Religion in the Public Sphere

Award-winning scholars on Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism will discuss the role of religion in public settings and spaces and the relationships between religion and culture, politics, and identity.

Sherman Jackson is the King Faisal Chair of Islamic Thought and Culture and professor of Religion and American Studies and Ethnicity at USC. He focuses on pre-modern Islamic law and theology with an emphasis on bringing them into robust and synergistic conversation with the realities of the modern world, including (if not especially) America. He is author of several books, his most recent being The Islamic Secular.

Duncan Ryuken Williams is a professor of Religion and the Director of the USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture at USC. Williams’ monographs include American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War, the winner of the 2022 Grawemeyer Religion Award and a Los Angeles Times bestseller, and The Other Side of Zen. He is also the editor of seven volumes on race and American belonging or Buddhist studies including Hapa Japan, Issei Buddhism in the Americas, American Buddhism, and Buddhism and Ecology.

Diane Winston holds the Knight Chair in Religion and Media at USC. Her new book is Righting the American Dream: How the Media Mainstreamed Reagan's Evangelical Vision. A scholar as well as a journalist, Winston’s research centers on white American evangelicals as well as religion and media.

Moderator: Varun Soni is the Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life at USC.