Open Theology (http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/opth) invites submissions for the topical issue “Alternative Religiosities in the Soviet Union and the Communist East-Central Europe: Formations, Resistances and Manifestations”, under the general editorship of Dr. Rasa Pranskevičiūtė and Dr. Eglė Aleknaitė (Vytautas Magnus University).

DESCRIPTION

After the boom of traditional religions (i. e. prevailing national religions or those that have a relatively long history in a particular country) and alternative religious movements (i. e. religious movements that offer an alternative to the traditional religion(s) in a particular country) in post-communist/post-socialist countries, the religion(s) of this area have gained increasing scholarly attention. Research on the religious situation during the prior communist/socialist period is primarily focused on restrictions placed on traditional religions and their survival strategies, while the corresponding phenomena of the alternative religious of that time still lack proper analysis.

The special issue invites papers that address alternative religiosities in the communist/socialist countries up to 1990. Due to Soviet control, they mostly existed underground and could remain only if expressed clandestinely. Beside the officially-established Soviet culture, connected with the Communist Party’s aim to control all aspects of the public sphere, there was an unofficial cultural field that was very receptive to the arrival, formation, spread and expressions of diverse alternative religiosities and spiritualities. The disappointment with the existing narrowness of the official communist ideology and the loss of the absolute allegiance to it led to the formation and rise of unofficial socio-cultural alternatives within the system. The underground activities, including access to alternative spiritual and esoteric ideas and practices, generally existed in parallel, or even jointly, with the official culture and institutions.

We invite religious scholars, historians, anthropologists, as well as authors representing other disciplines, to submit both empirical and theoretical papers including, but not limited to the following topics:

• Networks and inter-community connections
• Flows of ideas within the Soviet Union and communist East-Central Europe and from the outside
• Centers and peripheries of the milieu of alternative religiosity in the region
• Politics and actions of the regime towards alternative religiosity
• Restrictions, repressions and survival strategies of practitioners of alternative religiosity
• Milieu of alternative religiosity as a space of resistance
• Relationships of communities of alternative religiosity with dominant religious traditions
• Theoretical frameworks and methodological problems in research on alternative religiosities within the Soviet Union and the communist East-Central European region

Authors publishing their articles in the special issue will benefit from:
    · transparent, comprehensive and fast peer review
    · efficient route to fast-track publication and full advantage of De Gruyter Open’s e-technology,
    · no publication fees,
    · free language assistance for authors from non-English speaking regions.

HOW TO SUBMIT

Submissions are due November 30, 2016. To submit an article for the special issue of Open Theology, authors are asked to access the on-line submission system at: http://www.editorialmanager.com/openth/
Please choose as article type: “Special Issue Article: Alternative Religiosities”.

Before submission the authors should carefully read over the Instruction for Authors, available at: http://www.degruyter.com/view/supplement/s23006579_Instruction_for_Authors.pdf

All contributions will undergo critical review before being accepted for publication.

Further questions about this thematic issue can be addressed to Dr. Rasa Pranskevičiūtė at Rasa.Pranskeviciute@degruyteropen.com or Dr. Eglė Aleknaitė at ealeknaite@yahoo.com. In case of technical questions, please contact journal Managing Editor Dr. Katarzyna Tempczyk at katarzyna.tempczyk@degruyteropen.com.

Call for submissions:

Performance Matters 3.1 (May 2017)

Special issue on “Performing Religion”

Performance and religion, both as practices and as fields of study, overlap. In religious studies, performance theory has provided a way to understand ritual as action with performative force (Tambiah 1979; Hollywood 2002), while a shared interest in ritual fueled the exchanges between Richard Schechner and Victor Turner from which grew one branch of performance studies as a discipline. Less explicitly, a reverence among performance theorists for theater’s transformational potential and performance’s politically liberatory power inspires some of the field’s foundational work (Dolan 2005; Phelan 1993). These commitments in turn draw strength from a long scholarly tradition that traces the mutually constitutive histories of theater and religion. In performance studies, a growing body of recent scholarship has reinvigorated the question of what it means to perform religion. Unlike earlier performance research which tended to downplay the religious aspects of ritual practice, this newer work focuses directly on religious activities like worship, private devotion, preaching, evangelization, and veneration. Whether analyzing onstage manifestations of Krishna (Mason 2009), evangelical dramaturgy (Stevenson 2013), proselytization as activist performance (Fletcher 2013), or occult theater (Lingan 2014), this work examines the theatrical and performance strategies of religious communities and movements. In doing so, it raises a series of disciplinary and methodological questions. What are the advantages and pitfalls of using theater and performance as analytical frameworks for studying religious activity? To what degree does ritual still occupy the middle ground between religious studies and performance studies? How might greater dialogue between scholars in these two fields enrich research on religious performance? In the interest of pursuing these and other related questions, Performance Matters invites papers that draw on performance theory, theater metaphors and the tools of performance analysis or creation to conduct research on religious practices, texts, histories, philosophies, or phenomena.

Interested contributors are asked to send short abstracts and paper proposals (250 words) to joy_palacios@sfu.ca by July 30, 2016.

Reviews of relevant performances or theatrical productions, as well as of books related to the theme of religious performance, are also invited, as are short position statements for a forum section featuring scholars in performance studies who work on religion and scholars in religious studies who think about performance.

Invited full papers will then be due by November 30, 2016.

Performance Matters is a peer-reviewed, open access, on-line journal published bi-annually by Simon Fraser University that focuses on all aspects of performance: what it does, and why it is meaningful. For more information, see http://performancematters-thejournal.com.

Call for submissions:

Performance Matters 3.1 (May 2017)

Special issue on “Performing Religion”

Performance and religion, both as practices and as fields of study, overlap. In religious studies, performance theory has provided a way to understand ritual as action with performative force (Tambiah 1979; Hollywood 2002), while a shared interest in ritual fueled the exchanges between Richard Schechner and Victor Turner from which grew one branch of performance studies as a discipline. Less explicitly, a reverence among performance theorists for theater’s transformational potential and performance’s politically liberatory power inspires some of the field’s foundational work (Dolan 2005; Phelan 1993). These commitments in turn draw strength from a long scholarly tradition that traces the mutually constitutive histories of theater and religion. In performance studies, a growing body of recent scholarship has reinvigorated the question of what it means to perform religion. Unlike earlier performance research which tended to downplay the religious aspects of ritual practice, this newer work focuses directly on religious activities like worship, private devotion, preaching, evangelization, and veneration. Whether analyzing onstage manifestations of Krishna (Mason 2009), evangelical dramaturgy (Stevenson 2013), proselytization as activist performance (Fletcher 2013), or occult theater (Lingan 2014), this work examines the theatrical and performance strategies of religious communities and movements. In doing so, it raises a series of disciplinary and methodological questions. What are the advantages and pitfalls of using theater and performance as analytical frameworks for studying religious activity? To what degree does ritual still occupy the middle ground between religious studies and performance studies? How might greater dialogue between scholars in these two fields enrich research on religious performance? In the interest of pursuing these and other related questions, Performance Matters invites papers that draw on performance theory, theater metaphors and the tools of performance analysis or creation to conduct research on religious practices, texts, histories, philosophies, or phenomena.

Interested contributors are asked to send short abstracts and paper proposals (250 words) to joy_palacios@sfu.ca by July 30, 2016.

Reviews of relevant performances or theatrical productions, as well as of books related to the theme of religious performance, are also invited, as are short position statements for a forum section featuring scholars in performance studies who work on religion and scholars in religious studies who think about performance.

Invited full papers will then be due by November 30, 2016.

Performance Matters is a peer-reviewed, open access, on-line journal published bi-annually by Simon Fraser University that focuses on all aspects of performance: what it does, and why it is meaningful. For more information, see http://performancematters-thejournal.com.