KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

James A. Beckford, Fellow of theBritish Academy, is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Warwick. His current research interests include prison chaplaincy, religion and the state, and Muslims in Europe. His recent books include: Social Theory and Religion (2003), Muslims in Prison:  Challenge and Change in Britain and France (with D. Joly & F. Khosrokhavar, 2005), Theorising Religion: Classical and Contemporary Debates (edited with J. Walliss, 2006) and The SAGE Handbook of the Sociology of Religion (edited with N.J. Demerath III, 2007). 

Helen Rose Ebaugh is Professor at the Department of Sociology, The University of Houston, Houston, Texas. Her research interests include religion and the newimmigrants, transnational religious ties in immigrant congregations, the Gülen Movement as a moderate Islamic movement in Turkey and the Turkish Diaspora. Recent publications: Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations (2000), Religion Across Borders: Transnational Immigrant Networks (2002), and The Gülen Movement: A Thriving Moderate Muslim Network (2009)

Effie Fokas is Director of the London School of Economics Forum on Religion and visiting fellow at the LSE’s European Institute. Her research interests include the sociology of religion in a European perspective, with a special focus on Islam; religion and nationalism; and the politics and sociology of immigration in Greece and Europe in general. She is co-author (with Peter Berger and Grace Davie) of Religious America, Secular Europe? A Theme and Variations (2008), and co-editor (with Aziz al-Azmeh) of Islam in Europe: Diversity, Identity and Influence (2007).  

Ole P. Riis is Professor of Sociology of Religion at the University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway. He is a Danish citizen who lives in Norway. His current research interests include religion and emotions, and religion related to multiculturalism. Publications relevant to the conference theme include: “Pluralisme i Norden,” in Gustafsson and Pettersson (eds.): Folkkyrkor och religiös pluralism – den nordiska religiösa modellen (2000), “Modes of religious pluralism under conditions of globalization,” in Koenig and Guchteniere (eds.): Democracy and Human Rights in Multicultural Societies (2007), “Religious Pluralism in a Local and Global Perspective, and “Images of the Prophet Mohammed Seen in a Danish and a Global Context,” both in Beyer and Beaman: Religion, Globalization and Culture (2007), and “Le dilemma nordique,”  in Capella-Pogacean et al (eds): Religion(s) et identité(s) en Europe (2008).