Conference: “The Faith Lives of Women and Girls: Identities, Experiences, Practices, and Beliefs

26- 27 March 2019
Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

• Dr Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor,  Centre for Trust, Peace, and Social Relations, Coventry University
• Prof. Chia Longman, Director of the Centre for Research on Culture and Gender, University of Gent
• Dr Yafa Shanneik, University of Birmingham
• Prof. Nicola Slee, Queen’s Foundation (Birmingham) and Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

This two day conference explores the diverse faith lives, identities, experiences, practices, and beliefs of self-identifying girls and women, in their individual, community, and institutional contexts. The conference welcomes

• postgraduate
• early-career
• academic researchers
• grassroots practitioners

The conference examines gender and feminism in religions, spiritualities, and theologies. The event is grounded in qualitative and quantitative approaches and also addresses the methodological questions that arise when researchers consider contemporary female faith.

We welcome 200 – 300 word abstracts for 20 minute papers from a range of disciplines and religious and spiritual traditions, and emerging themes in non-religion. We are very open to broad range of topics and issues. Alternative formats, panel proposals, and posters are also encouraged.

The conference is committed to ensuring an inclusive environment for discussion and the dissemination of work.

Please submit your abstract as a word document and include your name, affiliation, title of paper, and email address, and send to both the following email addresses:

• Prof. Nicola Slee               sleen@queens.ac.uk
• Dr Dawn Llewellyn           d.llewellyn@chester.ac.uk

Deadline for submission: *14 December 2018*

This one-day conference brings together academics and activists to explore issues of leadership, authority and representation in British Muslim communities.  Who speaks for British Muslims?  How is authority construed, constructed and exercised in an age of mass media and the Internet?  What internal and external factors shape leadership structures and modalities of representation for British Muslims living as a minority in a culturally Christian but largely secular social context?  Where do leaders come from in a decentralised religious tradition lacking a priestly hierarchy?  How do government discourses and media representations impact upon dynamics of leadership and authority in British Muslim communities?

• Keynote Lectures by:
• Ataullah Siddiqui (Markfield Institute of Higher Education)
• Shaukat Warraich (Faith Associates)

Panel Discussion on ‘The Future Role of Imams in the UK’ with:

• Saleem Kidwai (Chair)
• Shuruq Naguib
• Atif Imtiaz
• Mufti Abdur Rahman Mangera
• Myriam Francois-Cerrah
• Imam Qari Asim

This conference has been organised in conjunction with a special issue of the international journal Religions jointly edited by Professor Sophie Gilliat-Ray and Dr Riyaz Timol.  Delegates may be invited to submit a paper for publication, subject to normal peer-review procedures, after the event.  The deadline for final paper submissions is 25 April 2019.

17^th Annual Conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions

Religions are works in progress. New ideas, doctrines and practices have appeared time and again and often spread across cultural and confessional boundaries. Some of the changes have been intentional, introduced by powerful individuals and institutions, others have emerged more spontaneously as vernacular reactions to innovations imposed from ‘above’.  Some elements in religions have persisted for centuries, some have disappeared and some reappeared in completely new forms or acquired new meanings. Similar processes can be observed around us in contemporary societies as well.

Yet, oftentimes scholars of religion have struggled with studying such constantly changing and transforming phenomena. This leads us to ask how many disruptions or interruptions can a tradition adapt or even embrace, while still maintaining its identity. At the same time studying change (or the lack thereof) arises several conceptual and methodological problems. First of all, how does one conceptualize change without implying a static research object? This is also a problem of evaluation and rhetorical power – who has the authority to claim that something is extinct or that a new tradition has been established? What is the scholar’s responsibility for the field of studies? When and to what extent do scholars have to take into account the views of insiders in reflecting upon religious traditions or in drawing boundaries between them?

Aside from ‘conventional’ religion and religiosity, considering various ‘spiritualities’ and the rise of the numbers of people with no clear religious affiliation, how does one study a phenomenon which has lost its visibility or moved into the private sphere?  Or how does one make sense of the continuities and disruptions in a world where more and more people simultaneously participate in several traditions, either religious or secular?

The conference will focus on these and related questions, examining religious traditions worldwide. In addition, it calls for reflecting upon continuities and disruptions in the history of religious studies. Our conceptual tools, theoretical frameworks, methodologies and even the category of religion have been changing. Is it necessary to strive for unity in the discipline or rather celebrate the pluralism in the study of religions? And how to depict change, so that the complicated dynamic of religious transformation is also reflected through the conceptual tools we use?

See details at https://easr2019.org/

9-11 July 2019, Cardiff University
THEME: Communicating Religion

Plenary Speakers:

• Charles Hirschkind (University of California-Berkeley)
• Mia Lövheim (Uppsala University)
• Third speaker TBC

As scholars of religion, we are all tasked with communicating religion in one way or another – to students, to the public, and to our research community. Moreover, what we study is itself a message: participants in our studies and creators of the documents we analyse are communicating religion, and what we receive as data is what Giddens referred to as the ‘double hermeneutic,’ or ideas and experiences that have already been mediated. What is the religion communicated to us? How do we communicate religion, and what is it that we communicate when we’re doing it?
Our focus is on “communicating” as a verb-like gerund rather than “communication” as a static, abstract noun. Scholars from different strands of the sociology of religion can imagine their work in it, and our topic engages the interests of colleagues in journalism, media and cultural studies; geography; music; English, communications and philosophy; social psychology; and law and politics.

The substance of communication can include evangelistic and apologistic discourse, education, media, and public policy interventions. We welcome diverse methodological approaches, including multi-modal and multi-sensory approaches to communicating religion. We understand communicating in multiple contexts, including academia, politics, education, social media and mass media. We imagine multiple frameworks that contour how we imagine communicating religion, encompassing the secular and the digital, the individual and the collective, the implicit and the explicit, the theoretical and the empirical.

To deliver a paper, please send an abstract of no more than 250 words, alongside a biographical note of no more than 50 words. We will also be accepting a limited number of panel proposals. To deliver a panel, please send an abstract of no more than 500 words alongside a biographical note of no more than 50 words for each contributor.

You will be able to submit abstracts through a web portal on the BSA website. Please keep watch for further details, through this mailing list, our social media channels, and the Socrel website.

Conference Bursaries:  A limited number of bursaries are available to support postgraduate, early career, low income or unwaged SocRel members to present at the conference. Please visit http://socrel.org.uk/socrel-annual-bursary-scheme/ for instructions, and to download an application form, and submit your bursary application along with your abstract by 1 February 2019.

Socrel is mindful of the various sensitivities people carry concerning content. If you feel that the presentation you give may include material that may be upsetting, please consider including a note about this content in your abstract. We will not restrict or censor presentations that include sensitive or alarming content, but by flagging it in the abstract, those who attend the conference can make informed decisions on which panel they might choose to attend.

Abstract submission: Open soon!

• Early bird registration opens: 3 November 2018
• Abstract submission closes: 1 February 2019
• Decision notification: 15 February 2019
• Presenter registration closes: 29 March 2019
• Early bird registration closes: 7 June 2019
• Registration closes: 28 June 2019

Please note that after 7 June 2019, a £50 late registration fee will apply to all bookings.

Should you have other questions about the conference please also contact the conference organisers, Dr Michael Munnik (Cardiff University) or Dr Peter Hemming (Cardiff University) socrel19@cardiff.ac.uk
For further details, visit the SocRel website: www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/sociology-of-religion-study-group/ For further details about the BSA visit www.britsoc.co.uk

The International Association for the Psychology of Religion (IAPR) holds bi-annual conferences that serve as a meeting point for scholars from all over the world to share the latest research findings in the field. We are pleased and honored to announce that the IAPR Conference 2019 will be held in Gdańsk, Poland and will take place from August 31st – September 3rd.

This year, we would like to summarize the current knowledge within the title Psychology of Religion and Spirituality: New Trends and Neglected Themes. We would like to encourage you to submit a paper and share this announcement with interested colleagues.  Please refer to the Conference website: https://poland2019.iaprweb.org/

Open registration: 1st of Nov. 2018

Deadline for abstracts: 1st of Feb. 2019

Organizers:

• International Association for the Psychology of Religion
• University of Gdańsk (Institute of Psychology)
• Polish Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

Dates: March 29-31, 2019 (arriving on 28^th and departing on April 1^st)

Place: Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

The Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University invites papers that examine the relationship between Christianity and the rule of law in a Chinese society. We welcome both scholarly research papers of empirical, historical, or case studies, and personal reflection papers by Christian practitioners of the law (lawyers, judges, legislators, law enforcement agents, etc.).  A personal reflection paper by a law practitioner should reflect on one’s own conversion, Christian beliefs, and the impacts of faith on the practice of the law. A scholarly paper may address any of these topics below and the analysis may be at the micro, meso, or macro levels, but they must be on Christianity in one of the Chinese societies.  We particularly welcome papers on the following topics:

• Christian roles in the making or remaking of the constitution in the ROC or PRC, or the Basic Law in Hong Kong or Macau
• Christian roles in the development of the modern judiciary system
• Christian roles in the making of some particular law or regulation
• Christian roles in the defense of civil rights or human rights
• Christian perceptions of the rule of law
• Christian organizations and civil society
• Christianity and the legal culture in Chinese societies
• Christianity and public theology regarding the rule of law
• Faith and law practice among Christian lawyers, legislators, judges, or enforcement agents (such as police)

Based on submitted abstracts, we will select 20 participants to make presentations. Hotel expenses of the presenters will be covered. A limited number of travel funds is available to subsidize transportation costs for those who apply.

Deadline to submit abstracts: October 31, 2018. The abstract should be between 500 and 1,000 words. Please include a brief c.v. and a note about whether or not applying for a travel subsidy and if so, how much. We will notify the selected participants of acceptance and travel funds by November 30, 2018.

Deadline to submit draft full paper: February 28, 2019. The paper should be no less than 5,000 words, with proper footnotes and referenced bibliography. We plan to publish a volume of the edited papers.

Please submit your abstract, c.v., note about travel subsidy, and full paper to Lily Szeto lszeto@purdue.edu

Dates: March 29-31, 2019 (arriving on 28^th and departing on April 1^st)

Place: Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

The Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University invites papers that examine the relationship between Christianity and the rule of law in a Chinese society. We welcome both scholarly research papers of empirical, historical, or case studies, and personal reflection papers by Christian practitioners of the law (lawyers, judges, legislators, law enforcement agents, etc.).  A personal reflection paper by a law practitioner should reflect on one’s own conversion, Christian beliefs, and the impacts of faith on the practice of the law. A scholarly paper may address any of these topics below and the analysis may be at the micro, meso, or macro levels, but they must be on Christianity in one of the Chinese societies.  We particularly welcome papers on the following topics:

• Christian roles in the making or remaking of the constitution in the ROC or PRC, or the Basic Law in Hong Kong or Macau
• Christian roles in the development of the modern judiciary system
• Christian roles in the making of some particular law or regulation
• Christian roles in the defense of civil rights or human rights
• Christian perceptions of the rule of law
• Christian organizations and civil society
• Christianity and the legal culture in Chinese societies
• Christianity and public theology regarding the rule of law
• Faith and law practice among Christian lawyers, legislators, judges, or enforcement agents (such as police)

Based on submitted abstracts, we will select 20 participants to make presentations. Hotel expenses of the presenters will be covered. A limited number of travel funds is available to subsidize transportation costs for those who apply.

Deadline to submit abstracts: October 31, 2018. The abstract should be between 500 and 1,000 words. Please include a brief c.v. and a note about whether or not applying for a travel subsidy and if so, how much. We will notify the selected participants of acceptance and travel funds by November 30, 2018.

Deadline to submit draft full paper: February 28, 2019. The paper should be no less than 5,000 words, with proper footnotes and referenced bibliography. We plan to publish a volume of the edited papers.

Please submit your abstract, c.v., note about travel subsidy, and full paper to Lily Szeto lszeto@purdue.edu

The paper submission for the 14th SIEF congress in Santiago de Compostela, Spain (14-17 April 2019), “Track Changes: Reflecting on a Transforming World” is currently ongoing.

You are all warmly invited to submit your papers to the panel organized by our working group: (Reli06) Tracking the ritual year on the move in different cultural settings and systems of values

Convenors: Irina Sedakova and Laurent Fournier

https://nomadit.co.uk/sief/sief2019/conferencesuite.php/panels/7122

Looking forward to seeing you in Bucharest, in a couple of months, and next year in Santiago,

Irina Stahl,
Researcher, Institute of Sociology, Romanian Academy
Secretary of “The Ritual Year” Working Group,
ritualyear@siefhome.org

CALL FOR PAPERS: The Fifth Biennial Christian Congregational Music: Local and Global Perspectives Conference
Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford, United Kingdom
30 July-2 August 2019

Congregational music-making is a vital and vibrant practice within Christian communities worldwide. It reflects, informs, and articulates convictions and concerns that are irreducibly local even as it flows along global networks. The goal of the Christian Congregational Music conference is to expand the avenues of scholarly inquiry into congregational music-making by bringing together world-class scholars and practitioners to explore the varying cultural, social, and spiritual roles music plays in the life of various Christian communities around the world. We are pleased to invite proposals for the fifth biennial conference at Ripon College in Cuddesdon, near Oxford, United Kingdom between Tuesday, July 30 and Friday, August 2, 2019. The conference will feature guest speakers, roundtables and workshops that reflect the ever-broadening scope of research and practice in Christian congregational music-making around the world. 

Paper proposals on any topic related to the study of congregational music-making will be considered, but we especially welcome papers that explore one or more of the following themes: 

Congregational music and the Black Atlantic

Choir and congregation

Voice and vocality

Beyond the congregation

Practices of power

Comparative religious musical ontologies

We are now accepting proposals (maximum 250 words) for individual papers and for organised panels consisting of three papers. The online proposal form can be found on the conference website: http://congregationalmusic.org/content/proposals. Proposals must be received by 14 December 2018. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 31 January 2019, and conference registration will begin on 15 February 2019. Further instructions and information is available on the conference website at http://congregationalmusic.org.