Author Archives: Janaki

Conference: African Lived Christianity – Faith, Ritual and Power

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African Lived Christianity – Faith, Ritual and Power

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Lund University, CTR
16 – 18 March 2016

The thematic focus of this conference is on the lived experiences of
African Christianity, on how religion and religious experience are part
of the understanding and explanation of social reality in Africa. By
taking this thematic focus, we wish to overcome the dividing lines in
the study of African Christianity between theology and the social
sciences. We seek to engage with an emerging literature that combines
the analysis of religious experience and faith with an analysis of how
African Christianity feeds into constellations of power hierarchies and
social relationships of dependency, reciprocity and mutuality. One of
the aims is to build interpretative bridges between African enchanted
worldviews and Western academic interpretations and to add to an
emerging dialogue between anthropology and theology.

Within the social science literature the growth of newer African
independent churches (charismatic, Pentecostal, evangelical) has often
been understood as a reaction to changed socio-economic circumstances
such as increased liberalization, modernization, and individualization.
At the same time, scholarly work on African theology or theology in
relation to Christianity in Africa tend to focus merely on ethical and
philosophical issues and hence only in a limited way engaging with
experiences of lived Christianity in Africa.

By focusing on faith, ritual and power, the conference draws attention
to religious experiences and perceptions of faith, to the practices of
religion as well as to the social hierarchies into which religion
enters. African theological interpretations of lived religion are
fertile ground for analyzing and discussing the encounter between
anthropology and theology as well as between African enchanted
worldviews and Western academic interpretations. In other words, we need
this dialogue between anthropology and theology to analyze everyday
experiences and interpretations of Christianity in Africa and to include
the intellectual work and grassroots theology that takes place within
communities.

Confirmed plenary speakers

Elias Bongmba (Rice University)
Naomi Haynes (Edinburgh University)
Isabel Mukonyora (West Kentucky University)
Niels Kastfelt (Copenhagen University)
Galia Sabar (Tel Aviv University)
Päivi Hasu (Helsinki University)
Tomas Sundnes Drønen (Stavanger School of Mission and Theology)
Karen Lauterbach (Copenhagen University)
Mika Vähäkangas (Lund University)

The conference is free of charge but the participants are supposed to
cover for their travel, accommodation and meals.

The conference is funded by:

Lunds missionssällskap
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
Vitterhetsakademien

For registration please use this link (register on the left side of
conference webpage:
http://www.teol.lu.se/en/forskning/konferenser-och-symposier/alc2016/

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CFP: “Post-Secular Stories: the Divine in Contemporary World Literature” conference – LCC International University (www.lcc.lt), Klaipeda, Lithuania; 5-6 February 2016

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Call for Papers
Post-Secular Stories: the Divine in Contemporary World Literature
A research conference exploring ways in which the Divine / the Holy / God / god / gods /
the Above-Human is thematised is current writing. This includes literature across genres,
geographies and thematics.
Venue, dates, fee:
LCC International University (www.lcc.lt)
Klaipeda, Lithuania
5-6 February 2016
Conference fee: €100 (includes conference dinner)

Context and invitation:
In the unfolding post-secular intellectual climate of our time, the aspect of the religious /
faith / spirituality / theology is recognised for what they are again in song lyrics,
journalism, novels, poetry and other genres of writing. No longer reflexively either
privileged or marginalised as in earlier eras, orientations towards the religious are
increasingly “normalised”, as something that in the public sphere in principle holds no
greater and no lesser prominence than other facets of life. In a more balanced way, faith
can in our time increasingly be spoken, be spoken of and be spoken against.
In this conference, the ways in which this trend plays out in various forms of literature
across the world is investigated. Not intended to provide a definitive overview, but as an
initial attempt to grasp some dimensions of these developments, only 20 papers will be
accepted for presentation at this conference.
To this end, the conference organisers invite, until 15 December 2015, proposals for
research papers on this wide-ranging topic. Specialist academic presentations in English
of 30 minutes (followed by 10 minutes discussion time) that focus deeply on the selected
topic will be welcomed. As wide a range as possible of disciplinary backgrounds,
language and genre specialisations, and international representation will be
accommodated. In typical post-secular mode, participants of all religious orientations
and none are welcomed.
In addition to participants who make formal conference presentations, interested parties
who would like to attend the conference without formal speaking slots would be welcome,
at the same conference fee. Attendees from Klaipeda and surrounding areas who would
like to attend one or more sessions, without attending the conference dinner, are
welcome to do so at a reduced fee (please e-mail JDMininger@lcc.lt in this regard).

Paper proposals should include a presentation title and 150–250 words describing the
intent of the presentation, including the genre/s, language/s and geographical region/s
covered. The name of the author/s, qualifications and institutional affiliation/s (if any)
should be included. Please e-mail proposals to JDMininger@lcc.lt no later than 15
December 2015.

The post CFP: “Post-Secular Stories: the Divine in Contemporary World Literature” conference – LCC International University (www.lcc.lt), Klaipeda, Lithuania; 5-6 February 2016 appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

ESA/ISORECEA revised CfP – deadline extended

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CALL FOR PAPERS

12th ISORECEA conference & ESA RN34 mid-term conference

RELIGION AND NON-RELIGION IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETIES

Theoretical, Empirical and Methodological Challenges for Research in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond

Zadar, Croatia, April 21-24, 2016

 

The interplay between historical, cultural and political factors and events has contributed to processes where both religion and non-religion are features of contemporary societies. At the same time, religion and non-religion are integral to theories of secularisation and religious change. Faced with different empirical data around the world, secularisation theses have been debated for decades, while theoretical debates about religious change have occupied sociologists of religion. They have sought to better and more accurately understand and explain religious changes in different parts of the globe. Their points of view differ and include: privatization thesis, de-privatization thesis, religious economies thesis, religious bricolage, multiple secularities thesis. One angle, non-religion as religious counterpart, has been neglected in sociological research. Indeed, until the end of the 20th century, it was only Campbell (1971) who gave a comprehensive insight into the sociology of non-religion, while many scholars wrote and published within the strand of the sociology of religion.

Non-religion has started to occupy the attention of sociologists since the beginning of this century, especially in the UK and USA. Its prominence has been influenced by its different appearances in the Western world: the rise of declared non-religious people, the appearance of a so-called New Atheism movement (inspired by books by R. Dawkins,

  1. Harris, D. Dennett, and C. Hitchens), numerous organizations and associations of non-religious people and their enhanced activities as an alternative to religious conservativism, the growing influence of religion in the public sphere and fundamentalist expressions of religion connected to terrorism. Researchers mostly based their work on theories of subcultural identities, identity politics and new social movements; yet, some authors also drew on the theory of religious economies. In spite of these strands, non-religion remains theoretically underdeveloped and under-researched. Interestingly, this refers particularly to former communist countries where atheism was enforced as part of the official ideology; more research would have been expected on non-religiosity and atheism there. Independently of the exact geopolitical context, non-religion and in particular the interplay between religion and non-religion in different dimensions seem to be a key for understanding contemporary religious changes.

This international conference would like to encourage scholars from various parts of the world to share their theoretical, empirical and methodological considerations on religion and non-religion and take part in discussion on different related topics, like:

  • Social theory of religion and non-religion
  • Comparative empirical data on religion and non-religion
  • Methodological challenges of research on religion and non-religion
  • Historical development of religion and non-religion
  • Non/religious minority and majority
  • Human rights, religion and non-religion
  • Religion, non-religion and State
  • Religion, non-religion and social inclusion/exclusion
  • Religion and non-religion in the intersectional perspective (involving gender, age, socio-economic aspects, etc.)
  • Religion and non-religion in everyday life
  • Religious and non-religious activism

Keynote speakers: Dr. Marjan Smrke, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

  •                                Dr. Lois Lee, University College London, UK

    Please submit a 200-300 words abstract of your presentation by e-mail to: isorecea2016@idi.hr by November 25, 2015.

    If you are interested in a specific topic related to the study of religion and/or non-religion, we encourage you to organize a session/panel. In this case, please submit a 300-400 words proposal with full session details (names and affiliation of contributors, titles of their presentations as well as abstracts) by November 25, 2015 to the same email address.

    Key dates

    Submission of paper and session/panel proposals – November 25, 2015.
    Notification of acceptance and opening of the registration – December 15, 2015.
    The final date of the registration for the conference – January 31, 2016.

    Final program – February 20, 2016.

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CFP: Religion and Migration, special issue of the Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society

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Call for papers, J-RaT Ausgabe 4:
Religion and Migration

The fourth issue of the Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and
Transformation in Contemporary Society (J-RaT) focuses particularly on
the topic of Religion and Migration and its dynamics within the European
and global context.

According to the societal and global-political topicality, the issue
aims at identifying and analyzing current and future challenges and
questions for academic research and education, politics and society,
churches and religious institutions, and communities. Based on the
latest research results and political dynamics the contributions should
provide an interdisciplinary insight into the topic and should
initialize future perspectives for academic research and social
practice. We encourage the submission of articles which approach the
topic from social, cultural, political, educational and religious
sciences as well as from a religious-theological point of view. The
relationship between religion and migration will become a decisive issue
in the next decades, and will assume an increasingly important role in
the processes of social, religious and political transformation. In
order to approach this subject in all of its aspects it is necessary to
develop a basic scientific research.

Therefore the papers should deal with the following questions:

• Which contemporary and prospective (social, political, economical,
cultural, religious)challenges can be identified in the context of
migration, flight and asylum?
• Which meaning and which tasks do religion and religiosity, churches
and religious institutions/communities have in this context? Which role
do they play? Which role can/should they play?
• How do these challenges look like from the perspective of religious
institutions/communities and churches?
• Based on latest research results of the issue: What are the future
research questions in the context of religion and migration? What could
be the contribution of the particular academic discipline in relation to
the current challenges?

These questions are kept deliberately broad to faciltitate the diversity
of current challenges on all levels of society as well as on a local and
global level.

In a addition to this main area, J-RaT accepts also free contributions
provided that they focus in principle on the subject matter of the
journal. This is particularly the growing complexity of the global
context, the paradigmatic changes in the construction of social
meanings, the juridical challenges and their connection with religious
transformations.

Procedure

Please send your contribution to regina.polak@univie.ac.at by 10th
January2016.

After a first feedback you will be kindly asked to upload your
contribution to https://ojs.univie.ac.at/index.php/RAT by 19th February
2016.

The articles should have usually 8.000 – 15.000 words and will be
subject to a double-blind peer review by two anonymous reviewers. Volume
4 of J-RaT will be published in September 2016.

Formalia

Please consider the following guidelines:

• The paper must be an initial publication which has not been
published in any other medium.
• It must focus on the aim of J-RaT.
• Papers can be submitted in English, German, Spanish or Italian.
• Please send your paper as MS Word (.DOC) oder Rich Text Format (.RTF);
• Tables, charts and graphs have to be submitted separately as TIFF,
JPG or PDF.
• The authors have to observe the editorial guidelines of the
publishing company V&R unipress.

The authors should include a cover letter with their manuscript, which
states explicitly that the manuscript has not been previously published
in any language anywhere and that it is not under simultaneous
consideration or in press by another journal. The letter should contain
the full name (submitted by), the full title of the article and a short
title, the full list of authors with affiliations, e-mail, contact
address, telephone/fax numbers of the corresponding author, number of
attached files, if there is more than one.

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Book Announcement: Shi’i Cosmopolitanisms in Africa: Lebanese Migration and Religious Conversion in Senegal

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Mara Leichtman’s book Shi’i Cosmopolitanisms in Africa: Lebanese Migration and Religious Conversion in Senegal has just been published by Indiana University Press. http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?cPath=1037_3130_3698&products_id=807558. The description is below:
Mara A. Leichtman offers an in-depth study of Shi‘i Islam in two very different communities in Senegal: the well-established Lebanese diaspora and Senegalese “converts” from Sunni to Shi‘i Islam of recent decades. Sharing a minority religious status in a predominantly Sunni Muslim country, each group is cosmopolitan in its own way. Leichtman provides new insights into the everyday lives of Shi‘i Muslims in Africa and the dynamics of local and global Islam. She explores the influence of Hizbullah and Islamic reformist movements, and offers a corrective to prevailing views of Sunni-Shi‘i hostility, demonstrating that religious coexistence is possible in a context such as Senegal.

 

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Conference on Spiritual-Religious Counseling & Care

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The International Congress on Spiritual-Religious Counselling-Care will be held on April 7-10, 2016, in Istanbul, Turkey.  The webpage of the conference, www.mdrk.org displays the event’s programme at the top left corner of the page in Turkish and English).

CONGRESS FRAMEWORK

Religion has contributed to civil society in variety of areas like social, cultural, economic, solidarity/cooperation and humanitarian aids etc. It has been a source of inspiration and motivation to mobilize individuals, communities and institutions in order to cooperate, make solidarity, and social and moral support. However, religion, in the 20th and at the beginning 21st century, has often been related to and identified with extremism, violence and terror in the global world. In this correlation and identification, religion in general and Islam in particular is closely associated and portrayed with these negative stereotypes in question. This has paved the way to negative and unfavourable views and perceptions towards religion in both national and global public spheres. A number of extreme, fundamentalist, and militant religious and political movements have hijacked, captured and used religious beliefs, spiritual and moral values in order to legitimise their ideologies, programmes, perspectives and aims. In other words, they abused religious beliefs and spiritual – moral values. Unfortunately, to bring to light the positive and human side/aspect of religion have usually been neglected. The contributions and services of religious beliefs, and spiritual and moral values and their practices to civil society have largely been ignored at both individual and societal levels and were not given their deserved coverages and credits in politics and media. Certainly, positivist educational policies and strict and authoritarian secularist administrations have played a significant role in various countries.

This international congress on religious-spiritual counselling-care aims to put forward the positive aspects of religious, spiritual and moral values and evaluate their contributions  to as well as to raise awareness of the services they have offered and are still providing to civil society at individual, institutional and societal levels. It intends particularly to focus on, highlight and examine how religious and spiritual-moral values have played/still play a significant role and function in reforming inmates in prisons, being a source of hope and morale for patients in hospitals, providing morale and offering communal spirit and atmosphere for lonely and elderly people in social services, motivating national/civic and patriotic values, and beliefs for military personnel in army, and in relationships and communication in family therapy.

The congress will also address to analyse problems encountered with and policies applied for while offering and providing services in areas in question. Again such a gathering will bring scholars and professionals together who do research on and work in Religious-Spiritual counselling and care in different traditions, religions and political cultures throughout the world as well as to share and exchange their experiences and forge cooperation in shared and common interest areas. Finally, the gathering and cooperation provide an opportunity for official and conventional religious and civil authorities how to improve and enhance their services and programmes in their respective and responsible institutions.

THEMATIC ISSUES

The conference themes will cover the place and function of Religious-Spiritual Counselling and Care in Prison Services, Health Services, Military and Social Services (Nursing Home, Orphanage, Shelters and Family Therapy, etc.)

DEADLINES

  • 21 December 2015 Abstract Submission Deadline
  • 4 January 2016 Announcement for Accepted Papers
  • 20 March 2016 Full text copy submission
  • 7-10 April 2016 Congress Date

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CFP conference “Poverty’s Causes and Consequences in the Urban Developing World”

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CFP: Poverty’s Causes and Consequences in the Urban Developing World

August 4–6, 2016
University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Deadline for paper proposals: November 30, 2015.

Conference website:
http://povdev.blog.jyu.fi/p/conference-2016.html

The failure of much of the world to meet the first Millennium Development Goals of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 highlights the need for research to go beyond the measuring of poverty and give more attention to its causes and dynamics.
We invite anthropologists, ethnologists, sociologists, socio-economists, political scientists and development researchers, among others, to submit paper proposals for our conference on urban poverty to be held at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland on August 2–4, 2016. Keynote speakers will be James Ferguson, Bipasha Baruah, Harjit Anand, and Dayabati Roy.
This three-day conference will be aimed at both exploring new empirically based findings and developing theories on the causes of poverty, especially urban poverty or poverty at the interface between the urban and rural. We welcome critical perspectives which pay attention to the intersection between micro and macro levels of analysis, including ethnographic methods and local case studies with relevance for larger issues as well as larger-scale studies with theoretical implications for micro-level research.
Possible themes of papers include, but are not limited to, poverty’s links to the following areas in the so-called developing world:
  • Environmental issues: climate change, water and sanitation
  • Economy: micro-credit, capital, livelihoods, income generation
  • Development interventions, education
  • Governance, politics, and grassroots activism: housing, rights to the city, dispossession, land rights and land use, informal structures, rights to the city and urban spaces
  • Health: transactional sex, HIV /AIDS
  • Intersectionality and society: ethnicity, family, kin, gender, women, youth, social cohesion
  • Local knowledge and religion
  • Technology, infrastructure, media
A 300-word abstract, full contact information for paper proposer(s), and a biographical note (up to 75 words) on the paper propose(s) should be submitted by no later than November 30th, 2015. 

Proposers of accepted papers will be notified by December 15th, 2015, unless the proposal deadline is extended. Please send your abstract as an e-mail attachment to the following email address: laura.stark@jyu.fi

On the basis of paper abstract submissions, we will be grouping some papers together into their own thematic sessions. However, we will also have five Special Sessions already proposed and accepted by the conference organizers. These are:

  • Elaine Dorighello Tomás: Poverty Reduction in Brazil 
  • Bratati Dey: Women and Poverty in Urban India 
  • Jeremy Gould and Tiina Konttinen: Poverty, Citizenship and a Rightful Share 
  • Remi Adeyemo: Urban Food Security and Poverty Alleviation 
  • Sirpa Tenhunen: Neoliberalism and Urban Politics in the Global South 
  • Ghefari Elsayed, Abdelrahman Eldagum Bakhtan, and Eiman Omer Osman Suliman: Changing Urban Landscapes in East Africa: Violence, Poverty and Coping Strategies


If you are submitting a paper abstract and you would like your paper to be included in one of the above Special Sessions, please tell us which session when you submit your abstract.

The conference organizers cannot sponsor or fund presenters or delegates, who are expected to pay for their travel, food and stay during the conference. There will be no registration fee for the conference.

The conference is organized by the Finnish Academy-funded project “Urban Renewal and Income-Generating Spaces for Youth and Women in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia” led by Prof. Laura Stark, Dept. of History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä. Our co-organizer is the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden.

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Parution ouvrage “Juifs d’Algérie. Une histoire de ruptures”

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Parution de: “Juifs d’Algérie. Une histoire de ruptures” Joëlle
Allouche-Benayoun et Geneviève Dermenjian.

Le livre aborde l’histoire des Juifs d’Algérie depuis 1830 : processus
d’accession à la citoyenneté française (1830-1870), antijudaïsme et
antisémitisme prégnants, inscription sous diverses formes dans la sphère
française tout en maintenant une identité juive et berbéro-arabe, Seconde
Guerre mondiale. Avec, pour finir, des témoignages sur la dispersion des
Juifs et leur mémoire conservée de l’Algérie après 1962.

Auteurs:
Philippe Portier
Franklin Rausky
Joëlle Allouche
Geneviève Dermenjian
Denis Charbit
Valérie Assan
Philippe Danan
Sabrina Dufourmont
Danièle Iancu-Agou>
Jacob Oliel
Renée Bensoussan
Jean-Pierre Lledo
Ethan Katz
Annie Stora-Lamarre
Danièle Dahan-Feucht
Jean-Paul Durand
René-Samuel Sirat
Eliezer Ben Rafaël
Benjamin Stora

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Reminder: Call for papers – BRAIS2016 – Third Annual Conference – 11th & 12th April 2016

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This is a reminder that the deadline for submissions for abstracts and panel proposals for BRAIS 2016 is less than a month away. The Third Annual Conference of British Association for Islamic Studies (BRAIS) is taking place in London on 11th and 12th April 2016 and the organisers particularly encourage panel proposals on any aspect or sub-discipline of Islamic Studies.  For full details on how to submit papers or panels please visit our website:

http://www.brais.ac.uk/conferences/brais-conference-2016/brais-2016-call-for-papers

Completed submission forms must be submitted via e-mail attachment to conference2016@brais.ac.uk  by 5pm (UK time) on Monday 30th November 2015.

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New Book Series: Bloomsbury Studies in Religion, Space and Place

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SERIES EDITORS
Paul-François Tremlett, The Open University, UK paul-francois.tremlett@open.ac.uk
John Eade, University of Roehampton, London, UK J.Eade@roehampton.ac.uk
Katy Soar, Royal Holloway, UK katy.soar@rhul.ac.uk
Religions, spiritualities and mysticisms are deeply implicated in processes of spatial and place-making. These include political and geopolitical spaces, local and national spaces, urban spaces, global and virtual spaces, contested spaces, spaces of performance, spaces of memory and spaces of confinement.
At the leading edge of theoretical, methodological, and interdisciplinary innovation in the study of religion, Bloomsbury Studies in Religion, Space and Place brings together and gives shape to the study of such processes and places. These places are not defined simply by the material or the physical but also by the sensual and the psychological, by the ways in which spaces are gendered, classified, stratified, moved through, seen, touched, heard, interpreted and occupied. Places are constituted through embodied practices that direct critical and analytical attention to the production of insides, outsides, bodies, landscapes, cities, sovereignties, publics and interiorities.

TOPICS OF INTEREST TO THE EDITORS
  • Ritual & Place-Making (historical, ancient and/or contemporary religious practices)
  • Mobility, Power and Place/Pilgrims, Tourists and the Invention of Sacred Space (religion on the move in historical, ancient and/or contemporary contexts)
  • Religion, Space and Disruption (the study of religion at times of rapid socio-spatial and political change)
  • The Politics of Religious Space (the study of religion, space and power)
  • Religion and the City (religion in urban contexts in historical, ancient or contemporary perspectives)

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