Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict

🍿Join us on Thursday for a free film screening with live music — part documentary, part live performance. We'll bring the popcorn. You bring a friend!

📽️ The Mormon Giant: Wrestling with Religion in 20th Century America
📅April 23 at 5 p.m.
📍Tempe campus | Biodesign Auditorium
🔗asuevents.asu.edu/event/giant

The Mormon Giant is a one-of-a-kind documentary experience, presented with live narration and an original musical score performed in real time. "A wonderful display of ‘academic nerdiness’ that ‘impossibly raised the bar of presentations,'" and "an innovative and entrancing blend of a traditional academic presentation with a multisensory performance.” We hope to see you there!

Join us Wednesday, April 8, as we welcome 2026 Hardt-Nickachos Lecturer in Peace Studies, Jolyon Mitchell, Principal of St. John’s College, Durham, to the ASU Tempe campus. Mitchell will discuss how the stories we encounter every day — from films and novels to visual art — shape ways we understand conflict, justice and what peace looks like in our own lives. This year’s Peace Studies lecture launches a new research initiative in Peace Humanities.

Fun fact! Professor Mitchell's daughter, Jasmine, recently won The Great British Bake Off. 🍰

Register: https://asuevents.asu.edu/event/peace26

Register now for the 27th Annual John P. Frank Memorial Lecture with Jason Stanley!

To register, visit the link in our bio or here 👉 sst.asu.edu/frank-lecture

🗓️ Monday, April 13, 2026
⏰ Lecture: 6:30 p.m.
📍 Armstrong Hall and online via ASU Live

This event is in partnership with

📣 Join us on March 31 for a thought-provoking lecture with Elizabeth Shakman Hurd exploring the complexities of American borders. Drawing on her book Heaven Has a Wall, Professor Hurd examines the paradoxes of U.S. borders—how they are created, enforced, suspended, and sometimes ignored. Borders may appear as clear lines on a map, yet they often extend far beyond—or deep within—the nation itself.

This event is part of the Spirituality and Public Life Initiative at the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University, which highlights the role of spirituality in shaping ethical citizens and public institutions.

📆 March 31
⏰ 4:30 p.m. MST
📍 ASU Tempe campus + livestream
🔗 asuevents.asu.edu/SPL-borders

📣 Join us for “Compassion Beyond Borders: Spirituality, Migration and Moral Courage in Public Life,” a powerful lecture with Scott Warren.

📅 March 17, 2026
⏰ 3:00–4:30 p.m. MST
📍 ASU Tempe campus + livestream
🔗 register: asuevents.asu.edu/SPL-Warren

Drawing on his experience as a humanitarian aid volunteer, educator and defendant in a landmark religious freedom case, Warren reflects on what it means to act with compassion when moral conviction collides with state power.

Warren will explore how spirituality—beyond formal religious affiliation—can inspire acts of care for migrants in the borderlands and beyond, and how humanitarian aid can be criminalized, contested and defended in federal court. Through his work with No More Deaths in the Sonoran Desert, he has helped bring national attention to the humanitarian crisis facing migrants.

This lecture invites our community to reflect on migration, law and humanitarian aid through the lens of moral courage—and to consider what our deepest values demand in moments of human suffering and political conflict.

This event is part of the Spirituality and Public Life Initiative at the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University.

How does a philosopher respond to being human in a constantly changing world? 💭 Read our Q&A with Simon Critchley to learn how mysticism can deepen our everyday lives: https://news.asu.edu/b/20260126-philosopher-author-responds-world-woe

Can you feel the intensity of mysticism? Get a taste through this special playlist, with suggestions from Simon Critchley: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6bd8JGxgy3q89IaWS5FXMS

Then, register for Critchley's upcoming events on January 29 and 30 at humanitiesinstitute.asu.edu

Wouldn't you like to be lifted up and out of yourself into a sheer feeling of aliveness?

Don't miss your chance to engage with philosopher and author Simon Critchley this month at the Humanities Institute. At his events, he will explore how mysticism can deepen the sense of our lives and how our philosophy influences our writing.

🙏 Mysticism and Philosophy (And Possibly Music) | January 29 at 4 p.m. | book signing begins at 5 p.m.
✍️ Styles of Writing and Styles of Thinking | January 30 at 10:30 a.m.

Register online at humanitiesinstitute.asu.edu

Congratulations to our very own Anand Gopal, whose book "Days of Love and Rage" (coming March 3) is one of TIME 's most anticipated books of 2026!
https://time.com/7341767/most-anticipated-books-2026/

This holiday season, may your days be filled with peace, hope, joy and connection. Together, we’ve built a vibrant and supportive community, and together we’ll secure its future for years to come. Your year-end gift helps sustain meaningful dialogue, learning and engagement that make our work possible. Every donation makes an impact. asufoundation.org/religionandconflict