Martyrs and Migrants: Coptic Christians and the Persecution Politics of US Empire
A Crown Seminar with Candace Lukasik
January 22, 2025
A recording of this Seminar is available to watch on our YouTube channel.
Coptic Orthodox Christians are the largest and among the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East. Recent ISIS-linked attacks on Copts have drawn global attention, prompting U.S. politicians, think tanks, and NGOs to focus on “saving” these Middle Eastern Christians from Muslims. In this Crown Seminar, Candace Lukasik, in conversation with Zainab Saleh, will explore the impact of American perceptions of global Christian persecution on Coptic collective memory of martyrdom. Drawing from her forthcoming book, Martyrs and Migrants: Coptic Christians and the Persecution Politics of US Empire (NYU Press, 2025), Lukasik will analyze how the interaction between American conservatives and Copts has shaped a new kind of Christian kinship in blood, marked by both glorification and racialization.
Candace Lukasik is Assistant Professor of Religion and affiliated with Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures at Mississippi State University and Faculty Leave Fellow at the Crown Center.
Zainab Saleh is Associate Professor of Anthropology and the Koshland Director of John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities at Haverford College.