Robert W. Hefner is an anthropology professor and director of the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs at Boston University. Since 1991 he has also directed the institute’s program on Islam and society. His many books include (as editor) Shari’a Politics: Islamic Law and Society in the Modern World and (as co-editor) Schooling Islam: The […]

Clark McCauley Jr. is Rachel C. Hale Professor of Mathematics and the Sciences and co-director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College. His research focuses on the psychological foundations of ethnic conflict and genocide. At the April 2011 conference at Fordham, McCauley argued that “ideology and religion are more rationalization […]

Charles Kurzman is a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and co-director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations. He is the author of The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists, in which he argues that there are far fewer Islamic terrorists […]

Charles Kimball is Presidential Professor and director of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of When Religion Becomes Evil: Five Warning Signs, and his most recent book is When Religion Becomes Lethal: The Explosive Mix of Politics and Religion in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (April 2011).

Mark Juergensmeyer is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Global Studies, Sociology, and affiliate of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was the founding director of the Global and International Studies Program and the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies. He is an expert on religious violence, conflict resolution and South […]

James W. Jones is an expert in the psychology of religion and teaches in the religion department at Rutgers University. He is the author of Blood That Cries Out From the Earth: The Psychology of Religious Terrorism.

Mohammed M. Hafez is a visiting professor of political science at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He wrote the book Why Muslims Rebel: Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World, and is currently working on a book to be titled,”Suicide Bombers: Politics, Reason, and Faith in Extreme Violence.”

William T. Cavanaugh is a professor of Catholic studies at DePaul University in Chicago, Ill., who has written and researched extensively on the relationship between religion and violence. He is the author of The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (2009).

Read a January 9, 2010 New York Times story exploring research on what motivates terrorists.