Author Archives: SISR/ISSR General Secretary

Digital Media and Sacred Text

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Digital Media and Sacred Text: Call for Papers

Monday June 17th, Open University (Camden), London

Keynote Speaker: Professor Heidi A Campbell (Texas A&M University)

The first attempts to use computers to analyse sacred texts began in the 1950s. Over subsequent decades, religious believers have developed their own handheld e-readers, mobile apps, sophisticated software analysis tools, libraries of old and new commentary, and online discussion communities. Groups from many different religious traditions have been forced to consider new norms for the digital storage of sacred texts and for the appropriate use of e-readers in places of worship.

The academic study of digital religion has grown into a thriving field, but we still know very little about the impact of digital media on sacred text and audiences. This one-day conference will bring together academics interested in the study of digital sacred text from a wide range of religious traditions, including sociologists, ethnographers, media scholars, computer scientists, digital humanists and theologians.
We also welcome religious practitioners and publishers engaged in creating digital sacred texts.

Possible topics include:
– How can digital media affect the relationship between a religious reader and their sacred text?
– Does digitisation influence the interpretation of a text?
– What norms are emerging to guide the use of digital sacred texts, and how are those norms being negotiated?
– How can digital sacred texts be designed to meet the needs of religious readers?
– What challenges does the process of digitizing sacred text raise for religious communities?

If you would like to present a paper at this event, please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words by April 15th to Tim Hutchings (tim.hutchings@open.ac.uk).
Thanks to generous funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, we are able to offer a small number of bursaries to cover travel expenses for PhD students.
Contact Dr Hutchings for further details.

A New Book: The Sociology of Islam: Collected Essays of Bryan S. Turner

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The Sociology of Islam: Collected Essays of Bryan S. Turner

Edited by Bryan S. Turner, The City University of New York, USA and Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Ashgate, 2013
http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409462118

Taking a thematic approach, Bryan Turner draws together his writings which explore the relationship between Islam and the ideas of Western social thinkers. Turner engages with the broad categories of capitalism, orientalism, modernity, gender, and citizenship among others, as he examines how Muslims adapt to changing times and how Islam has come to be managed by those in power.

Contents: Preface, Daniel Martin Varisco; Bryan Turner: building the sociology of Islam, Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir; Part I Classical Approaches: Understanding Islam: Introduction, Bryan S. Turner; Islam, capitalism and the Weber theses; Origins and tradition in Islam and Christianity; State, science and economy in traditional societies; Conscience in the construction of religion: a critique of Marshall G.S. Hodgson’s The Venture of Islam. Part II The Orientalist Debate: Positioning Islam: Introduction, Bryan S. Turner; Orientalism, Islam and capitalism; On the concept of axial space : Orientalism and the originary; Orientalism, or the politics of the text; Leibniz, Islam and cosmopolitan virtue. Part III Islam Today: Sociological Perspectives: Introduction, Bryan S. Turner; ; Sovereignty and emergency: political theology, Islam and American conservatism; Class, generation and Islamism: towards a global sociology of political Islam; religious authority and the new media; Women, piety and space: a study of women and religious practice in Malaysia; The body and piety: the hijab and marriage; Islam, diaspora and multiculturalism; Shari’a and legal pluralism in the West; Appendix; Index.

About the Editor:

Bryan S. Turner is the Presidential Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center, The City University of New York where he serves as the Director of the Committee on Religion, and he is concurrently the Director of the Religion and Society Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney. He was awarded a Doctor of Letters by Cambridge University in 2009 and his latest monograph called Religion and Modern Society: Citizenship, Secularisation and the State (Cambridge University Press) appeared in 2011. He is the founding editor of a number of journals (Citizenship Studies, Body & Society and Journal of Classical Sociology) and book series (Muslims in Global Societies for Springer and Religion in Contemporary Asia for Routledge).

Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir received his PhD from the University of Western Sydney in 2011. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is the co-author of two books called Muslims as Minorities: History and Social Realities of Muslims in Singapore (National University of Malaysia Press) and Muslims in Singapore: Piety, Politics and Policies (Routledge). His recent articles include “Rethinking the ‘Malay Problem’ in Singapore: Image, Rhetoric and Social Realities” and “Poetic Jihadis: Muslim Youth, Hip-Hop and the Homological Imagination”.

Politics, Probity, Poverty and Prayer: African Spiritualities, Economic and Socio-political Transformation

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CALL FOR PAPERS
An International, Interdisciplinary Conference

POLITICS, PROBITY, POVERTY AND PRAYER: AFRICAN SPIRITUALITIES, ECONOMIC AND SOCIO-POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION

University of Ghana, Legon. October 21-23, 2013

This International Conference brings together scholars/researchers, practitioners of diverse religious traditions and spiritualities, FBOs/NGOs and policy makers to interrogate how and to what extent various religions and spiritualities in Africa and the African diaspora engage in processes of economic, social and political transformation.
Public commentators often criticize political entrepreneurs and African states of their failure to develop an ethic of public probity and accountability, partly exemplified by corruption. The enigmas of public transparency and probity can hardly be limited to public governance. We can also explore how religious institutions in Africa interrogate, critique, practice or fail to eschew transparency, accountability and probity in the quest for economic and social-political transformation.
Religious entrepreneurs grapple with similar issues of leadership, good governance, probity, integrity as a reflection of their wider societies. Ecclesiastical, Islamic, or Indigenous religious polities are situated within wider pluralistic (secular) polities in Africa and are thus mutually reinforcing each other. The significance of leadership and corporate governance (religious/secular) lies in its contribution to prosperity, peaceful coexistence, moral regeneration and accountability.
Accountability requires appropriate rules and regulations, doctrines, codes of conduct, values and behaviour to make for viable transformation. For instance, a historical perspective on leadership dynamics can be helpful in the present crisis in leadership in church and secular contexts. The churches and missionary societies played a crucial role in the shaping of South African cultures, as much in the colonial period as during the years of the formation of the Union and the apartheid era.

The conference provides a platform in which scholars/researchers, practitioners and policy makers will explore, through historical and contemporary perspectives, how authority structures, institutionalized myths, beliefs, and rituals of authority differently mobilize and influence members? behaviour and attitudes towards financial probity and organizational policies. How do various hierarchical/decentralized religious polities (i.e. structures of church government) in Africa deal with issues of probity (moral regeneration), equity and sustainable development? What values do African religions and spiritualities evince that represent a boon or bane for improving corporate governance and ensuring improved ethics and probity in African systems of governance?
How should religious polity structures respond, critique and identify with national/international policies that are aimed at a disciplined management and equitable distribution of public resources, and the establishment of a viable culture of financial probity? What various models condition religious polities and leadership in Africa, and how have these been influenced by modern political movements, such as Western democracy, as well as by modern economics and technology?
Are liberal or conservative forms of religiosity compatible with Western democracy?
How and to what extent should religious insights be present in the public sphere of the secular polity and vice versa? ?How do engage prayer ritual action impact on their religious and national polities to maximize probity at personal and institutional levels?

The conference will highlight and explore how and to what extent African and diaspora religious traditions and spiritualities may cohere on the critical issues, such as that of probity, equity and accountability, which confront the African continent, their ?faiths? in relation to the wider, global community. Interrelated issues on religion, spirituality, leadership, social capital, public role, poverty, corruption, transparency will be discussed. The conference is intended to build synergies and forge dialogue on how religious/spiritual communities in Africa and the African Diaspora can combat poverty and foster probity and sustainable development.

The conference programme shall focus on the following and related sub-themes:
–    African politico-economies, religious polity and accountability
–    religious polity structures, corruption and transparency
–    religious polity, social and religious capital
–    religious values, behaviour, probity and financial accountability
–    ethics, socio-cultural values, and social action
–    democracy and ecclesiastical polity
–    traditional (indigenous) systems of governance and probity
–    religion/spiritualities, prayer and poverty
–    religion, politics and socioeconomic empowerment
–    church polity, apartheid and post-apartheid transformation
–    religion, spiritualities and sustainable development in Africa and the African Diaspora
–    Probity and African and African-derived religions/spiritualities in a new global order

Paper/presentation proposals based or related to one or more of the above themes are invited from the interested public: scholars, religious/spiritual communities and organizations, policy makers, and FBOs/NGOs. Interested panelists are invited to submit a paper/abstract proposal (max. 200 words), stating institutional affiliation, on or before 30 March 2013. The conference will be jointly hosted by the Faculty of Arts, University of Ghana-Legon; Center of African Christianity, Trinity Theological Seminary, Accra; The University of Edinburgh, and PANAFSTRAG.

Abstract proposals and all correspondences regarding the conference should be sent electronically (email) to the conference organizers:
Afe Adogame: a.adogame@ed.ac.uk
Rose Mary Amenga-Etego: rosem.etego@googlemail.com
Cephas Omenyo: comenyo@hotmail.com
Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu: kwabena.asamoahgyadu@gmail.com

The African Christian New Currents and Emerging Trends in World Christianity

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The African Christian Diaspora: New Currents and Emerging Trends in World Christianity

By: Afe Adogame
Published: 2013
ISBN: 9781441112729
London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury Academic

http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-african-christian-diaspora-9781441112729/

About The African Christian Diaspora

The last three decades have witnessed a rapid proliferation of African Christian communities, particularly in Europe and North American diaspora, thus resulting in the remapping of old religious landscapes.
This migratory trend and development bring to the fore the crucial role, functions and import of religious symbolic systems in new geo-cultural contexts. The trans-national linkages between African-led churches in the countries of origin (Africa) and the “host” societies are assuming increasing importance for African immigrants. The links and networks that are established and maintained between these contexts are of immense religious, cultural, economic, political and social importance.
This suggests how African Christianities can be understood within processes of religious transnationalism and African modernity.

Based on extensive religious ethnography undertaken by the author among African Christian communities in Europe, the USA and Africa in the last 17 years, this book maps and describes the incipience and consolidation of new brands of African Christianities in diaspora. The book demonstrates how African Christianities are negotiating and assimilating notions of the global while maintaining their local identities.

Table Of Contents

Preface \ 1. Trajectories of African Migration \ 2. Narratives of African Migration \ 3. Situating the Local Scene(s) \ 4. Historiography of new African Christianities in Diaspora \ 5. A Phenomenology of African Christian Communities in Diaspora \ 6. African Christianities as Social, Cultural and Spiritual Capital \ 7. Negotiation Identity, Citizenship and Power \ 8. Globalization, Media and Transnationalism \ 9. Reverse Mission \ 10. The Politics of Networking \ Notes \ Bibliography \ Index

Reviews

“This is an important and impressive work. It is the first book to bring together all that we have learned in recent years about African Christian diasporas in Europe and the United States. Afe Adogame brings to this volume not only his powers of synthesis, but also the fruits of his own research on three continents. He shows how Africans? religious dynamism is changing the environment of the very countries where they are settling.”
– Gerrie ter Haar, Professor Religion and Development, International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

“The presence of African Christians and of African churches is being increasingly recognized as an important feature of the Christianity of Europe and North America. That presence is also a manifestation of a greater World Christianity. We owe much gratitude to Dr Adogame for this valuable book, with its comprehensive survey of the development and its useful demostration of the demographic, economic, political and legislative settings.”
– Andrew F Walls, Professor of the History of Missions at Liverpool Hope University, UK and Research Professor at Akrofi-Christaller Institute, Ghana

Indic traditions in the West: Seekership, Spirituality and Healing

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Panel at the 12th EASR conference

September 3-6, Liverpool Hope
Indic traditions in the West: Seekership, Spirituality and Healing

Organised by Dr Maya Warrier (University of Wales, Trinity Saint David)

A wide variety of Indic traditions (traditions and practices of Indian origin including, most significantly, forms of postural and meditational yoga, tantra, chanting, and ayurvedic healing practices) circulate today within transnational networks of cosmopolitan spiritual seekership.
These traditions are promoted by entrepreneurs from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds and nationalities, many of them Anglophone, who range from high-profile gurus heading multi-national organisations, to relatively low-profile individuals running small-scale and localised centres, workshops and classes.

This panel aims to explore the ways in which recognisably Indic ideas and practices are transmitted by these individuals and institutions to audiences of spiritual seekers in the West. It aims, in particular, to explore how the concerns/ preoccupations of ‘spiritual seekers’ in the West shape these traditions. The panel organiser would thus welcome papers which explore the interface between the contemporary Western milieu of religiously unaffiliated ‘spiritual seekership’, and the traditions and practices of Indian origin circulating in the West today. Contributions exploring colonial precedents to the Indic traditions currently circulating in the Western mind-body-spirit milieu are also welcome.

Please send abstracts (approximately 150 words) to Maya Warrier at m.warrier@tsd.ac.uk by the 1st of May, 2013.

Gender and Religion

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Call for papers: Special Issue of Gender & Society

Gender is one of the most salient features of religious movements and religious institutions. Women are the majority of participants in religious life and they are increasingly significant actors in religious movements and politics. In many religious traditions, cultural and religious continuity hinges on gendered practices and sexual regimes.
Many regions of the world are experiencing important transformations with respect to religion. For instance, China has seen an enormous upsurge in participation in religious and spiritual movements, including large numbers of women. Evangelical Christianity is an increasingly significant player in society and politics across the Global South.
Buddhist women in Asia are taking on positions of greater authority in their religious tradition. Hindu nationalism in India and Islamist governments coming to power in the Middle East and North Africa, have given renewed urgency to questions about women and religion. And in the United States, many political debates continue to be polarized by religious affiliation and these debates have become significant issues in public discourse.

Despite the growing popular and scholarly interest in religion, scholarship on gender and religion remains under-conceptualized and marginalized in the discipline of sociology.This special issue of Gender & Society seeks to bring together a range of empirical studies at the intersection of gender and religion in diverse contexts to in order to develop new theoretical concepts and perspectives that can illuminate these issues.Gender & Society is one of the most highly cited journals in sociology, and we expect this issue to become a significant platform for emerging scholarship that will point toward new directions and continuing conversations in the study of gender and religion.

We welcome papers that interrogate the gendered nature of religious communities, movements, and experiences while recognizing the centrality of religion in the lives ofmany communities and individuals. Especially welcome are papers that highlighttransnational work that is grounded in deep regional knowledge, papers that bridgedifferent religions, and papers that contribute to theorizing of major conceptual debates in the study of gender and sociology more generally. Empirical and theoretical issues may include:
* Religion, structure, and agency
* Religious social movements
* Religious sexual cultures
* Religious masculinities
* Gendered religious practices
* Religion, gender, and politics
* Religion, gender, and everyday life
* Gender and secularism/post-secularism
* Religious law and gender
* Religion and activism for social/gender justice
* Religion, gender, and economic life / and or class
* Intersectional perspectives on gender and religion
* Religion, gender, and nationalism

Completed manuscripts, due September 1, 2013, should be submitted online to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/gendsoc and should specify in the cover letter that the paper is to be considered for the special issue.

For additional information, please contact any of the guest editors for this issue:
Orit AvishaiDepartment of SociologyFordham University avishai@fordham.edu
Afshan Jafar Department of SociologyConnecticut College ajafar@conncoll.edu
Rachel RinaldoDepartment of SociologyUniversity of Virginia rar8y@virginia.edu

AASR 2013 Annual Conference – Call for Papers

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Upcoming conference for the Study of Religion call for papers

2 – 4 October, 2013
Venue: University of South Australia, City West Campus
Hawke Building, Bradley Forum, Level 5
50 – 55 North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia

The Australian Association for the Study of Religion and The International Centre for Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding invite you to the AASR Annual conference with the theme:

The Paradox of Liberation and Religion

The relationships between religion and society and religion and the individual are multivalent. Religion can be mobilised as a source of empowerment, whilst at the same time curtailing individual and social freedom. For example, Muslim dress is often typecast in the West as a symbol of oppression of individual freedoms, while the veil can be imbued with notions political, social and spiritual liberation. Religion can also be a source of power over individual and collective spheres. The institutionalisation of religion within state apparatus can result in the extension of religious freedoms to some, and the oppression of others. We invite speakers from a broad range of disciplines to engage with the paradoxes of liberation and religion in their various formations.

Contributors are invited to engage with, but are not confined to, the following themes:
– How religion is mobilised to justify forms of social, political and individual oppression and liberation
– The complexities and contradictions of secularism as sources of personal and social liberties
– Inter-religious dialogues between Islam and other critical traditions of thought
– Intersections between religion and power
– Relationships between gender, sexuality and religion
– Religion in the media and popular culture
– Struggles for the recognition of religious formations and expressions

Call for Individual or Panel Presentations
* Individual paper proposals (200-300 word abstracts)
* Panel proposals (200 word for the panel concept and 200-300 words on each panel paper).
* For each paper, please provide a bio (up to 50 words)of the presenter(s).

Presentations of 20 minutes with 5 minutes for questions
Please submit your abstract by July 31st 2013 to
MnM-Centre@unisa.edu.au

University of Göttingen-Postdocs

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University of Goettingen-Transregional Research Network

Two Postdoctoral Fellows-Secularity and New Religiosities

The University of Göttingen is launching a transregional research network (CETREN) under the broad thematic rubric “The Politics of the New”, funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). For its pilot project, “Secularism and New Religiosities”, CETREN seeks to fill two Postdoctoral Research Positions.
The two positions, to begin in October 2013, will be offered as two-year fixed-term contracts on a full-time basis (currently 39,8 hours per week) and will be remunerated at the TV-L E13 level (in accordance with the German public sector pay scale).
The pilot project “Secularism and New Religiosities” examines new forms of religiosity that emerge under various regional or national regimes of secularism, and how these are shaped in transnational arenas of cultural, political and legal interaction (see project description at http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/422555.html). Within this wider context, we invite post-doctoral research proposals that theoretically and empirically analyze new religiosities in comparative perspective; cross-religious as well as cross-regional comparisons are welcome. While the overall project’s main focus is on South Asia, East Asia, and Europe, proposals may broaden the comparative scope by including other regions.
Successful applicants must have a PhD in a relevant field, such as history, anthropology, sociology, political science, religious studies, or area studies. Researchers will be based at the University of Göttingen, but will be permitted to conduct fully-funded field research for part of the two-year period, upon consultation with the principal investigators.
Applicants from all countries are encouraged to apply. Fluency in English is expected. A complete application will consist of a cover letter, a CV, a writing sample, a 1000-word proposal for a postdoctoral research project, and two confidential letters of reference sent separately by the referees. Any queries regarding the positions may be addressed to Prof. Rupa Viswanath at rviswan@uni-goettingen.de.
Materials should be sent, preferably by email, to holk.stobbe@cemis.uni-goettingen.de no later than April 1, 2013.Alternatively you can send your application by post to: Georg-August-Universität GöttingenCentre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS) Prof. Rupa ViswanathWaldweg 26D-37073 GöttingenGermany The University of Göttingen is an equal opportunity employer and places particular emphasis on fostering career opportunities for women. Qualified women are therefore strongly encouraged to apply. Disabled persons with equivalent aptitude will be favored.

Religion and Global Migrations, Palgrave Macmillan’s new series

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Announcing Palgrave Macmillan’s new series:Religion and Global Migrations

As the first series of its kind, Religion and Global Migrations will examine the phenomenon of religion and migration from multiple disciplinary perspectives (for example, historical, anthropological, sociological, ethical and theological), from various global locations (including the Americas, Europe and Asia), and from a range of religious traditions. The Series Editors are interested in monographs and edited volumes that explore the intersections of religion and migration from a variety of approaches, including studies of:
– Shifting Religious Practices and Ideas in sending and receiving communities, among migrants and also among those who interact with migrants in places of origin and destination;
– Public Responses to migration such as religiously informed debates, policies and activism among migrants and nonmigrants alike;
– Gender Dynamics including shifts in gender roles and access to power in sending and receiving sites;
– Identity in relation to religion and migration that may include constructive, as well as descriptive, scholarship;
– Empire, from the ancient Mediterranean through the height of European colonization to contemporary relationships between the developing and developed world, and the way it has profoundly affected the movement of people and development of religions;
– Other topics connecting to the theme of religion and global migrations.

Series Editors

Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh is Departmental Lecturer in Forced Migration at the Refugee
Studies Centre, and Junior Research Fellow in Refugees Studies at Lady Margaret Hall
elena.fiddian-qasmiyeh@qeh.ox.ac.uk

Jennifer B. Saunders is an independent researcher who has published on transnational Hinduism
jbsaund1@yahoo.com

Susanna Snyder is Assistant Professor in Contemporary Society and Christian Ethics at Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, MA
ssnyder@eds.edu

Editorial Board
Peggy Levitt (Wellesley College, USA)
Kim Knott (Lancaster University, UK)
Zain Abdullah (Temple University, USA)

Proposals
If you are interested in submitting a proposal to be considered for the series, please contact one of the Series Editors or:
Burke Gerstenschlager, Palgrave Macmillan
Burke.Gerstenschlager@palgrave-usa.com

New book: “Doble mirada”, Miquel Barbarà

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Miguel Barbarà Anglès, Doble mirada. Sobre el fet religiòs i l’Església, Editorial Claret, Barcelona 2012, pp. 110.

Aquest llibre és una senzilla introducciò al coneixement del fet religiòs des de la perspectiva de la sociologia i de la creença.Aquesta “doble mirada” suposa un diàleg interior entre creença i ciència, entre fe i raò. Un diàleg molt ùtil i que l’autor ofereix als lectors amb la disposiciò mi el desig que també els ajudi a fer aquest diàleg en la seva vida.
Fe i ciència no estan renyides. Al contrari, poden ser ben complementàires i poden donar un bon resultat, tant en l’ordre persnal com en el social.
El fet religiòs i l’Església han fet i estan fent un molt bon servei al bé comù de la societat, de Catalunya. Si es porta bé, en el futur, encara el poden fer millor.