Jennifer S. Bryson is a Fellow in the Catholic Women's Forum of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.[1] She previously worked at the Witherspoon Institute. She is also a professional translator, specializing in the works of the twentieth-century German writer Ida Friedericke Görres. She founded Let All Play, an organization that opposes rainbow flags and other policial images on sports uniforms.[2] Bryson has a Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic studies, from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University. From 2004 to 2006, she served as an interrogator at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps and has since become an outspoken supporter of humane, rapport-building interrogation, and an opponent of the use of torture.[3][4][5] She is an adult convert to Catholicism.[6]
Jennifer S. Bryson | |
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![]() Jennifer S. Bryson at the Amiriya Madrasa/Mosque in Radda, while working for the U.S. Embassy in Yemen. | |
Nationality | American |
Occupation(s) | Academic, U.S. government, interrogator |
Known for | served as an interrogator at Guantanamo |
Education
editB.A. | Political Science | Stanford University |
M.A. | Medieval European intellectual history | Yale University |
PhD | Greco-Arabic and Islamic studies | Yale University |
Bryson spent two years in Egypt learning the Arabic language in between her M.A. and Ph.D.[7]
Bryson is a member of the Phi Alpha Theta honor society.[8]
Careers
editTelevision career
editAccording to an article from the October 29, 2001, edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education, Bryson started working for as a television journalist and researcher in 2000.[7] She worked for PBS NewsHour and CBS's 48 Hours.
Embassy work
editBryson worked at the U.S. Embassies in Egypt and Yemen in 2002.[9]
Career at the Department of Defense
editBryson served as an interrogator in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, from 2004 to 2006.[5] In an interview, she noted that her conscience as a Roman Catholic led her decisions and actions at Guantanamo,[10] where she managed a counter-terrorism interrogation and analysis team.[4][9][11] Her last position with the Defense Department was as the lead Action Officer for countering ideological support to terrorism within the Office of the Secretary of Defense in Support to Public Diplomacy.[12]
Academic career
editAfter her public service Bryson became the director of the Islam and Civil Society Project at the Witherspoon Institute.[9] She was previously a member of the board of directors of the Institute for Global Engagement.[13][14] In August 2010 The Washington Post published an op-ed by Bryson, counseling tolerance for Muslims, after a Florida pastor had called on Americans to burn Qurans.[15]
The Christian Post described Bryson as a "Christian scholar".[16] In 2009 Bryson was on a panelist in a dialogue between evangelicals and Muslims.[17] In September 2011 Bryson was a presenter at a conference on the role of non-Muslim scholars in Islamic Studies.[18]
Children's books
editShe is the creator of the Marvel, Believe, Care Creation Coloring Book (2023).[19]
Translations
editHer translation of "Anti-Semitism Among Islamists in Germany," a 2019 report by the German government, was published by the Hudson Institute.[20]
Her translation of the 1970 lecture "Trusting the Church"[21] by Catholic writer Ida Friederike Görres and Joseph Ratzinger's 1971 Eulogy for Ida Friederike Görres[22] were published in 2020.
In 2023, Cluny Media published her translation of the book from 1950 The Church in the Flesh by Ida Friederike Görres.[23] Bryson's translation of The Church in the Flesh includes a biographical essay about Ida Görres from 1961 by Alfons Rosenberg.[24]
Anti-LGBT Activism
editBryson is the founder[25] of Let All Play, a project of the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture that works to discourage the coerced use of political (including LGBT) symbols at soccer matches.[26] She has also served on the advisory board of CanaVox,[6] an anti-LGBT reading group run by the Witherspoon Institute, promoting a "natural law" view of marriage and sexuality.
Political views
editWhile Bryson was a columnist for the Yale Daily News in 1989–1990, her columns included a defense of motherhood against feminism[27] and a defense of the right of Yale's secret societies such as Skull and Bones to remain all-male.[28]
References
edit- ^ "Jennifer Bryson Appointed as Fellow in EPPC's Catholic Women's Forum". Retrieved May 14, 2021.
- ^ "US Soccer's Rainbow Pride Jerseys Exclude and Divide". Public Discourse. June 13, 2017.
- ^ a b "The Witherspoon Institute". Witherspoon Institute. Archived from the original on 2011-10-09. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
- ^ a b "В Америке депутат-мусульманин расплакался, давая показания" [In America, a Muslim member [of Congress] bursts into tears, testifying]. 2011-03-14. Archived from the original on 2012-04-02. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
According to a former employee of the Anti-Terrorism Security Department Bryson Jennifer [Jennifer Bryson], King provides service to bin Laden, acting on his method, 'namely dividing the world into Muslims and non-Muslims,' which facilitates radicalization.
- ^ a b "My Guantanamo Experience: Support Interrogation, Reject Torture". Public Discourse. 2011-09-09. Archived from the original on 2011-09-25. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
- ^ a b Bryson, Jennifer (May 21, 2020). "Conversion from Studying Marxism in East Germany into the Catholic Church". AliveintheLord.com (from 00:31:17 - 00:55:27). Bryson said she was raised in Lutheranism before forgoing church attendance altogether in her late teens until she found God in an otherwise godless East Germany early in her adulthood and first encountered Catholicism during her time elsewhere in Europe.
- ^ a b Hadass Sheffer (2011-10-29). "The Risks and Rewards of Freelance Careers in Media". Chronicle of Higher Education. Archived from the original on 2012-10-16. Retrieved 2011-09-13.
- ^ "Phi Alpha Theta Initiate". The Historian. 67 (4): 821–830. 2005-12-02. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6563.2005.00131.x. S2CID 218496271.
- ^ a b c "About iDiplomacy". November 2009. Archived from the original on 2011-05-22. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
- ^ Osborne, Jason (January 12, 2023). "Trying to follow conscience's guiding light at Guantanamo Bay". The Irish Catholic.
- ^ Jeff Bliss (2011-03-14). "King's Muslim Probe May Antagonize With Broad 'Semantic' Theme". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 2012-03-21. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
- ^ "Jennifer Bryson". Institute for Global Engagement. Archived from the original on 2012-03-31. Retrieved 2011-09-24.
- ^ "About the authors". Religion, Faith and International Affairs. Archived from the original on 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
- ^ "Board of Directors". Institute for Global Engagement. 2009. Archived from the original on 2011-10-06. Retrieved 2011-09-24.
- ^ "Christians must reject "Burn a Quran Day"". Washington Post. August 2011. Archived from the original on 2011-09-02. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
- ^ Michael Craven (2010-09-07). "Thinking Christianly about Islam, Muslims, and the Ground-Zero Mosque – Part 2". Christian Post. Archived from the original on 2012-09-05. Retrieved 2011-09-12.
- ^ "IGE and Georgetown Co-host Honest Conversation Between Evangelicals and Muslims". Institute for Global Engagement. 2009-06-23. Archived from the original on 2012-03-31. Retrieved 2011-09-24. mirror
- ^ "Roles of Non-Muslim Scholars in Islamic Studies Today: Featuring Dr. Jennifer Bryson". Zaytuna College. 2011-09-16. Archived from the original on 2011-09-25. Retrieved 2011-09-24.
- ^ "Kids Zone: Marvel, Believe, Care". The Creation Theology Fellowship.
- ^ "Anti-Semitism Among Islamists in Germany". Translated by Bryson, Jennifer S. Hudson Institute. 2019.
- ^ Görres, Ida Friederike (2020). "Trusting the Church: A Lecture". Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture. 23 (4). Translated by Jennifer S. Bryson: 123–147. doi:10.1353/log.2020.0034. S2CID 243289416.
- ^ Ratzinger, Joseph (2020). "Eulogy for Ida Friederike Görres". Logos. 23 (4). Translated by Jennifer S. Bryson: 148–151. doi:10.1353/log.2020.0036. S2CID 241709476.
- ^ Görres, Ida Friederike (2023). The Church in the Flesh. Translated by Bryson, Jennifer S. Providence, Rhode Island: Cluny Media. ISBN 978-1685952501.
- ^ Rosenberg, Alfons. “A Panoramic View of Ida Friederike Görres.” In The Church in the Flesh by Ida Friederike Görres, translated by Jennifer S. Bryson, xiii–xxv. Providence, RI: Cluny Media, 2023.
- ^ "About". Let All Play.
- ^ "FIFA Report". Let All Play.
- ^ Bryson, Jennifer. "Women's Liberation: Stop Kidding Yourself".
- ^ Bryson, Jennifer. "No Need for Androgynous Societies".