International Conference
3 – 5 March 2020
Centre for Religious Studies
Centre for Information and Communication Technology
Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK), Trento

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are having a significant impact on contemporary societies, and it is a widely held belief that their societal impact will become disruptive in a not too distant future. Religion has proved to remain a salient and determining feature of human societies, with an estimated 84% of the global population in 2010 identifying with a religious group, according to the PEW Research Centre. The goal of this conference is to explore current interactions between the religious sphere (widely construed in terms of diverse communities, institutions, practices, precepts, beliefs, and rites) on the one hand, research and innovation in the field of AI on the other. AIR2020 will bring together researchers and scholars in artificial intelligence, religious studies, economics, legal studies, science communication, narratology, philosophy, and sociology. While covering the more obvious and researched topics, such as the role of religious vocabulary in popular AI narratives and techno-utopian or dystopian visions of human futures, the conference will also focus on less researched areas, such as the involvement of religious actors in shaping current debates over AI governance, the impact of AI technologies on freedom of religion or belief, the value alignment problem for AI with regard to religiously grounded values, and the discrepancy between non-expert perceptions of AI and the current state of the art in AI research, development and innovation.

AIR2020 is embedded in the mission on religion and innovation of the Centre for Religious Studies, as articulated in our 2019 position paper Religion and Innovation: Calibrating Research Approaches and Suggesting Strategies for a Fruitful Interaction. Our position paper proposes a set of eleven recommendations concerning action research in religion and innovation that can benefit societal actors in their attempts to strengthen the interaction between religion and innovation. For an account of FBK-ISR’s work on religion and innovation please consult our booklet Religion & Innovation at FBK.

The conference is organised by the Centre for Religious Studies (FBK-ISR) in collaboration with the Centre for Information and Communication Technologies of Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK-ICT).

Abstracts and submission
The organisers welcome abstracts for 30-minute papers which engage with contemporary interactions between religion and artificial intelligence, in particular regarding – but not restricted to – the following topics:

1. Involvement of religious actors/stakeholders (institutions, religious leaders, communities) in public debates over AI governance (e.g., analysis of soft law initiatives)
2. Artificial intelligence and freedom of religion or belief (case studies of digital tools, strategies and trends promoting or impeding freedom of religion or belief)
3. Value alignment: religiously grounded values and utility functions (quantifiability of religiously grounded preferences)
4. The current state of AI research and development vs. non-expert perceptions of extant AI technologies (popular AI narratives and their relation to contemporary AI research and development)
5. Religious imagery in AI narratives (in science communication, media, popular culture, academia, religious commitment or mere rhetoric?)
6. The role of AI topoi in epistemically possible and/or merely speculative scenarios of humanity’s future(s) (transhumanism, posthumanism, techno-utopias and techno-dystopias)

Abstracts, max. 750 words in length and formatted for blind review, should be emailed to AIR2020@fbk.eu by Monday, October 21, 2019.

Please include your name, institutional affiliation, email address, and paper title in the email body, use “AI and Religion 2020” in the subject line of your email, and indicate which of the above topics your paper will address. Acceptance notices will be sent out by Thursday, November 7, 2019.

For further inquiries about the conference, please contact Dr Boris Rähme (AIR2020@fbk.eu).

Dear Colleagues,
I would like to draw your attention to the BSA Annual Conference taking place at Aston University next April. The call for papers can be found at the bottom of this email as well as the abstract submission links and deadline. I am also pleased to announce that SocRel will be hosting a stream plenary session at the annual conference on: ‘Modest Workwear as Aesthetic Labour: learning to wear religion’  with speakers Professor Reina Lewis (London College of Fashion, UAL) and Dr Lina Molokotos-Liederman (London College of Fashion, UAL). This is shaping up to be a great event and we would encourage you to submit your paper within the SocRel study group sessions.

Should you have any questions or queries, then please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Dr Rachael Shillitoe
Research Associate
School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham
B15 2TT

The theme for the BSA Annual Conference 2020 is – Reimagining Social Bodies: Self, Institutions and Societies and we’d like you to help shape the discourse by presenting your research to the largest annual gathering of the sociological community in the UK.

Contemporary explorations of bodies generate a broad range of potential thematic questions or the conference in 2020. These include, but are not restricted to:

• What role are bodies playing in current disputes over who is a citizen in different global locations and who has the right to cross state boundaries?
• Does the concept of the ‘social body’ retain validity in contexts of fragmented identities and fractured ties to the state?
• Looking at issues such as disability and age, how important are bodies as vehicles for citizenship rights and welfare entitlement?
• What do contemporary disputes over gender and the body say about the intersection of medical, scientific and political classifications in establishing legitimate bodies’?
• In what ways do bodies play into intersectional dynamics of inequality and marginalisation?
• How important are bodies in understanding some of the costs of long-term austerity?

The conference will take place at Aston University, Birmingham from 21–23 April 2020.
Our Annual Conference is renowned for having an open, approachable and inclusive culture.  Whether you’re looking to refresh your networks, get stuck into intellectual exchanges, find some space to develop your research ideas or learn new approaches, we can help you. 

Whatever you’re searching for, you’ll find it at the BSA Annual Conference link.
There are opportunities for everyone connected to the discipline and if you’d like to present your research to the primary annual conference for sociology in the UK, we’d like to hear from you.
Abstract submission deadline Friday, 11 October 2019. Please follow this link to submit your abstract

March 26 -27th 2020, Coventry University, England

The overarching theme is ‘From the Outside Looking In: International Latter-day Saints and their Neighbours’.

We are hoping for submissions  that examine the ways in which those on the “outside”-both those outside of North America and those outside of Mormon faith traditions-perceive the institutional church and the process that enculturation plays in the church’s development internationally.

This includes but not limited to:

•   The presence of Mormonism in interfaith activities,
• The role of representation and advocacy in bridge-building between secular/Mormon/mainstream religion
• To what extent does an American-grown religion thrived in international settings
• How have the church’s American cultural roots impeded its growth in other countries
• How does the church’s globalization compare to the globalization of other religious traditions
• The similarities and differences in the ways those of other faiths view the Mormon church in different countries
• To what degree do international church members adapt or repurpose the Mormon church’s practices to navigate their host nation
• How does Mormon women shape negotiations between Mormon and non-Mormon spaces
• The tension between institutional Mormon structures and secular notions of gender equality

Please submit your abstract to gmsconference2020@gmail.com
Abstract submissions should include a preliminary title and be no more than 300 words.

• Deadline for submission: 1 October 2019
• Notification of acceptance: 22 October 2019
• Deadline for final paper submission: 1 March 2020

For all general enquiries, please contact: gmsconference2020@gmail.com 

To find out more about the conference please follow the link; https://www.globalmormonstudies.org/gms-2020-cfp/

The Islamicate Graduate Student Association invites papers for our 17th Annual Duke-UNC Conference, the longest running graduate student Middle East & Islamic Studies conference in the country. This year’s conference “Who Speaks for Islam?: Approaches to Authority within the Academy and Beyond” will be held in Chapel Hill, NC on Saturday, February 29, 2020. In light of recent attempts at intimidation by the state, we are particularly interested in thinking through the politics of power. As such, we are seeking papers that interrogate questions of authority and power. As keynote speaker, Professor Kecia Ali will speak to gendered citational politics and structures of authority within the academy.

We are seeking submissions from fields inclusive of, but not limited to: Religious Studies, Political Science, Sociology, History, Art History, Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Philosophy, Asian Studies, Critical Race Studies, Geography, Women and Gender Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, American Studies, and African Studies.

In addition to seeking submissions from graduate students, we are also seeking submissions from independent scholars, advocates, and people outside the academy. We are also open to artistic, photographic, or other forms of aesthetic submissions. Please include a one page artist statement with your submission.

Please submit a short bio and a maximum 500 word abstract to IGSAcouncil@gmail.com by Friday November 15, 2019. Accepted abstracts must submit their 10-20 page paper by Friday January 10, 2020. We look forward to your submissions!