Centre For Religion and Culture

Associate Professor of Political Science
Martha Lee

Martha Lee is an Associate Professor of Political Science, and Stephen Jarislowsky Chair in Religion and Conflict. Her research interests are in the areas of religious and political apocalyptic beliefs and millenarian movements, and also in the role of conspiracy theories in fostering extremism. Her work examines the intersection of religion and politics, and how the combination of those two areas yields conflict, and often violence. Dr. Lee is the author of The Nation of Islam, An American Millenarian Movement, and Earth First! Environmental Apocalypse and editor of Millennial Visions. She has also authored and co-authored journal articles in these fields. Her most recent articles include AAmerican Millenarianism and Violence: Origins and Expression@ in the Journal for the Study of Radicalism. Her forthcoming book, Conspiracy Rising: The Growing Role of Conspiracy Thinking in American Public Life (Greenwood, 2010), considers the ways in which conspiracy theory increases community prejudice and fosters conflict among religious and political groups.

An important component of Dr. Lee’s work as Stephen Jarislowsky Chair is interfaith work in the Windsor community. To that end, she founded and works with the Windsor Women’s Interfaith Initiative (www.womensinterfaith.org), an organization run from Assumption University’s Centre for Religion and Culture.