Author Archives: DaBoss

ISA Publications Committee looking for a Social Media Manager

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The International Sociological Association’s Publications Committee is looking for a Social Media Manager. We have really little time to fill the position and deadline is approaching soon (Dec 18th)

I kindly request you disseminate the CFA among your contacts and potential candidates

https://www.isa-sociology.org/uploads/imgen/866-isa-social-media-manager.pdf

ECR (including PhD students) and colleagues from under-represented regions are particularly welcome. If you could identify someone who have the experience and the stamina to join the team, please encourage them to apply.

I will be glad to answer any queries the potential candidates may have. Please ask them to contact me directly at eloisamartin@hotmail.com .

Thanks a lot!
Stay safe and healthy!

Dr. Eloísa Martín
Associate Professor, United Arab Emirates University
Associate Professor, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (on leave)
Vice-President for Publications, International Sociological Association (ISA)
Chair, ISA Human Rights Committee

New Book: Islam and the Liberal State

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Islam and the Liberal State: National Identity and the Future of Muslim Britain

by Stephen H. Jones

“Stephen Jones has produced the first book of its kind, a work that considers the interaction of political liberalism with actual lived Islam in Britain. Islam and the Liberal State is both an urgent read in these populist times and a far-reaching vision for a better future.”

Daniel Nilsson DeHanas, Senior Lecturer in Political Science and Religion, King’s College London, UK

National identity and liberal democracy are recurrent themes in debates about Muslim minorities in the West. Britain is no exception, with politicians responding to claims about Muslims’ lack of integration by mandating the promotion of ‘fundamental British values’ including ‘democracy’ and ‘individual liberty’.

This book engages with both these themes, addressing the lack of understanding about the character of British Islam and its relationship to the liberal state. It charts a gradual but decisive shift in British institutions concerned with Islamic education, Islamic law and Muslim representation since Muslims settled in the UK in large numbers in the 1950s. Based on empirical research including interviews undertaken over a ten-year period with Muslims, and analysis of public events organized by Islamic institutions, Stephen Jones challenges claims about the isolation of British Islamic organizations and shows that they have decisively shaped themselves around British public and institutional norms. He argues that this amounts to the building of a distinctive ‘British Islam’. Using this narrative, the book makes the case for a variety of liberalism that is open to the expression of religious arguments in public and to associations between religious groups and the state.

It also offers a powerful challenge to claims about the insularity of British Islamic institutions by showing how the national orientation of Islam called for by British policymakers is, in fact, already happening. The book uses this evidence to argue that the incorporation of Muslim minorities enables democratic renewal, with national identification having a positive impact on cultural minorities and political dissent.

Available from Bloomsbury Academic here.

The book’s contents page and the introduction can be read here.

Distinguished Book Award seeks Nominations

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Looking for Good Books

The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion’s Distinguished Book award recognizes the most outstanding book published by a SSSR member or members within the past two years. To be eligible for the 2021 award, books must be nominated by a SSSR member (yes, self-nominations are welcome) and have an imprint copyright publication date of 2019 or 2020. The committee will judge each book’s quality of scholarship, importance to the field, and relevance to the larger society. Any book involving some aspect of the scientific study of religion is eligible.

The deadline for nominations is January 11, 2021. The form will be available beginning December 4, 2020.

For more information, please visit our website’s Book Award page.

New Podcast: “Religion Unmuted”

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NEW PODCAST “RELIGION UNMUTED” FROM THE RELIGION AND PUBLIC LIFE PROGRAM @ RICE UNIVERSITY

The Religion and Public Life Program (RPLP) at Rice University, directed by Prof. Elaine Howard Ecklund, has launched a new podcast! RELIGION UNMUTED is the podcast that brings women’s voices to the table. We explore how religion impacts public discourse around important social issues, like racism, politics, immigration, health, and the body. Join us for research-driven dialogue that amplifies women’s voices in conversation about religion and public life. Subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen; all episodes are available here: https://religionunmuted.libsyn.com/ .

ASA RELIGION SECTION PARTNERS TO CREATE A NEW GRADUATE STUDENT MENTORING COMMUNITY

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The ASA Religion Section is teaming up with The Aggie Research Program (ARP) at Texas A&M University to create a research mentoring community. Through a series of three online workshops hosted by the ARP, participants will:

  • form a research-intensive community of their peers,
  • facilitate the creation of team-based research projects using their own research agenda,
  • recruit 3-5 undergraduate researchers,
  • learn mentoring and leadership strategies to help guide students engaging in authentic research experiences, and
  • collaborate with each other to overcome challenges and develop best practices for research mentoring.

These interactive workshops will guide participants through the process of creating, managing, and developing a research team while simultaneously fostering the development of the research-intensive community.

Any graduate student, any methodology, and any stage of research will benefit from the skills and community developed in this pilot program.

Please join us for Workshop #1—Building a Research-Intensive Community on Friday, December 11 @ 3-4:30pm CST.

To register, please RSVP using this link: https://tamu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0IEjHcPzg1FdNnn

Upon submission, you will receive an email with the Zoom link for the workshop. If you do not receive a Zoom link, please contact Andrew McNeely (amcneely@tamu.edu).

The New Worldview Paradigm in RE: Implications for the Nonreligious?

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Panel discussion with Professor Trevor Cooling (Canterbury Christ Church University and Religious Education Council of England and Wales), Dr Ruth Wareham (Humanists UK) and Dr Lois Lee (University of Kent); chaired by Dr Chris Deacy (University of Kent)

1pm Wednesday 2 December 2020 (Zoom joining information below)

Across the United Kingdom, Religious Education is subject to its most thorough-going review in a generation, with proposed reforms described as a paradigm change for the sector (Cooling et al 2020). Amongst other issues, proposals offered by the Commission on Religious Education in England and Wales and by the Welsh Government respond explicitly to the growing number of people who identify as nonreligious: What could this new approach to Religious Education mean for them? Their recommendations take better account of nonreligious perspectives than ever before. But is it right to assume that these proposed changes to RE are a straightforward “victory” for those that have called for better representation of nonreligion in the RE classroom? Does implementation of these proposals – already underway in some schools – mean that religious and nonreligious worldviews exist on a level playing field?

Join us for a panel discussion focusing attention on what a worldview approach to RE means in relation to the nonreligious.

Full details and the link to register can be found at: https://www.kent.ac.uk/events/event/46876/the-new-worldview-paradigm-in-re-implications-for-the-nonreligious

Prize: Best Doctoral Thesis or First Monograph in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World

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The Sixth Round of the BRAIS-De Gruyter Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World is now open for submissions.

The British Association for Islamic Studies (BRAIS) and De Gruyter are delighted to announce the sixth round of the BRAIS-De Gruyter Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World. This international prize will be awarded annually to the best doctoral thesis or unpublished first monograph based on a doctoral thesis. English-language submissions on any aspect of the academic study of Islam and the Muslim world, past and present, including Muslim-minority societies are accepted. Applicants can be based in any country, and manuscripts will be assessed on the basis of scholarly quality and originality.

The award includes publication of the winning manuscript and a prize of £1,000, and it will be officially presented at the Annual Conference of BRAIS. The selection process will be undertaken by a seven-member prize committee comprising established academics from across the field.

Deadline: 5.00 pm GMT, 31 December 2020

For more details, including rules and regulations, contact, the past Prize winners, and the Prize committee members, please visit: http://www.brais.ac.uk/prize/2021

2021 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting – In-Person Cancelled, Virtual Being Planned

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Due to COVID-19, the 2021 ASA Annual Meeting in Chicago has been cancelled. ASA leadership believes it is now clear that the global health crisis will not be resolved by August, and a large gathering of people from around the world presents an untenable health risk. ASA will offer a virtual 2021 ASA Annual Meeting instead of the in-person event. Further information about the virtual meeting will be provided in the coming months.

The ASA online portal is currently open for submissions for the 2021 Annual Meeting. ASA will continue with the submission process uninterrupted. The deadline is February 3. Our Religion Section Program Committee also will continue to plan for our sessions, and we strongly encourage you, your colleagues, and your students to submit in anticipation of a virtual meeting.

Online Symposium: British Muslims and COVID-19: Impacts, Experiences and Responses

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Tuesday 8th December 2020, 1pm to 5pm

An MBRN online symposium via Zoom

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/british-muslims-and-covid-19-impacts-experiences-and-responses-tickets-129223730657

Full Programme available at: http://www.mbrn.org.uk/registration-open-british-muslims-and-covid-19/

Research on Covid-19 has highlighted its disproportionate impact on Black and Asian Minority Ethnic groups (BAME) communities (Public Health England, 2020). However, these studies only offer a limited understanding of the particularity of experiences within the umbrella category BAME. For instance, there is only limited discussion around faith in relation to Covid-19, its impacts and the socio-economic fall-outs of lockdown. This MBRN symposium will redress this gap by taking an intersectional perspective in mapping and analysing the impact of Covid-19 on British Muslim communities. By bringing together practitioners and academics, we will examine how diverse British Muslim communities have experienced the pandemic, how their lives have been impacted during and after lockdown and how they responded.
By focusing on the experiences of British Muslims, this online symposium will enable us to examine the interplay of ethnicity, religion and deprivation, in negotiating the particular challenges of living through Covid-19. It will explore the diversity of ways in which British Muslims have experienced and responded to Covid-19, and seek to understand its ongoing impacts. Our aim is to suggest answers for the question, “How are diverse British Muslims living through, and responding to the challenges of, Covid-19?”.
The symposium includes presentations from academics and practitioners from a range of epistemological positions and disciplinary standpoints to explore dimensions of Muslim identity / lived experiences in relation to the pandemic, lockdown and subsequent socio-economic implications of Covid-19 in Britain.
Eventbrite registration essential, please select your preference for the parallel session during registration so you can be pre-assigned to a breakout room.

SISR/ISSR Conference News: July 12-15 2021 will be online

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Dear all,

We hope you are doing well in these dramatic times of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This email contains important information to all members about the upcoming 36th biannual SISR/ISSR conference in 2021.

As you know, the next ISSR conference was to be held in Taipei in 2021. For a long time, we hoped to stick to our plan. However, the latest developments of the COVID-19 pandemic shows a rise in infections in many countries, stricter travel restrictions and uncertainties about the time of the end of this global pandemic. In collaboration with the chair of the local committee in Taipei Associate Research Fellow/Professor Wei-hsian Chi, the Executive Committee has decided to postpone the conference in Taiwan until 2023. Instead, the ISSR conference July 12-15 2021 will be a fully digital conference.

In our meeting with Wei-Hsian Chi, we discussed the possibility for a hybrid conference in Taiwan. However, this solution posed a number of problematic issues:

  • • A hybrid conference implies that the physical conference must be covered financially, in addition to a digital solution with more extensive IT support. This solution became relatively costly.
  • • In the current situation, it is difficult to estimate the number of members who would actually be able to go to Taiwan. Even if many of desire to do so, hardly anyone are able to make travel plans today. The risk of many “no shows” is therefore high.
  • • The different time zones would make an international hybrid conference difficult to organize.

We are obviously disappointed to postpone the conference in Taiwan. Our priority is to ensure that a meeting in Taiwan is successful as a meeting place for many of us, even at a later date. Besides, having an online conference this summer will allow the majority of ISSR members to meet, share their research and discuss, regardless of the trajectory of the pandemic.

We are currently working on the organizational and technical details of the 2021 digital conference (any suggestion is most welcome, if you have participated in online conferences over the past few months!).

To enable as many of you as possible to participate, we now reopen the Call for Session until December 14th. This gives you the opportunity to:

The call for papers will be opened from January 8th to February 28th 2021.

These are the new deadlines:

  • Opening of new session proposals: November 10th 2020
  • Closing of session proposals:  December 14th 2020
  • Opening of paper submission: January 8th 2021
  • Closing of session proposals: February 28th 2021

In order to participate in the digital conference, you must be a member of the ISSR. There will be a conference fee, which will only cover the costs of the organization of the digital conference. Indeed, digital conferences require increased IT support to plan and arrange the conference, expenses for the use of conference platforms, translation of keynotes, and other technical and organizational expenses. However, we expect the conference fee to be substantially lower than usual.  The treasurer has to develop a new budget to determine the exact fee so please bear with us until we can provide you with an exact amount.

I hope this information will give more clarity for those of you who were concerned about the 2021 SISR/ISSR conference. The Executive Committee will continue to plan the conference in cooperation with the Council, and we will send out information about the conference as soon as possible.

I hope to see all of you at the digital conference in July 2021!

Best wishes,

Inger Furseth
President SISR/ISSR
Professor, University of Oslo
Email: inger.furseth@sosgeo.uio.no