Departmental Colloquium: Scott Atran - The Devoted Actor: A Framework for Understanding Intractable Conflict and Existential Decision Making

The Department of Political Science and the Department of Cognitive Science cordially invite you to the Departmental Colloquium

The Devoted Actor: A Framework for Understanding Intractable Conflict and Existential Decision Making

presented by

Scott Atran
University of Michigan

Date: October 24, 2013 – 5.30 p.m.

Venue: CEU, Nádor u. 9, Auditorium.

Scott Atran is presidential scholar in sociology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, visiting Professor of Psychology and Public Policy at the University of Michigan, and Research Director in Anthropology at the National Center for Scientific Research in France. He has repeatedly briefed Congress and national and homeland security staff at the White House on his field research with terrorist groups around the world.

His wide-ranging, interdisciplinary approach to social, psychological and cultural issues, along with the unusual breadth and depth of his personal experience in both the Arab and Israeli Middle East, provides Atran’s analysis of the roots of suicide terrorism a rare blend of intellectual and practical force.

Atran's books include Talking to the Enemy, the Cognitive Foundations of Natural History: Towards an Anthropology of Science, In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, and The Native Mind: Cognition and Culture in Human Knowledge of Nature (co-authored with Douglas Medin and forthcoming from Oxford University Press). In addition to his work on the roots of terrorism, Atran conducts on-going research in Guatemala, Mexico, and the U.S. on universal and culture-specific aspects of biological categorization and environmental reasoning and decision making funded by France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and by the U.S. National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.