For reasons that ranged from engaging in trade and migration through experiencing persecution, colonization and violence, people with (perceived) different backgrounds came to share the same physical spaces. The resulting encounters juxtaposed individuals with varying values, experiences and religious or secular worldviews. Frequently, these individuals found ways to live together peacefully. Sometimes, their interactions became violent. When people of different backgrounds coexisted peacefully, why did their peaceful coexistence end? What caused relationships to shift from peaceful to contentious (or from contentious to peaceful)? Using a series of historical examples, this workshop will explore peaceful coexistence and inter-community violence, as well as the interstices between these two states and, especially, the turning-points between harmony, friendship, community, accommodation and peace on the one hand, and conflict, tension and violence on the other.
This workshop brings together scholars of religious history, cultural history and the history of war and violence to explore these questions in the 19th and 20th centuries, which were marked by colonialism and industrial warfare. Conflicts arose in which perceived cultural, ethnic and religious identities served as grounds for violence. The workshop aims to open up opportunities for interdisciplinary discussion and networking between historians of war and violence and historians of religion and culture.

Please direct inquiries to: judith.becker@hu-berlin.de or jtorrie@stu.ca