Category Archives: Calls for Papers

Call for Papers: Special Issue on Religion & Poverty

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Religion and Poverty

Editors: Dr Gottfried Schweiger and Dr Helmut P Gaisbauer (Centre for Ethic and Poverty Research, University of Salzburg, Austria); Prof Clemens Sedmak (Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London, UK/Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research, University of Salzburg, Austria).

Poverty and religion are interrelated in different ways. On the one hand, for various religious traditions poverty is both an aspect of a particular faithful life (e.g. monastic communities) and giving to the poor is seen as a religious duty. Such traditions have evolved over time and expanded the role of faith-based organisations nowadays play in welfare provision and international development. Faith-based organizations play an important role in poverty alleviation both in rich and poor countries. These actions and practices, as well as their religious and theological underpinnings, deserve scrutiny. On the other hand, religion plays an important role in the life of people living in poverty: how they experience and shape their living, and how they find their place in society and the communities in which they. The role of religion in justifying certain inequalities and processes of exclusion (e.g. in India) and thus contributing to the sustainability of poverty is another important theme worth reflection.

We invite papers, from a range of disciplinary perspectives, that consider the following overarching question: how can religion be used as a vehicle to overcome structures of poverty, and how does it sometimes hinder such processes?

Contributions from sociology, development studies, religious studies, economics, theology, and other social sciences and humanities are welcomed; as are insights from different geographical settings, forms of poverty, and religious traditions.

This is a rolling article collection and as such submissions/proposals will be welcome throughout 2017. However, full submissions received by September 30 will be considered for publication as part of the collection’s formal launch.

This special issue is run in collaboration with the 2017 Salzburg Conference on Interdisciplinary Poverty Research, organised by the Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research of the University of Salzburg.

See: https://www.nature.com/palcomms/for-authors/call-for-papers#religion-poverty

Call for Papers: Special Issue on Religion & Poverty

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Religion and Poverty

Editors: Dr Gottfried Schweiger and Dr Helmut P Gaisbauer (Centre for Ethic and Poverty Research, University of Salzburg, Austria); Prof Clemens Sedmak (Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London, UK/Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research, University of Salzburg, Austria).

Poverty and religion are interrelated in different ways. On the one hand, for various religious traditions poverty is both an aspect of a particular faithful life (e.g. monastic communities) and giving to the poor is seen as a religious duty. Such traditions have evolved over time and expanded the role of faith-based organisations nowadays play in welfare provision and international development. Faith-based organizations play an important role in poverty alleviation both in rich and poor countries. These actions and practices, as well as their religious and theological underpinnings, deserve scrutiny. On the other hand, religion plays an important role in the life of people living in poverty: how they experience and shape their living, and how they find their place in society and the communities in which they. The role of religion in justifying certain inequalities and processes of exclusion (e.g. in India) and thus contributing to the sustainability of poverty is another important theme worth reflection.

We invite papers, from a range of disciplinary perspectives, that consider the following overarching question: how can religion be used as a vehicle to overcome structures of poverty, and how does it sometimes hinder such processes?

Contributions from sociology, development studies, religious studies, economics, theology, and other social sciences and humanities are welcomed; as are insights from different geographical settings, forms of poverty, and religious traditions.

This is a rolling article collection and as such submissions/proposals will be welcome throughout 2017. However, full submissions received by September 30 will be considered for publication as part of the collection’s formal launch.

This special issue is run in collaboration with the 2017 Salzburg Conference on Interdisciplinary Poverty Research, organised by the Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research of the University of Salzburg.

See: https://www.nature.com/palcomms/for-authors/call-for-papers#religion-poverty

Deadline for World Congress Paper Proposals is approaching!

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Paper Proposal Deadline: 30 September, 2017

World Congress of Sociology, Toronto, Canada, July 15-21, 2018

The deadline for submitting paper proposals for the 2018 World Congress is fast approaching.  They must be submitted online by midnight GMT on 30 September.

Read the session descriptions and find the most appropriate session for your paper.  Follow the links to submit your paper.

Each session organizer will choose 10 papers for formal presentation — 5 as primary (“oral”) papers and 5 as backups (“distributed papers”), many of which will end up being presented orally.

The remaining acceptable submissions will be passed to the Program Coordinators, who will find another place for them on the program.

Each scholar can appear on the program a maximum of twice.

Deadline for World Congress Paper Proposals is approaching!

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Paper Proposal Deadline: 30 September, 2017

World Congress of Sociology, Toronto, Canada, July 15-21, 2018

The deadline for submitting paper proposals for the 2018 World Congress is fast approaching.  They must be submitted online by midnight GMT on 30 September.

Read the session descriptions and find the most appropriate session for your paper.  Follow the links to submit your paper.

Each session organizer will choose 10 papers for formal presentation — 5 as primary (“oral”) papers and 5 as backups (“distributed papers”), many of which will end up being presented orally.

The remaining acceptable submissions will be passed to the Program Coordinators, who will find another place for them on the program.

Each scholar can appear on the program a maximum of twice.

CFP: Multiple Religious Identities – Individuals, Communities, Traditions

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16th Annual Conference of the EASR
Regional Conference of the IAHR
17-21 June 2018, Bern/Switzerland

The organisers of the conference invite contributions from all areas and disciplines of the study of religion to allow for broad, interdisciplinary discussion of the conference topic

Multiple Religious Identities – Individuals, Communities, Traditions

More information on the conference theme can be found on the website (www.easr2018.org).

The deadline for submission of pre-arranged session proposals: October 1, 2017.

  • · Your proposal will be forwarded to the Program Committee for evaluation to ensure a high academic standard of the conference program.
  • · To submit for a pre-arranged session (panels of 90 minutes), you will be asked to give the title of the session, an abstract of its content and purpose (max. 500 words), the designated format, the name of the chair and, if already fixed, the speakers and preliminary titles of their papers.
  • · Papers should be limited to 20 minutes. Panel chairs should make sure that there is time reserved for discussion. For encouraging academic exchange, please consider trans-national panels.
  • · The complete list of all proposed open sessions will be made available as from November 15, 2017 for individuals to submit matching papers.

Oxford Symposium on Religious Studies, 4-6 December, 2017

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We are pleased to invite you to participate in the Oxford Symposium on Religious Studies. Abstract submission and Registrations are now open for our 4–6 December 2017 session.

The meetings will be held at The Old Library in the Oxford University Church of St Mary.  Constructed in 1320, The Old Library is the first university (as opposed to college) building in Oxford and therefore uniquely important; this is where the nascent University began.

The sessions will be hosted by Canon Brian Mountford MBE, former Vicar of St Mary’s. Dr Mountford is a Fellow of St Hilda’s College in the University of Oxford.

You are invited to present a paper on an aspect of religious studies, or you may wish to attend as an observer. The symposium is inter-disciplinary and has a broad-based theme.

The abstract submission deadline 10 November. Early registration expires 16 October, and the last payment date is 15 November 2017.

Consult the Oxford Symposium on Religious Studies website for registration deadlines and other information.

CFP: Special Issue “Interfaith on the World Stage”

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Special Issue of The Review of Faith & International Affairs

We are pleased to announce the call for papers for the upcoming special issue of The Review of Faith & International Affairs on the theme of ‘Interfaith on the World Stage’. This special issue will be co-edited by John Fahy (Georgetown University, Qatar & Woolf Institute, Cambridge) and Jeffrey Haynes (London Metropolitan University). Please send abstracts (up to 200 words) to John Fahy atjef96@georgetown.edu by September 1st 2017.

Key words: Religion, international relations, interfaith, multifaith, interreligious, faith-based diplomacy

Outline

In the wake of the events of 9/11 there has emerged a now significant body of literature that seeks to account for the ‘return’ or ‘resurgence’ of religion in international relations (Fox & Sandler 2004, Snyder 2011, Fitzgerald 2011, Haynes 2012, Sandal & Fox 2013, Hunter 2016). Against a backdrop of secularisation theory, and often framed by historical processes such as globalisation and democratisation, this literature typically attributes religion’s marginalisation in global politics to Westphalian-informed assumptions that continue to pervade international relations today. Arguing that religion’s role in international relations can no longer be ignored, scholars have engaged with case studies as diverse as Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Shi’a Islam in Iran and Christian fundamentalism in the United States, to name but a few examples. Insofar as this literature focuses on particular religious traditions, however, a critical blind spot has developed whereby the contemporaneous proliferation of transnational interfaith (or multifaith, interreligious) initiatives has often been overlooked (cf. Braybrooke 1992, Marshall 2013). This special issue addresses this oversight by exploring the role of interfaith actors, organisations and initiatives in the broader re-emergence of religion in international affairs.

Although the interfaith movement can be traced back to the late 19th century, it gained unprecedented prominence in the years following 9/11. Interfaith initiatives were enlisted as part of wider multiculturalist responses to the threat of radicalisation in liberal democracies such as the United States, the UK and Australia. In the Middle East interfaith events came to represent important platforms for the promotion of ‘true’ or ‘moderate’ Islam, and continue to serve as valuable opportunities to counter the ‘clash of civilisations’ discourse that informs relations between the Islamic world and the West. In the last decade or so the United Nations has recognised interfaith actors and organisations as close allies, passing several important resolutions, for example, on ‘the promotion of interfaith dialogue’ (2004). Since 2011 the first week of February every year marks U.N. World Interfaith Harmony Week.

There are today dozens of interfaith organisations whose activities and agendas transcend national borders. Although their goals are as diverse as peace-building, conflict resolution, combating extremism, tackling poverty and addressing climate change, they share a common commitment to the idea that the world’s most pressing issues must be responded to not by side-lining, but by engaging, the world’s religious traditions. Interfaith has come to represent a particular mode of faith-based diplomacy (Johnston 2003), or what we might call ‘faiths-based diplomacy’, within which religion occupies a privileged rather than a peripheral place in international relations. There remains significant disagreement, however, as to the effectiveness of interfaith efforts. In contributing to debates that cohere around the broader resurgence of religion in international relations, this special issue fills an important gap in the literature by exploring the emergence of interfaith on the world stage.

Call for Papers: “Religious? Secular? Re-thinking Islam and Space in Europe”

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University of Cambridge, 30th November – 1st December 2017

Call for Papers
We invite scholars to present their work for a two-day inter-disciplinary workshop, “Religious? Secular? Re-thinking Islam and Space in Europe”.

This workshop offers a much-needed opportunity to evaluate questions of space within the study of Islam in Europe. It will take place at the University of Cambridge on 30th November – 1st December, bringing together established academic speakers and postgraduate researchers.
The workshop will be inter-disciplinary in character, connecting fields such as religious studies, geography, politics, anthropology, and architecture. We will look to tackle the subject both in breadth (in terms of content and concepts under discussion) and depth (with particular, but not exclusive, interests in German and UK contexts).
Confirmed keynote speakers are Professor Kim Knott (Lancaster University), Professor Riem Spielhaus (University of Göttingen), and Dr Marian Burchardt (University of Leipzig).
Overview
From identity-framed accounts of territory to contests over mosque construction, questions associated with Islam and space underlie major academic and public sphere debates in contemporary Europe (Fadil 2013; Hopkins and Gale 2008; DeHanas and Zacharias 2011; Baker 2017). The extent of these enquiries is broad, affecting scholarly topics such as place, networks, and the dynamics of identity, as well as familiar policy issues such as values, migration, and political participation (Amir-Moazami 2018; Knott 2005; Minkenberg 2014; Walters 2010). Most recently, both the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and supporters of Brexit have made the presence of Muslims in Europe a key point of their rhetoric. At the same time, ever more sophisticated studies of “local Islams” try to point out the differences of Muslim life worlds varying not only depending on national and ethnic backgrounds, but also with regards to spatially refined levels of analysis such as neighbourhoods, networks, or single mosques (Schiffauer 2014).
The premise of this workshop is that the place of “space” within the study of Islam in Europe has lacked systematic examination. We are therefore looking to bring together researchers tackling questions of space in this field from a range of disciplinary and thematic perspectives, in order to explore challenges and suggest solutions for theoretical, conceptual, and methodological debates associated with the topic.
Proposals
We invite proposals that engage with one or more of the following questions:
– What theories, concepts and methods are most useful in order to investigate the intersections of Islam, secularism/secularity and different dimensions of space in Europe?
– What are the benefits and limitations of utilising space as an analytical lens in the study of Islam and Muslims in Europe?
– How does space connect with other topics associated with the study of Islam in Europe, such as conversion, the state, ethnicity, or the family?
– How should researchers analyse the spatial implications of major scholarly challenges such as debates over Islamic exceptionalism, or the contestation of binaries (e.g., “religious”/”secular”, “public”/”private”)?
– How do particular research contexts require the use of different space-related concepts, such as territory, network, scale, dispositif, or assemblage?
– How can researchers navigate methodological challenges in the study of Islam and space in Europe?
– Why might symbolic and material contestations and/or collaborations be framed in terms of notions of space, and is space an adequate analytical tool in these instances?
– How should we study the role(s) of governmentality in spaces marked as “religious” and “non-religious” (e.g., spheres, publics)?
– How can a critical evaluation of the categories of “Islam”, “Religion”, “Secularism”, and/or “Europe” inform the study of space?
– What can material and sensory approaches (e.g., architecture, media, and orality) to the study of Islam and space reveal?
– How do insights gained within Gender Studies and Postcolonial Theory with regard to agency, power and (subversive) knowledge production relate to a space-sensitive analysis of Islam in Europe?
Format

The format will involve distributing workshop papers (c. 2500-3000 words) two weeks ahead of the workshop (16th November), in order to ensure in-depth engagement with every contribution. Following the workshop, participants will be invited to submit developed papers for a special issue of a leading journal.


To Apply…
To apply, please send an abstract (max 400 words) and biography (max 200 words) to islam.space.workshop@gmail.com. Abstracts from postgraduate students and early career researchers are especially welcome, and there will be some expenses available towards speakers’ accommodation and travel. The closing date for proposals is 17th September, with decisions communicated by 25th September.
Sponsors
We are most grateful for the sponsorship of DAAD Cambridge Research Hub for German Studies (www.daad.cam.ac.uk) and Cambridge Institute on Religion and International Studies (http://ciris.org.uk/).

Organising Committee

Adela Taleb (Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt University Berlin), Tobias Müller (Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge), Chris Moses (Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge).

For any queries, please contact us at: islam.space.workshop@gmail.com.

Call for Papers: Women, Abortion, & Religioins

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CALL FOR PAPERS

WOMEN, ABORTION AND RELIGIONS: DEBATES ON SEXUAL POLITICS, SUBJECTIVITIES AND RELIGIOUS FIELD. (PERIOD 2017-2018)

The Program on Gender Studies (PEG by its acronym in Spanish)- San Marcos National University and Flora Tristan Center of Peruvian Women are pleased to invite scholars and activists to submit articles for our editorial project Women, abortion and religions: debates on sexual policy, subjectivities and religious field.

Presentation

Over the last decades, we are more aware on abortion as a social complex issue with a field developed by a group of historical, cultural and politic processes, existing within global and local dynamics, as poverty, inequality, public health, secrecy, legality/illegality and also, without any doubt, religion thus establishing the characteristics of its practice, penalization and decriminalization. We consider that abortion as a social issue is a symptom of the infrastructure of sexual policy, that is, of the mechanisms through which sexual difference is developed in all societies. Therefore, to analyze the dynamics of abortion in contemporary societies is crucial to establish a genealogical exercise regarding the views and responses of women towards the place “assigned” to them, to their bodies and undoubtedly to their contribution on the development of citizenship. The abortion and women relationship displays a multitude of strengths, always starting and ending in their own bodies.

Several research studies point out religions have been one of those privileged fields for such processes. Evidently, from the post secular debate, religions have not stopped influencing neither the history of governmentality nor the construction of concrete forms of subjectivity, particularly related to abortion. This publishing aims at reflecting, analyzing and questioning these relations.

Religions can be analyzed as a place of control or also action (or both at the same time) related to the construction of women (spiritual, politic, cultural, human rights) demands. In this regard, studying the religious phenomenon from an intersectional gender perspective is a way to track the situation of women today, especially through the analysis of circumstances surrounding their abortions. Therefore, we are particularly interested in inquiring about those historical, political and social processes where religions support or oppose abortion and their effects in the lives of women. We look for papers with a profound investigation on one of these aspects (or both) based on the analysis of historical, ethnographic, legal material, among others. We focused on the existing interaction among different religious traditions (such as, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, indigenous world views, among others) and said phenomenon.

This invitation seeks papers with an analysis on the role religions play in the history of governmentality regarding abortion. That is, we aim at studying the mechanisms, strategies, representations (among others), developed by religious fields and capitals existing within processes of influence and intervention of the religious discourse in States and also in the international policy (multilateral organisms, international cooperation) within the contemporary world.

This invitation also aims at analyzing the construction of corporalities, subjectivities and identities of women who experienced abortions, related to religious fields and capitals. In particular, their spiritual and/or religious or atheist practices, their experiences and perceptions. Within this framework, papers on world views/theologies, rites, mysticism, moral and memory can be included. We are also interested in exploring articles with a reflection on religious groups and collectives linked negatively or positively with abortion.

Beyond the post secular debate, the encounter with religions within the international scenario leads us to think on policies dynamics and new subjective constructions where religions are introduced as an important device on social analysis. In this regard, we are deeply interested in inquiring about the work of women or women movements (for example, Islamic, Catholic, Christian,

Jew women or with alternative beliefs) who have underwent abortion within their own spiritual traditions and ritualized practices, within each and every cultural and social context where traditions result transformed by their own demands.

Goals

The goals of this publishing aim at:

  1. Building a comparative and systematic perspective of the relation between religious discourses and abortion within contemporary societies.

  2. Analyzing the construction of subjectivities on women with abortion stories related to the religious phenomenon within local and regional specific contexts.

  3. Studying the historical, social and cultural dynamics where religious traditions play an important role on the promotion or rejection of abortion in contemporary societies.

  4. Reflecting on spiritual productions (practices, rituals, perceptions, among others) developed by women with abortion stories in different regions of the whole world in or out of religious traditions, with particular emphasis on the South-South dialogue.

Topics

Papers should include these thematic lines, although they are not restricted to:

  1. Religious traditions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Shintoism, Taoism, indigenous world views, among others), abortion and women within contemporary societies.

  • Local stories on the relation between abortion and women with different religious traditions.

  • Mechanisms, strategies and representations created by religious leaders or religious discourses existing or affecting the penalization or legalization of abortion within States or the international policy.

  • Spiritual practices of women on abortion in contemporary societies, in particular dialogues and resistances regarding their own religious traditions.

  • Analysis on any aspect regarding spiritual practices (such as divinity and rituality) from a feminist theological perspective.

  • Feminist theological production on abortion and women on each religious tradition.

  • Ability of women and groups of women to take action within the context of spiritual production regarding abortion.

  • Spiritual expressions related to non confessional practices, secularism, atheism and other contemporary spiritual manifestations on abortion.

  • Intersection among religious practices with sexuality, gender, race and social class within the women movement.

  • Relationship among spiritual production, ethical discourses and supporting practices from women, with particular emphasis on the South-South dialogue.

    • Relevant information To participate send an abstract with a maximum of 350 words until November 30th 2017 to Martin Jaime (mjaimeb@pucp.pe) and Fátima Valdivia (valdiviadelrio@gmail.com), academic editors of this compilation. Please include any questions or doubts.

    Once proposals are accepted you will receive a written notification. All articles will follow the APA (American Psychiatry Association) style and should have 8 000 to 10 000 words, without bibliography. All papers will be peer-reviewed by double blind pairs. Articles can be written either in English or in Spanish. Complete articles must be sent until June 30th 2018 to Martin Jaime and Fátima Valdivia, academic editors of this compilation, to the following e-mail addresses: mjaimeb@pucp.pe and valdiviadelrio@gmail.com

    Conference CFP: The New Subjectivities of Global Capitalism

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    THE NEW SUBJECTIVITIES OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM: SPIRITUALITY, PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE WORLD OF WORK

    Guest speakers:

    Emma BELL (The Open University, UK)
    Ekaterina CHERTKOVSKAYA (Lund University, Sweden)
    François GAUTHIER (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)
    Scott TAYLOR (University of Birmingham, UK)

    Conference organized by the Sociology Department of Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj- Napoca, Romania1

    Conference Dates: 18th – 20th of September, 2017
    Venue: Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Sociology Department, BBU Deadline for abstract submission: 7th of August 2017Notification for acceptance: 15th of August, 2017

    Abstracts of papers should be submitted to the following email addresses: Sorin Gog (soringog@yahoo.com) or Anca Simionca (ancasimionca@gmail.com)

    The current neo-liberal transformations of global capitalism have produced throughout the world lasting and significant changes. At the same time, they have generated new cultural ontologies, institutions and social practices which are embedded, appropriated and sometimes resisted in local political, religious and social contexts. This conference focuses on the emergence of new forms of subjectivities that encourages individuals to govern themselves by becoming more creative, competitive and entrepreneurial. An important  aspect of the contemporary neo-liberal governmentality is represented by the role played by the various embodiments of a new spirit of capitalism based on an ethic of self- transformations that instills in its subjects a sense of responsibility, autonomy and most of all an immanent desire for authenticity. In this context we have witnessed in the past decade the emergence of new alternative religions and spiritualities, workshops for personal development, integrative and trans-personal psychologies, popular therapeutic expertise on management of the self; these new technologies of care for human resources that aim at socializing new subjectivities have spread not only in work environments and governmental agencies but also in educational establishments, healthcare and social work programs.
    The aim of this conference is to explore on one hand the religious changes in contemporary society and the way these new spiritualities (yoga, theta healing, meditation, holotropic breathing, familial constellations, reiki. etc.) are becoming an important component not only of popular culture but of various professional fields (management, psychology, psychotherapy, medicine, sport, etc.) and shape a culture of neo-liberal subjectivities. On the other hand we want to analyze the transformative changes of the neo-liberal economic environment, especially those sectors that experiment with a new spirit of capitalism through innovative forms of management of individuals and creative policies for developing human resources.
    This conference aims to bring together scholars from a broad field of social sciences (anthropology, sociology, religious studies, political science, critical management studies) that are interested in the contemporary flourishing of new forms of subjectivities and in the role they play in contemporary capitalist societies. The goal of the conference is to discuss local instances of how neo-liberalism is reproduced through what appears as transformative ethics of self-realization and to analyze the mechanisms of generating ‘enterprising’ and ‘competitive’ subjectivities that are engaged in transforming their inner selves and their social environments in accordance with the prevailing economic rationalities.

    We welcome papers that:

    • explore the new landscapes of religion and spirituality and ways in which these new cultural ontologies are appropriated by global capitalism;

    • explore the role played by the spiritual and personal development programs in shaping a new sense of self that is adapted to the contemporary social and economic conditions;

    • explore how the neoliberal economic transformations are contested and resisted by traditional religions and the way moral communities are creatively reframed in order to engage with these vast social and economic transformations.

    • explore the transformations within the psy-disciplines and the role they have played in the implementation of technologies of intervention and in the popularization of devices self-production through the mass consumption of psychological expertise (therapies, clinical mediation, self-help literature);

    • explore the role played by the spiritual and personal development sector in further legitimizing the understanding of individuals as fully responsible for their employability and the outcome of their attempts to better position themselves within organizations or in the labor market.

    • explore changes in the world of work through recent processes like de- proletarianisation or re-proletarianisation and the subsequent transformations of the workers’ sense of the self; analyze how the reconfiguration of regions as economic units transform the nature and experience of work.

    • any other topic related to neoliberal subjectivities in religions, organizations, work environments and popular culture.

      Participation, abstracts and registration

      The conference is open to all academics, researchers and MA/PhD Students working on related topics. Please submit an abstract of no more than 200 words before 7th of August 2017 to the following email addresses: Sorin Gog (soringog@yahoo.com) or Anca Simionca (ancasimionca@gmail.com). The authors will be notified about the acceptance of their abstracts before 15th of August 2017. There is no registration fee for this conference. Participants are expected however to cover for their travel to Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Upon request, the organizers can provide accommodation for a limited number of participants. ​