Board Member
Canada Research Chair on Islam, Pluralism, and Globalization at the Faculty of Theology and the Sciences of Religions at the University of Montreal (Canada) since 2005, Brodeur investigates the dynamics of power and multiple identities within intercultural, inter-religious, and inter-worldview dialogues.
His latest publication, (research funded mainly by the United States Institute of Peace and book edited by Continuum Press, Jan 2010) with co-author Ina Merdjanova (Director of the Center for Interreligious Dialogue and Conflict Prevention at the Sofia University) is the first comprehensive academic study of the present state of interreligious dialogue for peacebuilding in Southeast Europe. This book is the result of a three year ethnographic and historico-political study across the Balkans. In brief, it maps recent interreligious relations in Southeast Europe throwing light on both the achievements and challenges of interreligious dialogue for peacebuilding in particular, and offering a set of up-to-date policy recommendations. This study contributes to a greater understanding of the local and regional Balkan particularities and how they relate to broader trends transnationally.
While on sabbatical for the academic year 2004-2005, Brodeur was a Rockefeller Visiting Fellow at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. At the Kroc Institute, he concentrated on developing a curriculum on Inter-religious Dialogue and Conflict Resolution, with special focus on international inter-religious youth organizations. In addition, he is completing a book titled Contemporary Arab Muslim Perceptions of Religious Others and finishing co-editing Building the Interfaith Youth Movement. Through his combination of theoretical and applied research activities, Brodeur aims to help clarify the interdependence between a variety of overlapping academic areas, especially Islamic and religious studies, inter-religious dialogue, and conflict resolution.
From 1998 to 2004, he was at Connecticut College, where he was associate professor of religious studies and dean of religious and spiritual life. While there, he taught courses on Islam, religion and globalization, as well as comparative Abrahamic religions courses on women, mysticism, and Jerusalem. As director of the Pluralism Project at Connecticut College, he also developed “Religions in New London,” an ethnography-based service-learning course whose results contributed to the Harvard University Pluralism Project.
Brodeur is also an expert on inter-religious dialogue, serving among others on the board of the Peace Education Standing Commission of the World Conference on Religion and Peace. He has published a number of articles in edited books as well in the Journal of Ecumenical Studies and The Muslim World, among others. He was the book review editor for The Muslim World from 1999 to 2002. He was a fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University (1997-1998) and received a summer National Endowment for the Humanities grant to study Islam at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University (1999). Since September 11, 2001, he has actively participated in public debates at local, national and international levels in the form of articles, lectures, and interviews in a variety of media. Born in Canada and educated also in Israel and Jordan, he obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1999.