Workshop on:
Religion and the State in Asia

Date:	19-20 May 2009
Time:	9am - 5pm
Location:	Malay Studies Seminar Room, Level 4, AS7 Shaw Foundation Building, 5 Arts Link, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570

The workshop was an investigation into the structural relationships between religion and the state in Southeast Asia both past and present. As such, it is concerned with the symbolic, political, ideological, economic, social, and legal relationship between “organized” (and also unorganized) religion and the state.
 
The workshop focused on the “Big Three” belief systems in SEA: Theravada Buddhism, Catholicism, and Islam. But it acknowledged other religions and belief systems in SEA that are not dominant: Mahayana Buddhism, Confucianism (and its mixtures), and Hinduism (including Bali Hindu), as well as indigenous belief systems and their relationship to the state.

 
Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia (Theravada Buddhist), the Philippines and East Timor (Catholic), Malaysia and Indonesia (Muslim) received primary coverage. The focus was on the current nation-states of SEA (and their past political entities) in which these religions have been dominant, for the central question has more to do with the latter’s relationship to the states in which they exist (and existed) than with each of these religions per se.
 

 PROGRAM

 Please click here for the program.

 FOR ENQUIRIES, PLEASE CONTACT:

Rodney Sebastian

Faculty of Arts and Social Science Religion Research Cluster, National University of Singapore

Email: fasrodn@nus.edu.sg