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Canopy Forum frequently offers opportunities to engage with the wider community of law and religion scholars. In October 2020, we hosted an interdisciplinary virtual conference on Law, Religion, and Coronavirus in the United States, and in 2022, we came together to discuss Religion and Its Publics in South Asia, and the Promise and Perils of Religious Arbitration. These events are free and open to the public, and you can read and watch these presentations below. In addition, Canopy Forum works with leading scholars to produce free, open-access, mini-courses on pressing topics. In early 2022, we partnered with Dr. Mona Siddiqui to release a six-part lecture series called Martyrs, Minorities, Faith and Fidelity: Exploring ‘Loyalty’ in Christianity and Islam. You can access these resources and more below.
The Roles of Law, Religion and Housing Through the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs)
March 2024 — Hosted by the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University (CSLR) and Canopy Forum, this virtual conference and essay series was meant to address the global challenges of homelessness, housing policy and housing vulnerability through the lens of the UN SDGs.
February 2024 — A transformative course on restorative justice, a healing force and a mechanism for accountability. In this series of lectures, James W. McCarty delves into restorative justice as a dynamic global social movement seeking to transform harm.
October 2023 — The Center for the Study of Law and Religion and Canopy Forum will be inviting contributions to “The Religious Freedom Restoration Act at Thirty,” an essay series and accompanying online symposium to take place on Thursday, October 19, 9:00am-5:00pm EST.
May 2023 — The purpose of this virtual conference was to discuss issues facing religious congregations, neighborhoods, towns, and cities where houses of worship are falling into disrepair or vacancy. Countless locales in the USA and around the world are confronting questions of what to do with empty religious buildings in town centers or along major streets. These challenging situations are complicated by economic, social, legal, theological, and cultural questions that merit analysis and attention.
Robert E. Lee Monument. Photo taken by Joseph. Flickr. (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
October 2022 — Monuments are powerful symbols of collective identity. The medium, location, and content of such monuments reflect and communicate the values of the communities that erect them. Monuments often memorialize the events, traumas, achievements, and people who helped define particular moments and period in a community’s history. But communities – and the power dynamics that define them – change. In this mini-course, Dr. Yolanda van der Vyver explores the removal of contentious monuments from public spaces in the United States and South Africa.
January – February 2022 — Loyalty is at the center of human life – and often death. It defines families and friendships, philosophies and faiths. It also creates enemies, divides nations, and inspires people to kill and die for their country or creed. The nature and force of our loyalties to different people, ideas, and things shapes virtually every aspect of our lives. In this course, Professor Mona Siddiqui explores the polyvalent meanings of ‘loyalty’ in Christian and Islamic thought.
March 2022 — This virtual conference sponsored by the Canopy Forum of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory (CSLR) brought together scholars, experts and practitioners to examine key trends, practices, and problems related to arbitration tribunals in religious communities in the United States.
February 2022 — This virtual interdisciplinary conference, organized by the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University’s School of Law examines the relationship between the many religious traditions of South Asia and their diverse publics.
October 2020 — The purpose of this virtual conference was to provide an opportunity for thoughtful reflection on the implications for law and religion in the United States of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the economic and racial justice crises, from our current perspectives approximately six months into the crisis.