Dean of Arts Office:
PAS building, room 2401
Tel 519 888-4567 ext. 48246
Arts Undergraduate Office:
PAS building, room 2439
Tel 519 888-4567 ext. 45870
Information for faculty and staff
Arts computing support for students, faculty, and staff
Visit our COVID-19 information website to learn how Warriors protect Warriors.
At the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Lorne Dawson will provide a snapshot of the results of three years of research involving interviews with Westerners who have traveled to Syria and Iraq to support various jihadist groups, and the family members and friends of such fighters. He will discuss how this unique body of primary data is helping to develop a more refined understanding of who these foreign fighters are, how they became foreign fighters, and their motivations.
Lorne Dawson is a Professor in the Departments of Sociology and Legal Studies, and Religious Studies, at the University of Waterloo. He has written three books, edited four books, and published seventy academic articles and book chapters. Most of his research was in the sociology of religion, but work on why some religions become violent led to research on the process of radicalization leading to terrorism. He is the Project Director of the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society, and the Principal Investigator of a project studying Western foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. In recent years he has published on various aspects of the role of religion in motivating religious terrorism, the social ecology of radicalization, and jihadist uses on the internet and social media. He makes numerous invited presentations to academic and government groups, and is frequently interviewed in the media about terrorism.
Dean of Arts Office:
PAS building, room 2401
Tel 519 888-4567 ext. 48246
Arts Undergraduate Office:
PAS building, room 2439
Tel 519 888-4567 ext. 45870
Information for faculty and staff
Arts computing support for students, faculty, and staff
The University of Waterloo acknowledges that much of our work takes place on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. Our main campus is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land granted to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. Our active work toward reconciliation takes place across our campuses through research, learning, teaching, and community building, and is centralized within our Indigenous Initiatives Office.