Terrorism and Sacred Violence
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| Venue: | FIU Modesto A. Maidique Campus |
Dr. Scott Atran is a joint Professor and senior researcher at several academic institutions, including the Department of Anthropology, Institute of Social Research, and the Ford School of Public Policy of the University of Michigan, and Directeur de Recherche, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris. He received his BA in Anthropology at Columbia College (1972), his MA in Social Relations from Johns Hopkins University and his PhD in Anthropology at Columbia University, where he wrote his dissertation with Margaret Mead (1984). His Research and teaching interests are centered in the areas of cognitive and linguistic anthropology, evolutionary psychology, Middle East ethnography, political economy, terrorism and foreign affairs. A world leading authority on suicide terrorism he has made significant and path breaking contributions to the study of terrorism, its psycho-political and religious dynamics and evolution, and especially to the complex connection between poverty, sacred values, and honor. Dr. Atran’s publications comprise an extensive body of literature of over 30 scholarly articles, and several major books, including Cognitive Foundations of Natural History: Towards an Anthropology of Science (Cambridge University Press, 1990, 1993), Folkbiology (MIT Press, 1999), In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (Oxford University Press, 2002, 2004), and the forthcoming, The Native Mind and the Cultural Construction of Nature (MIT Press 2008).
