The Duck of Minerva

James Ron: IR Profs Should Teach Religious Fluency

by Charli Carpenter

20 October 2010, 0401 EDT

Here is a fabulous interview on Canadian TV with Professor James Ron of Carleton University. Ron’s key argument is that we are not giving our students a sufficient education if they leave our classes fluent in human rights discourse but not in the nuts and bolts of the world’s leading religions.

A real “aha” moment for me as a teacher – sure, I’ve always tried to make sure they know the difference between Sunni and Shi’a or the difference between an Islamic and a Muslim majority state, or the role of the Holy See at the UN, but Ron’s argument goes further: he’s not simply saying students should know facts about religion and politics, but that religious narrative itself is a language students need in order to communicate effectively as future diplomats. At the same time, he humbly and humorously reminds us what a socio-cultural mine-field such teaching can be, whether it’s our students or our own kids.

[cross-posted at Lawyers, Guns and Money]

Charli Carpenter is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She is the author of 'Innocent Women and Children': Gender, Norms and the Protection of Civilians (Ashgate, 2006), Forgetting Children Born of War: Setting the Human Rights
Agenda in Bosnia and Beyond (Columbia, 2010), and ‘Lost’ Causes: Agenda-Setting in Global Issue Networks and the Shaping of Human Security (Cornell, 2014). Her main research interests include national security ethics, the protection of civilians, the laws of war, global agenda-setting, gender and political violence, humanitarian affairs, the role of information technology in human security, and the gap between intentions and outcomes among advocates of human security.

1 Comment

  1. Jon Western
    Jon Western on 20 October 2010 at 18.04 EDT

    Thanks Charli, I find something similar in my human rights classes.  I use Micheline Ishay's book — The History of Human Rights, especially the first chapter — to demonstrate that a wide variety of regligious, ethical and moral traditions share similar values.  Though they present these values as duties or obligations (for example almost all traditions have some prohibition on murder, i.e.,  thou shalt not kill), they are the same values embedded in the human rights discourses and institutions  — ie., Art 3:  the right to life, liberty, and security of person. 

    I agree with James that the need for religious fluency is important — not only to better articulate and defend the rights discourse within the context of religious communities, but also to evaluate and challenge some of the relatativist critiques.