Eric D. Coblentz, Research Fellow for the IIRF, is a PhD student at the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies. ICRS is an interdisciplinary PhD program that combines rigorous academic research with interreligious dialogue based in Southeast Asia where Eric lived for almost seven years. His research interests are sociology of religion, discourse analysis, identity, the self, philosophy, and inter religious dialogue.
Eric is working with IIRF and the Violent Incidents Database to collect and record violations of religious freedom in North America and Europe. He has recently worked as an external researcher for Open Doors researching, analyzing, and reporting on religious violence in Indonesia. He has published an article entitled, The Relation of Muslim and Christian Community: Hermeneutic Contribution to Create a Third Space in the Communities in Jurnal Pemberdayaan Masyarakat: Media, Pemikiran dan Dakwah Pembangunan (Journal of Community Development: Media, Thought, and Da’wah for Development).
Eric is a young thinker who has given academic talks on topics such as Creating Space for the Other; Islam Nusantara as the way Towards Religious Tolerance?; and Re-imagining the Black Experience Through Religious Discourse. He also moderated a conversation entitled Reconciling Holy Books as Christian Muslim Interreligious Literacy Initiative, which was hosted by ICRS and included Islamic and Christian scholars from Lebanon and Indonesia.