Author Archives: Jim

Job: Religion, Conflict, and Peace-Building

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Job description

The appointment will be at the level of Assistant professor (UD) or Associate professor (UHD), commensurate with the qualifications and experience of the candidate. The position will involve 50% teaching, 40% research and 10% administration. The position will be located within the Department of Comparative Study of Religion and the Centre for Religion, Conflict and the Public Domain (CRCPD). As a member of the Department of Comparative Study of Religion, the candidate is expected to be committed to the interdisciplinary dialogue on theory and methodology in the study of religion. The candidate will be expected to contribute to teaching and administration, with regard to the Centre as well as to the Faculty, developing new courses for the benefit of the faculty’s MA Religion Conflict & Globalization. The position holder will also work with the CRCPD Director to develop and implement the research cluster on religion, conflict and peacebuilding for the CRCPD.

Qualifications

The main criteria for the selection of the candidate will be his/her experience and excellence in researching religion, conflict and peacebuilding. The candidate needs to show a strong empirical research record in this field. Further, preference is given to qualitative research; the research of the candidate should be linked to a particular regional specialization, preferably outside Europe. The candidate will be able to demonstrate experience in or willingness to develop and gain experience in (several of) the following attributes:

  • a PhD degree and a strong profile in research on religion, conflict and peacebuilding from within any of peace and conflict studies, religious studies, sociology of religion, political science, anthropology of religion and International Relations, evident in publication track record
  • sensitivity to and knowledge of religious studies approaches to understanding, theorizing and researching religion
  • evidence of contribution to policy and practice on religion, conflict and peacebuilding or a willingness to develop capacity for contribution to policy, across government, non-government and intergovernmental sectors
  • experience in developing and teaching courses related to religion, conflict and peacebuilding in theory and practice
  • demonstrated capacity for teaching research methods, with an emphasis on qualitative approaches
  • a strong commitment to teaching and willingness to contribute to the development of bachelor’s and master’s curricula, with demonstrated experience in the design of course modules
  • demonstrated success or capacity for success in the acquisition of research funding
  • organizational competence, entrepreneurship and excellent communication skills.

The post Job: Religion, Conflict, and Peace-Building appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

Ethnographic project on Muslim-Christian relations in SW Nigeria

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Dear Colleagues,

We have carried out a large-scale ethnographic survey on Muslim-Christian relations in Southwest Nigeria. For those who are interested, a first blog post (on views on inter-religious marriage is published at:

http://www.knowingeachother.com/2015/03/25/who-is-most-likely-to-be-in-favour-of-inter-religious-marriage-in-southwestern-nigeria/.

Best wishes, Insa

Dr Insa Nolte, M.I.Nolte@bham.ac.uk
Department of African Studies and Anthropology
University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK

“Knowing Each Other: Everyday religious encounters, social identities and tolerance in SW Nigeria”

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CFP: Workshop on Women Negotiating Secularism

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Invitation and call for papers

Women negotiating secularism and multiculturalism through civil society organisations

Centre for Trust, Peace & Social Relations, Coventry University, UK, June 30 – July 1st 2015

This workshop is the second of a series of international workshops on the theme “Is secularism bad for women? Women, Religion and Multiculturalism in contemporary Europe” focusing on the relation between the role of religion in women’s lives and gender equality (https://womenreligionandsecularism.wordpress.com ). This is an important question to debate, given the increased visibility of religion in the globalized world of the 21st century. While some scholars and political actors argue that a form of political secularism is the best way to ensure gender equality, others consider secularism a bad political arrangement for religious people, because it excludes them from the political and public sphere. Taking forward discussions initiated by Susan Moller Okin’s controversial 1997 essay ‘Is multiculturalism bad for women?’ and continued recently in works of
scholars including Saba Mahmood, Joan Scott, Nilüfer Göle, Nadje Al-Ali, Linell Cady and Tracy Fessenden, these workshops address the following questions:

  • How can European societies secure religious women’s freedom and flourishing?
  • What political arrangements offer the most to those who are religious and female? Is religion – at least some forms of it – an impossible impediment, something that must be destroyed in order for women to be free?
  • Or can religion be a positive force in women’s lives, something that enhances their wellbeing and aids social justice?

This workshop will approach these issues by focusing on the organisational or group level; the first workshop at Uppsala University (May 2015) examines the individual or everyday level, and the third at University of Coimbra, Lisbon (November 2015), will address the public and political context. In the Coventry workshop we will investigate what women’s and religious organisations are doing to address issues of secularism and multiculturalism. How do these differ by geography or faith group? To what extent do faith-based organisations working for religious inclusion in civil society press for gender equality too? How do women’s organisations approach religion, and do they consider religion to be an equality issue alongside ethnicity, gender, sexuality or disability? How are women’s faith-based organisations’ working across secular/religious spheres and with other civil society organisations?
How do theological/hermeneutical approaches inform religious organisations’ work on gender and women’s issues?

Keynote speakers:  Dr Line Nyhagen (Loughborough University) and Dr Niamh Reilly (National University of Ireland, Galway)

We invite papers that discuss these questions. Abstracts should be sent by 10th April, written in English and not exceed 300 words. Notification of acceptance will be given by April 30th. Please send abstracts to: wrsworkshops2015@gmail.com

Practical information:

The workshop will run from 4 pm on 30th June to 5 pm on 1st July. Papers will be presented in thematic, parallel sessions. Participation fee is £15 per participant or £10 for PhD, post-doc or civil society organizations, which includes refreshments. The workshop is funded by the International Society for the Sociology of Religion and organized by Dr Kristin Aune (Coventry University), Prof Mia Lӧvheim (Uppsala University), Dr Terhi Utriainen (University of Helsinki), Dr Alberta Giorgi (Centre of Social Studies, University of Coimbra; GRASSROOTSMOBILISE, Eliamep) & Dr Teresa Toldy (Fernando Pessoa
University, Porto; Centre of Social Studies, University of Coimbra). A book publication featuring some of the papers is planned.

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CFP: Religion, Art, and Creativity in the Global City

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114th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association
Denver  CO
November 18-22, 2015

PANEL: RELIGION, ART, AND CREATIVITY IN THE GLOBAL CITY

Contemporary cities pride themselves about being havens of cutting edge creativity. They celebrate art, culture, and innovation with highly publicized festivals, glossy brochures, and clever slogans. Religiously inspired creativity, lived religious arts, and their vernacular expressions play no role in such celebrations of urban originality. Secular fashionable definitions, dominant intellectual and artistic networks, and political and economic contingencies define some features of social and cultural innovation and artistic expression as relevant, and others, like religious ones, as insignificant.
This panel examines manifestations of social, cultural, artistic, and aesthetic innovation produced by pious individuals and their communities in global cities. Papers analyze the complex and largely neglected role of faith-based urban art and creativity. They explore exemplary contexts of pious creativity and cultural innovation. Analyzing contemporary artistic production (e.g. visual arts, music), aesthetic creativity (e.g. places of worship), social and spatial configurations (e.g. places of worship as innovative cultural centers), social innovations (e.g. faith-based associations/activities), and novel cultural formats (e.g. religious events), panelists illustrate that pious individuals are artistic and creative contributors to globalized cityscapes. Religious communities are rarely seen as havens of urban art and creativity. Instead, especially, minority communities (e.g. Muslims in Europe) are often viewed with suspicion, and their creative contributions remain contentious.

Theoretically the panel engages debates about urban art and creativity, and cultural production (engaging among others Richard Florida’s concept of the “Creative City”), which understand urban innovation as originating in small circles of creative actors and neglect religiously inspired vernacular contributions to urban creative transformations. Using examples of religiously inspired art and social and cultural creativity, panelists illustrate that only a more inclusive focus on all urban constituencies can produce a thorough understanding of urban creativity and creative processes. The challenge in trying to understand urban creativity is not to applaud the usual “creative suspects,” but to examine the creative contributions of all urbanites regardless of class, ethnicity, religion, and (desired) outcomes.

Panel Organizer: Petra Kuppinger
Discussant: James Bielo

For questions and inquiries send emails to petra@monm.edu<mailto:petra@monm.edu> .

Please submit abstracts (250 words) by April 4, 2015 to petra@monm.edu<mailto:petra@monm.edu>

Petra Kuppinger
Professor of Anthropology
Department of Sociology/Anthropology
Monmouth College
Monmouth IL 61462

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New Book: West African ʿulamāʾ and Salafism in Mecca and Medina

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West African ʿulamāʾ and Salafism in Mecca and Medina: Jawāb al-Ifrῑqῑ – The Response of the African

Chanfi Ahmed
Brill, March 2015
http://www.brill.com/products/book/west-african-ulama-and-salafism-mecca-and-medina

Chanfi Ahmed shows how West African ʿulamāʾ, who fled the European colonization of their region to settle in Mecca and Medina, helped the regime of King Ibn Sa’ud at its beginnings in the field of teaching and spreading the Salafῑ-Wahhabῑ’s Islam both inside and outside Saudi Arabia. This is against the widespread idea of considering the spread of the Salafῑ-Wahhābῑ doctrine as being the work of ʿulamāʾ from Najd (Central Arabia) only. We learn here that the diffusion of this doctrine after 1926 was much more the work of ʿulamāʾ from other parts of the Muslim World who had already acquired this doctrine and spread it in their countries by teaching and publishing books related to it. In addition Chanfi Ahmed demonstrates that concerning Islamic reform and mission (daʿwa), Africans are not just consumers, but also thinkers and designers.

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Joint Fellowships for Doctoral Students/ Postdoctoral Scholars

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The Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt (Max-Weber-Kolleg) invites applications for:

Joint Fellowships for Doctoral Students/ Postdoctoral Scholars for research projects in the fields of Sociology, Religious Studies, History, Philosophy, Economics, Law, Political Sciences or Theology within the framework of the Research Group “Ordering Dynamics” directed by Prof. Dr. Jörg Rüpke, Prof. Dr. André Brodocz and Prof. Dr. Hartmut Rosa and located at Erfurt and Jena. The fellowships start either on 1 September or on 1 October 2015 and are granted for 3 to 12 months. Stipend of 1.100 EUR/month are granted for doctoral students. Financial arrangements for postdoctoral scholars take into account the individual situation of the awardees of the fellowships and are based on the principle “no loss, no gain”.  [Editorial question: Is this a neoliberal euphemism for pay-your-own-way?  Or does it mean that if it costs you something to take the post, you’ll get reimbursed?  The meaning is not immediately obvious.]

Requirements

• Excellent academic degree
• Relevant PhD Thesis or PhD Thesis project
• Outstanding Academic Record
• Knowledge of German (at least reading skills), English and other relevant languages
• Willingness to cooperate within the interdisciplinary context of the

Research Group “Ordering Dynamics” with partners in Erfurt and Jena

Further information about the Research Group and the Max-Weber-Kolleg Erfurt are available at: http://www.uni-erfurt.de/max-weber-kolleg/projekte/kooperative-projekte/ordnung-durch-bewegung/ and www.uni-erfurt.de/maxwe

Application/Deadline:

Please submit your application with CV, copies of your last university degrees, MA- or PhD-Thesis, list of publications, and an outline of the research project you would like to pursue (5-10 pages)
with a stringent discussion of your research questions, the state of research on the topic, the methodological approach and the leading hypotheses as well as a working schedule and projected date
of completion as pdf-files (maximum of 10 MB) by 15 April 2015 to:

University of Erfurt • Max-Weber-Kolleg • maren.wuerfel@uni-erfurt.de

Direct informal enquiries may be made to Dr. Bettina Hollstein (bettina.hollstein@uni-erfurt.

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Seminar on Religious Transnationalism, April 16-17, 2015

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Dear colleagues,

We would like to invite you to join our 2-day seminar on religious transnationalism on Thursday 16 and Friday 17 April 2015 at VU University Amsterdam.  

Venue: VU University (Metropolitan building, room Z009 and Z007)

Time: 9.30 a.m. till 5.00 p.m. (the programme is attached)

Conveners:

Prof. Dr. Thijl Sunier, department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, VU University

Prof. Dr. Nina Glick Schiller, University of Manchester

General theme

The seminar deals with the contemporary dynamics of transnational religious fields across the world by addressing the shifting configurations between new modes of transnational religious practices on the one hand and evolving forms of nation-building and national domestication of religious communities in a time of growing nationalism en exclusion. Transnational activity of religious communities and social actors is certainly not new, nor is the paradox between people living religious lives, locally and transnationally and states domesticating religions (Glick Schiller et al. 1994). However, emerging new forms of regulatory regimes both at a national and a local level have engendered new forms of transnational activity. The ever changing character of the ‘cosmologistical problem’ (Vasquez et al. 2003) informs and shapes new modes of transnational religious activity.

Keynote address: Prof. Dr. Manuel Vasquez (University of Florida, USA), Thursday morning, 16 April, entitled “Seeng Transnationally:  Religion and the Emergence of New Regimes of Visibility and Discipline.”

Four panels

Transnational religious activism

Pilgrimage

Secular intolerance

Cosmopolitanism and religion

Entrance: free, and open to everyone! Registration: h.l.e.vander.linden@vu.nl

Please find the programme attached. We would appreciate it if you could distribute this invitation among your network and/or students.

We hope to welcome you on 16 and 17 April!

Best regards, on behalf of the conveners,

Heleen van der Linden

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PhD + Post-Doc: “Science & Religion”

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Please find details below of an exciting new funded PhD post, with an associated follow-on post-doctoral position, at Newman University, Birmingham. The PhD project will explore contemporary debates surrounding ‘science and religion’. Applications are welcome from psychological, historical or sociological perspectives:

http://www.newman.ac.uk/studentships/867

Please note that the timescale for the application process is tight; the closing date for application is 10th April. Do circulate to your networks, and email Dr Fern Elsdon-Baker (Fern.Elsdon-Baker@coventry.ac.uk) with any informal queries.

With best wishes,
Stephen
Stephen H. Jones

Research Fellow

Newman University, Genners Lane, Bartley Green, Birmingham B32 3NT

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Job Opening: Research Associate in the Psychology of Religion

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Please find details below of an exciting new fixed-term (2yrs 5 mnths) Research Associate position in the psychology of religion at Newman University, Birmingham:

http://www.newman.ac.uk/jobs/4205/research-associate-in-psychology-of-religion?1=m
Please note that the timescale for the application process is tight; the closing date for application is 13th April. Do circulate to your networks, and email Dr Fern Elsdon-Baker (Fern.Elsdon-Baker@coventry.ac.uk) with any queries.

With best wishes,
Stephen
Stephen H. Jones

Research Fellow

Newman University, Genners Lane, Bartley Green, Birmingham B32 3NT

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New Book: The Arab Revolution of 2011: A Comparative Perspective

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to our members.

The Arab Revolution of 2011: A Comparative Perspective is just out:

http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5978-the-arab-revolution-of-2011.aspx

—

Said Amir Arjomand

Distinguished Service Professor of  Sociology 

Director of the Stony Brook Institute for Global Studies

Editor, Journal of Persianate Studies

State University of New York

Stony Brook, NY 11794

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