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By Joe Arney

Typical academic conferences are better known for showcasing new theories than inspiring public conversation. 

The Center for Media, Religion and Culture does not put on a typical academic conference. 

“We want to extend these conversations to people who care about these issues—who may not be sitting in classrooms or going to conferences, but who want to be part of an intelligent conversation around important ideas,” said Nabil Echchaibi, director of the center and associate dean of scholarly and creative work at the College of Media, Communication and Information at the University of Colorado Boulder. 

Expect plenty of discussion from experts, members of the public and the media in January, when the center and CMCI host Fire on the Mountain, a conference on media, religion and nationalism. The conference will explore topics such as the rise of both Christian and Hindu nationalism, xenophobia against refugees, the Jan. 6 insurrection, and the wars in Gaza and Ukraine; uniquely, it will do so with an eye to the media’s role in reporting these phenomena and how its coverage imbues these topics with different kinds of meanings as the news travels.

“Usually, when you have topics like this, people go to political scientists, sociologists, historians, as opposed to media,” Echchaibi said. “But it’s important to think about these problems from a media lens. We are in a different media ecology that requires a more sophisticated way of interpreting what’s going on.”

The conference will include talks from four featured speakers. Each of these discussions is open to the public:

• Philip Gorksi, Yale University. Gorksi studies religion and politics in Europe and North America. He is the co-author of “The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy.”
• Raka Shome, Villanova University. Shome writes about postcolonial cultures, transnational feminism and nationalism as they intersect with media/communication cultures, especially in Asia. 
• Ramesh Srinivasan, UCLA. Srinivasan is an expert in the intersection of technology, innovation, politics, business and society.
• Reiland Rabaka, University of Colorado Boulder. Rabaka is a scholar of W.E.B. Du Bois who studies religion and Black nationalism.

Notably, the keynote speakers will offer opportunities to discuss solutions, not just problems created by religion and nationalism. 

“I always say that we live in very dangerous times, and this specter of nationalism is upon us,” Echchaibi said. “It’s not enough for us to say, here is this problem. We need to figure out, is there a way out of this? Or are we just going to keep yelling at one another, excluding one another and killing one another?

“I’m hoping we have an event that really matches the chaos of our time while helping people understand these forces, and find ways to move toward solutions.”