Author Archives: DaBoss

Call for Papers: Critical Approaches to the Study of Religion Conference

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Call for Papers
(.pdf)

Critical Approaches to the Study of Religion Conference

co-sponsored by
The Center for Critical Research on Religion
and
The School of Social Sciences, Education, and Social Work
at Queen’s University Belfast

Queens University Belfast
Belfast, Northern Ireland
June 11, 2021 (welcome reception) – June 14, 2021

co-chairs: Veronique Altglas and Warren S. Goldstein

Theme: This conference aims to bring into conversation scholars of religion in the humanities and social sciences (including theology, religious studies, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychology, history, political science, and literature among others) who employ critical approaches to the study of religion. It is particularly interested in the development of critical theoretical frameworks in application to empirical research on religion. The conference will be organized around the following themes:

Session Topics:

1. The Critique of Religion
2. Critical Theology
3. Biblical Criticism
4. Marxism and Religion
5. Liberation Theology
6. Psychoanalytic Approaches to the Study of Religion
7. Critical Theory and Religion
8. Post-structural Approaches to the Study of Religion
9. Critical Religion
10. Critical Ethnographies
11. Post-colonialism, Race, and Religion
12. Religion, Gender, and Sexuality
13. Religion and the Environment
14. Religious and Political Conflict in Northern Ireland

Publications: Authors who deliver papers at the conference will be selectively invited to turn them into articles for special issues of the journal Critical Research on Religion (crr.sagepub.com) or book chapters in edited volumes in the book series “Studies in Critical Research on Religion” (brill.com/scrr).

Registration Fees: £175 full fees for those with regular positions; £85 for graduate students, independent scholars, and contingent faculty. Registration is required for organizing or convening a session, presenting a paper, serving as a panelist, or holding another role in the program. Fees go to pay for receptions and other expenses. Registration fees are nonrefundable.

Deadlines: Deadline for session and paper proposals: January 15, 2021. Abstract length: 150 words per paper. Decisions will be made by March 1, 2021. Registration fees due by March 15, 2021.

Conference registration: TBA

Hotel and Tourist Information: https://visitbelfast.com

Send proposals or questions to: Veronique Altglas v.altglas[at]qub.ac.uk and Warren S. Goldstein goldstein[at]criticaltheoryofreligion.org

Call for Papers: “The Ilkley Group at 50”

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Call for Papers

The Ilkley Group at 50 – A reunion conference weekend

Online via zoom..

Friday 16th – Sunday 18th April 2021

In 1971 a gathering of (then) young sociologists who were followers of Jesus Christ met together in the Yorkshire town of Ilkley. Their concern was to reconcile their Christian faith and values with the overwhelmingly (with one one or two notable exceptions) secular ethos of the social sciences, to discover how to pursue faithfully their calling as academics and researchers and to influence the future of their chosen discipline. The “Ilkley Group” continued to meet twice yearly at Mill Grove into the early 2000s.

Fifty years on the group intends to hold a virtual conference (free of charge) and invites paper proposals from academics and researchers in sociology or closely related social sciences which address their topics within a Christian perspective. Papers may be autobiographical, theoretical, interdisciplinary or empirically based.

The papers should aim to be no longer than 20 minutes in length and in view of the online format are probably best presented alongside a power-point or other multi-media presentation.

Depending on numbers offering papers and registering for the event it is not at this stage possible to say whether papers will be in plenary or parallel workshop session. We hope that the papers will come from across the generations including some from early career scholars with a personal faith commitment. Our intention is that there will be plenty of space for questions and discussion as well as for informal networking with like-minded colleagues.

The two major themes we want to address are:

Looking back and looking forward: The environment in the academy, the church and society, for Christian and other faith based sociological perspectives over between 1971 and 2021. What are / have been the opportunities and constraints for Christians in sociology, what changes are discernible over that period and how might trends progress into the future? These themes could be discussed in the context of participants’ experiences, through their careers, reflecting on your own intellectual and spiritual journey.

The New Normal in Church and Society : The Covid-19 global pandemic has been a major disruption to social and religious life. Other disruptions have been happening in the same period, for example the financial crash of 2008, the wave of populist and anti-globalist politics, the refugee crisis, and rapid technological, cultural and religious change. What is the impact on the societies and communities in which we live, and on the churches that worship and serve among us?

If you are interested in offering a paper for this conference please send an abstract of no more than 300 words, together with a two sentence biography to gregcity3@yahoo.co.uk before 31st December 2020.

A programme for the conference and registration forms will be available via Eventbrite early in 2021

Please circulate this announcement to relevant networks and colleagues.

Shalom

Greg Smith
Associate Research Fellow, William Temple Foundation

CONTACT ME  by email; gregcity3@yahoo.co.uk
Phone – Mobile 07726177044
http://williamtemplefoundation.org.uk/

Personal web page with list of publications etc.
http://gregsmith.synthasite.com/

In Memoriam: William Swatos

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William (Bill) Swatos was the editor of the U.S. journal Sociological Analysis (now Sociology of Religion) and the long-time Executive Officer of the Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR).  He was active in the SISR-ISSR and was the official liaison between the ASR and the ISA Research Committee 22 on the sociology of religion.

He died yesterday from complications of COVID-19. 

Here is his official obituary:

William H. Swatos, Jr. 74, of Galva, IL, died in GMC Medical Center, Sterling, IL on November 9, 2020 due to complications of COVID-19.

A native of West Milford, NJ, he graduated from Transylvania University in Lexington, KY, and the University of Kentucky. He graduated from the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Lexington and was ordained a priest while serving at the Church of the Transfiguration in Lawrenceburg, KY. He served at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Silvis, IL from 1980-1993. He was a resident of Galva, IL until recently moving to a care facility.

His academic career included teaching sociology at King College (Bristol, TN), Augustana College (Rock Island, IL), and Baylor University (Waco, TX). As a Fulbright Scholar in 1981, he travelled to Iceland to teach and study Icelandic religion. He was a noted author/editor of over 20 textbooks exploring topics in the sociology of religion. He served as Executive Officer of the Association for the Sociology of Religion from 1997-2012, and as Managing Editor of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion at Baylor University.

He is survived by sons Eric (Elizabeth) Swatos of Prophetstown and Giles Swatos of Tampa, FL, and grandchildren Arthur, Lillian, Claire, and Stephen. In lieu of flowers, please consider a gift to the Alzheimer’s Association, https://www.alz.org/

News from the American Sociological Association’s Section on Religion

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  • JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS
  • UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA at CHAPEL HILL
  • REMINDER: 2021 ASA ANNUAL MEETING & RELIGION SECTION DAY
  • GRADUATE STUDENT MENTORING – STAY TUNED
  • NEWSLETTER & @ASA_RELIGION TWITTER ANNOUNCEMENTS

JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS – UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA at CHAPEL HILL

Tenure-Track Assistant Professor – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – ASA Job ID 16552

  • The Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is pleased to participate in the following search for a tenure-track assistant professor:
  • Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: https://unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/184289
  • Please pass these links along to potential candidates; thank you! For questions about the search, please email Jennifer Eissing, Department of Sociology, at: eissingj@email.unc.edu
  • Applications will be considered until the position is filled, but our review of applications will begin on November 9, 2020.

Postdoc – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – ASA Job ID 16557

  • The Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is pleased to participate in the following search for a postdoctoral research fellow:
  • The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Postdoctoral Program for Faculty Diversity: https://research.unc.edu/carolina-postdocs/applicants/
  • Please pass these links along to potential candidates; thank you! For questions about the search, please email Jennifer Eissing, Department of Sociology, at: eissingj@email.unc.edu
  • Deadline for submission is November 16, 2020.
  • *Note: We welcome more job announcements. Per ASA policy, academic jobs advertised through our listserv include ASA job bank ID.

REMINDER: 2021 ASA ANNUAL MEETING & RELIGION SECTION DAY

Plans for the 116th ASA Annual Meeting in Chicago, August 7-10, 2021 continue. Note that ASA’s online portal will open for submissions on Monday, November 9, 2020. The submission deadline is Wednesday, February 3, 2021 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.

Sociology of Religion Section Sessions are assigned to Day 4, Tuesday, August 10th. Since this is the last day of the meeting, our section receives an additional session for papers.

The section’s Program Committee consists of colleagues with an array of expertise. In hopes of adequately diversifying the scholarship featured this year, we are issuing an OPEN call for all Religion Section sessions and roundtables, while asking that session organizers for each of our sessions pay particular attention to themes which I believe are of particular significance to the study of religion today as follows:

  • Session: Sociology of Religion OPEN (preference for papers on gender & sexuality) Session
    Organizers: Jonathan Coley and Courtney Irby
  • Session: Sociology of Religion OPEN (preference for papers on cross-national or international dynamics)
    Session Organizers: Gary Adler and Rachel Rinaldo
  • Session: Sociology of Religion OPEN (preference for papers on the State or power dynamics)
    Session Organizer: Meredith Whitnah and Rhys Williams
  • Session: Sociology of Religion OPEN (preference for papers on non-religious dynamics or nones)
    Session Organizers: Joseph Blankholm and Jacqui Frost
  • Refereed Roundtables: Sociology of Religion Roundtables OPEN
    Session Organizers: Orestes Pat Hastings and Laura Krull

Our annual Sociology of Religion Section Business Meeting will convene immediately after the Roundtable Session.

Also, the Religion Section anticipates partnering again with the concurrent meetings of the Association for the Sociology of Religion also in Chicago. For example, we plan to again co-host a joint mentoring session for graduate students as well as a joint evening reception. More details as they are available.

GRADUATE STUDENT MENTORING – STAY TUNED

Our ASA Sociology of Religion Section is making plans to offer opportunities for Graduate Student Mentoring in the coming year. Stay tuned for details as they emerge.

NEWSLETTER & ASA RELIGION TWITTER ANNOUNCEMENTS

If you have newsletter items – Announcements, Awards, Promotions, Publications, Calls for Submissions, Job Listings (with ASA Job Bank ID), and other relevant material, please email Evan Stewart at Evan.Stewart@umb.edu.

If you have anything you would like to share in future announcement emails, please email me – gemarti@davidson.edu.

Gerardo Martí, PhD
L. Richardson King Professor of Sociology, Davidson College
https://www.davidson.edu/people/gerardo-marti

Call for Papers: Special Journal Issue: “Religion and Public Health Threats in the 21st Century”

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Special Issue on Religion and Public Health in the journal Religions is seeking papers. The call for papers can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/Religion_Century. Submission deadline for completed papers is June 1, 2021, but we encourage early submissions. Religions is an open access journal, but a 50% discount on publication fee (final cost approx. 500CHF) will be offered to selected good quality papers. If you don’t have funding support and have concerns about the fees, please state so in your cover letter. In addition to the Special Issue online, accepted papers (if 10 or more) will be published in printed book format. Please direct any inquiries to Magdalena Szaflarski, PhD, Guest Editor, at szaflam@uab.edu.

Call for Papers: Special Issue on “Religious Communities in Exile and Diaspora”

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The open access journal Religions is preparing a special issue on “Religious Communities in Exile and Diaspora”.  Dr. Ellen Posman (Baldwin Wallace University) is Guest Editor.

Religions is an international, open-access scholarly journal. It is indexed in A&HCI (Web of Science), ATLA Religion Database and in SCOPUS,  which gave it a Citescore of 0.50 and listed it among the top 9% of the 462 religious studies journals SCOPUS surveyed in 2018.

Papers may be submitted from now until 28 February 2021, as papers will be published on an ongoing basis. Submitted papers should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.

If you would like to contribute, please email Dr. Posman by 12/31/2020 with a title and
abstract (email: eposman@bw.edu, subject: Religions abstract).

Conférence: “La place et les idées politiques des néocharismatiques-pentecôtistes aux États-Unis”

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Le Centre de recherche Société, Droit et Religions de l’Université de Sherbrooke (SoDRUS) vous invite à une conférence publique qui aura lieu le mercredi 18 novembre 2020. 

La place et les idées politiques des néocharismatiques-pentecôtistes aux États-Unis

Date : 18 novembre 2020
Heure : 11h55
Lieu : Événement tenu en ligne, sur TEAMS.

Inscription obligatoire à l’adresse suivante : sodrus@usherbrooke.ca

Cette conférence sera donnée par André Gagné, Professeur à l’Université Concordia et chercheur partenaire au SoDRUS.

Merci de diffuser l’information dans vos réseaux!
Au plaisir de vous accueillir,
Raphaël Mathieu Legault-Laberge, Ph.D.
Coordonnateur et chercheur partenaire au SoDRUS

______________________

Pour vous désabonner de la liste d’envoi du SoDRUS, merci de cliquer sur le bouton suivant :

Pièce jointe : Affiche de l’événement

Événement : https://www.usherbrooke.ca/sodrus/accueil/evenements/evenements-details/e/43724/

Événement Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/events/2473085162984520/

SSSR “Fall Fridays” Virtual Program

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Please join us for a series of virtual events this fall organized by SSSR President, Laura Olson. Attendance is free, but you must register for each event in order to participate. Recordings of each session will be available after the events.

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Friday, October 23
10:00 am Eastern Time (GMT – 4:00)
Religion and Spirituality in a Frightening World: A Conversation with Rabbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers
Jeffrey S. Myers is the Rabbi of Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Congregation in Pittsburgh. A teacher, scholar, and accomplished musician, he is ordained as both a rabbi and a cantor (hazzan) in the Conservative Jewish tradition. Ever since a gunman murdered 11 people during Shabbat morning services at his congregation, he has been an embodiment of how faith, love, and inclusion can defeat hate. SSSR President Laura Olson will speak with Rabbi Hazzan Myers about how religion helps individuals, groups, and societies confront terrifying circumstances.
Register for this event:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TO2BfBIrSWGraiuaoA5DZg
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the event via Zoom.

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Friday, October 30
2:30 pm Eastern Time (GMT – 4:00)
Religion, Race, and the Struggle for Justice: A Conversation with Rev. Dr. Nichole R. Phillips
A Joint Presentation of the SSSR and the Religious Research Association
Nichole R. Phillips is Associate Professor in the Practice of Sociology of Religion and Culture, and Director of Black Church Studies, at Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Her scholarship treats religion, critical race, gender, and cultural memory studies. She is the author of Patriotism Black and White: The Color of American Exceptionalism (Baylor University Press 2018). RRA President Patricia Wittberg and SSSR President Laura Olson will speak with Dr. Phillips about how religion might help the United States confront and repair its long history of racial injustice.
Register for this event:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_vQvny2-kRrqDcPJfeDdIWQ
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the event via Zoom.

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Friday, November 6
2:30 pm Eastern Time (GMT – 5:00)
Religion and the 2020 U.S Presidential Election: A Panel Discussion
On the first Friday after the 2020 U.S. presidential election, SSSR President Laura Olson will convene a panel of three expert analysts to discuss the ways in which religion affected the election’s outcome and how it might shape the political road ahead. Panelists include Michele Margolis, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania; Gerardo Martí, L. Richardson King Professor of Sociology at Davidson College; and Besheer Mohamed, Senior Researcher at the Pew Research Center.
Register for this event:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__GRZg_8BTA6S2A7EtSrEOA
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the event via Zoom.

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Friday, November 13
2:30 pm Eastern Time (GMT – 5:00)
SSSR Annual Business Meeting and Awards Presentation
All SSSR members are invited to join us for our annual business meeting and awards presentations. The Distinguished Book Award will be presented by Michael Emerson of the University of Illinois at Chicago; the Distinguished Article Award will be presented by Amy Slagle of the University of Southern Mississippi; and the Student Paper Award will be presented by Christopher Scheitle of West Virginia University.
Register in for this event:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XIm-k_v4SeOEPB4G4-fUEg
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the event via Zoom.