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Tuesday 10 June | KNAW-LIAS Open Lecture Series: Understanding Political Violence beyond the Secular/Religious BoundariesPolitical Violence and Early Modern Jewry: Religious Motives, Secular Ramifications by Dr. Vasileios Syros (Academy of Finland)Discussant: Prof. Wim Klooster (Professor &#38; Chair, Department of History, Clark University)Time: Tuesday, 10 June 2014, 16.30-18.00Venue: Lipsius building room 148No registration required.Please address all inquiries to Dr. Mohammad M. Mojahedi (KNAW Visiting Professor).The central thrust of this paper is to contribute to tracing the post-secular dimensions and ramifications of the phenomenon of political violence by focusing on the case of early modern European Jewry. I specifically argue that the Jewish example can serve as a frame of reference for revisiting the historical importance of the religious/secular bifurcation of political violence and look at the interplay of the religious motives and secular manifestations of political violence exercised against Jewish communities throughout Europe. The Jewish example is a vivid illustration of the interface of a long-standing tradition of anti-Jewish polemics promoted by Church authorities and writers with attacks on the role of the Jews in the political and economic life of various European states. In this regard, this paper attempts to critically reassess and challenge some of the fundamental assumptions underpinning the study of political violence in the context of the history of religious minorities in Europe in the early modern era.More information about the KNAW-LIAS Lecture Series.About Dr. Vasileios SyrosVasileios Syros is a Senior Research Fellow of the Academy of Finland. His teaching and research interests focus on the interaction among the Christian, Islamic, and Jewish traditions of political thought as well as on cross-cultural encounters in the early modern period. He is also engaged in the comparative study of European and Islamic empires, ideas on imperial ascendancy and decline, and pre-modern approaches to the comparative study of diverse forms of political organization and types of government.This lecture series is convened by Dr. Mohammad M. Mojahedi. A former fellow of NIAS, Churchill College, and CRASSH (University of Cambridge), he is an Iranian professor of comparative political theories and the intellectual history of the Muslim world. This series of lectures is a part of his research programme as a Visiting Professor of Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) at Leiden University (LIAS). This series of lectures is meant for the contributors to a book, which Dr. Mojahedi is editing on the understanding of political violence beyond secular/religious dichotomies, to present preliminary versions of their contributions to the edited volume and discuss their ideas with the audience. 