Contact
clynch@uci.edu
Department of Political Science
3151 Social Science Plaza
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697
My research, writing and teaching focus on interrelated themes of religion/secularisms, humanitarianism, ethics, and international relations broadly conceived, including its racial and gendered character. I work from what I call a “critical interpretivist” approach to all of the above (Lynch 1999; Lynch 2014; Lynch 2020).
My work on humanitarianism and religion has increasingly taken me across Sub-Saharan Africa as well as Europe and the Middle East, and I am extremely fortunate to work with colleagues and friends in Ghana, South Africa, Senegal, Kenya, Cameroon, DRC, and Finland. My work on religion has always been concerned with how people reconcile their various commitments (to religious traditions and teachings as well as other kinds of commitments) for how they act in the world, and takes me into Christianity, Islam, syncretisms, African religion, and other forms of indigeneity. The spiritualities, onto-epistemologies, and cosmologies of religious traditions are fascinating. The problems associated with humanitarianism are urgent, including how we deal with legacies of colonialism, missionizing, paternalism, and racism.