Call for Sessions: 4th Forum of Sociology, Porto Alegre, Brazil — July 14-18, 2020

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RESEARCH COMMITTEE 22: SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

Call for Session Proposals
4th ISA Forum of Sociology
July 15-18, 2020
(Session proposals due March 15, 2019)

 “Challenges of the 21st Century for Sociology of Religion“

Program Coordinators:
Eloísa Martín, United Arab Emirates University, UAE
Juan Cruz Esquivel, University of Buenos Aires/ CONICET, Argentina
Roberta Bivar Carneiro, Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil

The debate on religion, its role, its development, and its future has been intense, extensive and sophisticated during the last few decades. Religion is both a central phenomenon itself and a key variable that can be used to explain economic, social, and political phenomena.  Both facets require continuous in-depth research. In recent years, many sociologists have begun to identify limits to the current approach to religious phenomena, and especially to the definitions of religion developed in the West. A number of authors have extended this critique to the ways sociologists currently explain and interpret “religion” in the 21st Century. Though still emerging, such accounts have opened new paths by which sociologists of religion can face both the empirical and theoretical challenges of our era.

We invite proposals for sessions that focus both on the discussion and analysis of current religious phenomena, and especially on how – theoretically and methodologically – the sociology of religion has been dealing and should deal with these issues in the 21st Century. While proposals may focus on single perspectives or phenomena, we encourage those  that explore the nexus between different theoretical and methodological approaches. We welcome session proposals that examine the relationship between religion and democracy, ecology, inequality, diversity, intersectionality, human rights, social movements, digital activism, and migration, among others.

The ISA CONFEX website will be open for session proposals from February 4 – March 15, 2019 24:00 GMT. Sessions may only be submitted through the CONFEX site.  Programme coordinators cannot include sessions sent by email or include sessions submitted after the CONFEX system is closed.  Surf to http://bit.ly/2Gj9N0N to enter the CONFEX site.

Please, note that you must be an RC-22 member to submit a session proposal. You may also not chair a session in which you present a paper. In such cases, we suggest that you identify someone else to chair the session.

We welcome both pre-organized sessions (with pre-chosen panellists) and topical sessions that are open to paper proposals by others. You may propose regular paper sessions, Author-meets-critics sessions, and Roundtable sessions. Sessions should be designed to have 4-5 participants, plus several standby participants.  We wish to include as many scholars as possible, particularly from the global South.

In late March, the Program Coordinators will choose which sessions will appear on our program.  Once the sessions are chosen, individual paper proposals can be submitted through the CONFEX website from April 25 – September 30, 2019 24:00 GMT.  We will circulate another announcement with details of how to submit paper proposals before then.

Please address your questions to any of the Program Coordinators:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THIS CALL FOR SESSIONS