Loren Lybarger, assistant professor of classics and world religions, Ohio University
Lybarger’s research focuses on the comparative ethnographic study of contemporary religious revitalization and its effects on social and political identities among Palestinians and Somalis in the Middle East, East Africa, and North America. He is currently at work on a new ethnographic project provisionally titled Divided Diasporas: Religion and Nationalism Among Second-Generation Palestinian Immigrants in the United States. The project draws on life history interviews and field observations to explore the dynamics of religious return among Muslims and Palestinians on Chicago’s southwest side and in the adjoining southwest suburbs.
At Ohio University, Lybarger teaches courses on classical and contemporary Islam and administers the certificate program in Islamic studies. He serves as a member of the board of directors of the Palestinian American Research Center based in Ramallah, Palestine, and Washington, D.C.
This lecture is part of the Colloquium on the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion, a speaker series of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society, funded by the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts and the Center for the Study of Religion and Society.