemic and its current geopolitical dynamics and trends.

The Zoom Webinar link and instructions will be sent out on the morning of the event to anyone who has filled out the RSVP form. This event will be recorded and a captioned video will be posted to this page after the event date. Please RSVP to receive an email notification once it is posted.