Prema Kurien
CUNY Graduate Center
Department of Sociology
Spring 2015
Course: Religion and Immigration
This course will focus on how religion plays a central role in social, economic, and political processes surrounding migration and immigration. Drawing on case studies of migration and immigration to the West (primarily to the US), we will see how religion, through a variety of indirect and direct mechanisms, shapes out-migration patterns, remittance use, social incorporation into receiving societies, and forms of political mobilization. Religion can affect out-migration patterns by determining societal structures such as the social location of groups within society, which in turn influences the fundamental characteristics of groups and gives rise to differential state policies towards them. Religion plays a central role in the incorporation of immigrants not just through personal faith, religious institutions, and communities, but through the intersection of the religiously infused identities and concepts of secularism of the receiving and home countries, as well as global politics which can profoundly impact the political incorporation of immigrants and their mobilization patterns. Majority/minority religious status in the homeland can affect activism around homeland issues, while majority/minority religious status in the host countries can mold racial attitudes and self-identification in different ways.
Mapping of Asian Americans in New York City (MAANY) Seminar Series (February 4, 2015)
The Political Activism of Sikhs in Canada and the United States
The CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor will perform teaching, research, and guidance duties in area(s) of expertise as noted below; and share responsibility for committee and department assignments, performing administrative, supervisory, and other functions as assigned.
The Tam Visiting Professor will be based at one of the four CUNY campuses participating in the search, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, Queens College or the Graduate Center. He or she will teach one class a semester at that campus and will engage with students and faculty members during the appointment. The Tam Visiting Professor will participate in public events designed to raise the visibility of scholarship in Asian American studies. This will include working closely with the Asian American / Asian Research Institute (AAARI).
