Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 5, 2002

Volume 30, Number 24

Event probes fundamentalist reactions to modernity

A symposium exploring a new twist on the question that the Western world has been asking since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will be held Friday-Saturday, April 12-13, at the Law School, 127 Wall St.

Titled "Fundamentalism and the Modern World," the event is the annual symposium of the Robert L. Bernstein Fellowship in International Human Rights. It is free and open to the public.

"Since the events of Sept. 11, many people have been asking: 'What is it about the fundamentalist strain of Islam that has produced this clash with the modern West?'" says Jim Silk, executive director of the Orville H. Schell Jr. Center for International Human Rights. "The Bernstein Symposium will begin by posing the question the other way around: 'What is it about modernity that has produced a fundamentalist reaction?'

"The clash between religious fundamentalism and modernity is obviously not limited to Islam, but is an aspect of our contemporary experience of Christianity and Judaism as well," he notes. "Fundamentalism is not the survival of an archaic form into modern times; rather, it is no less a part of modernity than the practices to which it responds."

The symposium will bring together scholars from anthropology, psychology, political science, gender studies and comparative religion, to discuss fundamentalism's relationship to modernity; explore the various "demands" posed by fundamentalist movements -- for example, limitations on the role of women -- that sometimes produce moral and political dilemmas; and examine specific situations in Israel and the occupied territories, Indonesia and Kashmir to consider how various fundamentalist movements are affecting the resolution of political conflicts.

A highlight of the symposium is the annual Bernstein Lecture. This year Albie Sachs, justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, will speak on "South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission -- Was Justice Served?" The talk will be given on April 12 at 4 p.m. in Rm. 127.

Sachs was a civil rights lawyer, activist and political dissident in South Africa during the apartheid years. He received his B.A. and L.L.B. from the University of Cape Town in the 1950s. A leading member of the African National Congress (ANC), he went into exile in 1966 in the United Kingdom, where he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Sussex. He then went to Mozambique where he served first as professor of law at the Eduardo Mondlane University, and then as the director of research in the Ministry of Justice. After nearly being killed by a car bomb in 1988, he returned to England.

He was the founding director of the South Africa Constitution Studies Centre, which was first based at the University of London but later moved to the University of the Western Cape, where Sachs was given the title Professor Extraordinary. He was also appointed honorary professor in the law faculty at the University of Cape Town and took an active part in the negotiations for a new constitution as a member of the ANC's Constitutional Committee and National Executive Committee. He is the author of many books on human rights, gender rights and the environment.

The symposium is sponsored by the Law School's Orville H. Schell Jr. Center for International Human Rights. Paul Kahn, the Robert W. Winner Professor of Law and the Humanities, is director of the center.

The Bernstein Fellowships in International Human Rights were established in 1997 to honor Robert L. Bernstein, the former chair, president and chief executive officer of Random House, Inc., and the founding chair of Human Rights Watch. The fellowships provide financial support to allow two Law School graduates to pursue full-time international human rights work for one year.

Former Bernstein Fellows have worked on projects promoting and protecting human rights in such diverse locations as Eritrea, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Thailand and Tibet. The current Bernstein Fellows will discuss their work on April 12 at 12:30 p.m. in Rm. 129.

The 2002-2003 Bernstein Fellows will be announced at a reception on April 14 at 5 p.m. in the Alumni Reading Room.

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