2011 Presidential Address: Empire and the Study of Religion

Abstract

I WENT TO VISIT Occupy Boston in mid-October. Some fifty tents in blue, red, and green filled Dewey Square in the financial district in downtown Boston. The square was named after Admiral George Dewey of the United States Navy, who won the decisive battle of Manila Bay in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War in 1898. The Square bears the mark of American imperialism. I was surprised to find that the tent-city was neatly organized, with a reception space, a makeshift kitchen, and a medical tent with a red-cross sign. Occupy Boston runs a Free School University featuring Noam Chomsky and other radical professors and has a library with well over five hundred books. The Occupy Wall Street movement has spread to many cities in the United States and around the world. On October 15, 2011, hundreds of