Category Archives: Calls for Papers

Call for Manuscripts: Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion

Posted on by

CALL FOR MANUSCRIPTS

ANNUAL REVIEW OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

Volume 9: The Changing Faces of Catholicism
Forthcoming 2018

Edited by:

Solange Lefebvre (Université de Montréal, Canada) and
Alfonso Pérez-Agote (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain)

Catholicism represents an important area of research in sociology as
well as across a number of disciplines. As literature on Catholicism
in certain contexts substantially expands, there still remains the
need for recent qualitative and quantitative data in specific national
contexts via a comparative perspective. In the discussion on
secularism and diversity, there exist open questions on the way
culture, heritage, and religion intersect or differentiate (political
regulation of diversity). Law, education, religious heritage,
chaplaincies, collaborations between state and civil society—these are
just a few areas of social life where these dimensions are rapidly
changing. The relation between Catholicism and the media poses a
number of questions as well.
As a global religion, with the pope being a religious leader as well
as a head of state of the Vatican, Catholicism has developed,
especially since the 1980s, a new way of conducting diplomatic
relations and interfering with national and international policies.
Pope Francis’ papacy is revealing a divided Church on many matters,
globally and at the Curia, between the centre and the local Churches.
Catholic leaders have been involved in many contentious debates on
sexuality and gender, with different legal, social, and religious
impacts (biopolitics). Transnational networks and religious mobility
are creating new forms of popular religion and Catholic movements.

To explore these issues we propose to include articles around the
following themes:
1. Catholicism and culture
2. Catholicism and media
3. Catholicism and international relations
4. Transnational practices, movements, and popular religion
5. Catholicism, gender, sexuality, and biopolitics
6. Catholicism, public policies, and institutions
7. Catholicism and other religions

The editors will seek out contributors who can address questions
raised in the sociology of religion about Catholicism with authors
representing regional and cultural variation.

Please send all proposals (300 words) to solange.lefebvre@umontreal.ca

Deadlines:
Submission of proposals: June 30, 2016
Notification of acceptance: September 30, 2016
Completed manuscripts (7,000 words): June 30, 2017

CFP: 2nd Biennial Conference on Spirituality and Healthcare

Posted on by

CONFERENCE CALL FOR PAPERS
The Centre for Contextual Ministry (University of Pretoria) and HospiVision presents:
2nd Biennial Conference on Spirituality and Healthcare: Wholeness in Healthcare
Where and when
Cape Town: 19-21 October 2016
Pretoria: 24-26 October 2016
Call for papers
The George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health (GWish) was established in May 2001 as a leading organization on education and clinical issues related to spirituality and health. The director of GWish (Prof Christina Puchalski) was one of the editors of the Oxford Textbook on Spirituality in Healthcare1. In the preface Pellegrino observes: ‘Experienced clinicians have long known that true healing extends beyond the artful use of medical knowledge. They grasped intuitively that serious or fatal illness was an ontological assault, an existential assault on the whole of the patient’s lived world. To heal, the physician must recognize the starkness of the patient’s encounter with his own finitude, i.e. with his mortality and inherent limitations. Healing of the psychosocial-biological is of itself insufficient to repair existential disarray of the patient’s life without recognizing the spiritual origins of the disarray’ (Cobb et al. 2012)
It is against this background that this conference is presented as part of the Research Programme on Spirituality and Healthcare hosted at the Cluster for Healing and counselling of the Centre for Contextual Ministry at the University of Pretoria and coordinated by HospiVision.
Major themes to be addressed at the conference

  • Spirituality and wholeness in healthcare
  • Spirituality and healthcare in resource poor environments
  • Ethical issues in spirituality and healthcare
  • Spirituality in the life of the healthcare worker
  • Children / Youth and spirituality in healthcare (3rd day of the conference)

We want to invite you to submit an abstract for a paper/ workshop at this conference.
Your proposal/abstract should include the following
1. Name, surname and affiliation
2. Contact information (Email and Telephone/cell)
3. Theme of the paper / workshop
4. Description of the articulation with the conference theme
5. A three hundred word abstract
6. Format for this presentation (e.g. paper to be read, workshop, panel discussion, etc.)
7. Please indicate whether you presentation will be only in Cape Town or Pretoria or at both cities
Please email your proposal/abstract to andred@hospivision.org.za
Closing date for abstracts 1 June 2016
The conference task team will evaluate proposal and their decision will be final.
1 Cobb, M.R., Puchalski, C.M., and Rumbold, B., 2012, Oxford Textbook on Spirituality in Health Care, Oxford University Press, New York.

Association for Jewish Studies – annual conference

Posted on by

AJS Call for Papers Now Online!
Travel Grants Available for European Scholars

The Call for Papers for the 48th Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies, the largest learned society and professional association representing Jewish Studies worldwide, is now available on the AJS website. The online proposal submission site will be open for submissions beginning March 15, 2016; the deadline for submissions is May 5, 2016 at 5:00 pm EST.  The conference will take place December 18 – 20, 2016 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel in San Diego, California.  You will find detailed information about the conference on the AJS website, including a page to share ideas about sessions seeking participants and papers seeking sessions, as well as suggested themes for each subject-area division.

 

AJS is pleased to offer travel grants, on a competitive basis, for European scholars presenting at the conference, including travel grants specifically designated for graduate students and early career scholars, and travel grants for Eastern European scholars. Please see the AJS website for further information.  In collaboration with EAJS, AJS is also pleased to offer special reduced membership rates to EAJS members.  Click here for further information.

 

Please do not hesitate to contact the AJS office (ajs@ajs.cjh.org or 917.606.8249) if you have any questions regarding the submission process. We look forward to seeing you in San Diego!

http://ajsnet.org/conference-call-for-papers-2016.htm

CFP AAA 2016: Western Muslims, the Common Good, and New Evidence of Civic Engagement

Posted on by

Call for Papers for the 115th Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Nov 16-20, 2016 Minneapolis. Session Theme: Evidence, Accident, Discovery.

CFP AAA 2016 Panel: Western Muslims, the Common Good, and New Evidence of Civic Engagement

Organizer: Alisa Perkins (Western Michigan University)

Orientalist notions of an essentialized Muslim other gain currency by perpetually constructing new forms of “evidence” that something is wrong with Islam. Nativist strategies of exclusion based on these ideas capitalize on supposed incompatibilities between Islamic practice and “western” values to fuel vitriolic rhetoric, lending cultural sanction to new laws with grave implications for Muslim and non-Muslim citizens alike. These include laws restricting various religious practices, freedoms of expression, and freedoms of association. They also include new regulations authorizing the detainment and deportation of citizens based upon religious affiliation, and the normalization of surveillance regimes.

In light of deeply inured systems of stigmatizing knowledge production, this panel devotes itself to exploring how Muslims in North America and Europe creatively elaborate a new ethics of citizenship and new epistemologies of belonging through discursive, material, and practical means in a way that challenges the “us/them” divisions upheld by essentializing, nativist positions. By taking part in various social justice movements, civic engagement projects, community uplift initiatives, and knowledge-production and dissemination projects hinging around the idea of the “common good” (maslaha), Muslims change the tenor of conversations about belonging and inclusion, leading to new forms of discovery and appreciation for shared values and the will to act on these between Muslims and non-Muslims. Whether implicitly or explicitly engaged, the theologically-based maslaha concept has been articulated and elaborated in a variety of ways across different Muslim societies over time (e.g. the sulh-i kull, or “absolute civility” concept in Mughal-era India) to signal Islamic(ate) ideas about public welfare or regard for all. Maslaha-based projects, whether local, national, or international in scope, bring Muslims together around initiatives that seek to improve conditions of the larger society in ways that respectfully take into account the well being of Muslims and non-Muslims at the same time.

These efforts, and the ways in which they are represented, are especially important for the production of alternative narratives by and about Islam and Muslims in the West, given that countering Orientalist “knowledge” on its own terms has not constituted an effective strategy for Muslims to “prove” their humanity. Muslim leaders and ordinary citizens in Europe and North America are continually called upon to examine hollow and demeaning displays of “evidence” that purport to demonstrate an ontic correspondence between Islam and violence. Muslim leaders and others are urged to try and disprove this link via sound bites, using terms that the dominant society can understand. At the same time, they are expected to apologize for crimes as if these acts had anything to do with Islam as practiced by the overwhelming majority of Muslims. These contradictions result in fatigue and frustration. On the other hand, expressive, intellectual, and activist movements engaging the meeting place between belief, practice, and ethical engagement can revitalize and strengthen beleaguered populations.

Papers may engage the following questions, or related themes: How do local interfaith movements welcoming refugees and other immigrants create new interfaces between Muslim and non-Muslim citizens? How do Western Muslims work across racial and religious lines to fight against exclusionary laws? How do they draw upon their own experiences with unwarranted incrimination to fuel support for ethnicity or race-based movements such as Black Lives Matter? How have Muslim and non-Muslim women worked together to ensure rights to veil or have access to alternative arbitration that may offer them desired rights and protections available under various interpretations of Muslim family law? How does shared concern for schools and creating a moral environment for children lead Muslim and non-Muslim parents to seek each other out for mutual support? How do Western Muslims express ideas about the common good via creative means such as visual and performed art, literature, and music? How are acts of cooperation between Muslims and non-Muslims to enhance the common good represented at different scales, from tropes related in casual exchanges to images circulated in mainstream media? How may these new portrayals work to change local, national, and international dialogues about Muslims in Europe and North America?

Please send a 250-word abstract plus a title for your proposed presentation to alisa.perkins@wmich.edu by Friday, April 1, 2016. Please circulate widely.

Call for Chapters – Global Perspectives on Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Posted on by

Dear Colleagues,

 

Currently, I am in the process of editing “Global Perspectives on Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage” which will be published by the American publisher IGI Global (www.igi-global.com) and is scheduled for release in 2017.

 

I am delighted to invite you to consider submitting a chapter for the book.

 

The main objective of this book is to add to the limited accumulated knowledge in the field of religious tourism through providing readers with information on the international perspectives as well as the most current religious tourism practices used in both developed and developing countries. The book will also raise the level of awareness on the main studies carried out in the field of religious tourism and their corresponding findings. As a result, the book will help researchers and scholars in the field of religious tourism to have a clearer view towards this concept that in turn will contribute to the related accumulated knowledge in the field. The book aims to cover all related international perspectives on religious tourism (to include perspectives on Islamic Tourism as well as Christian Tourism, Hindu Tourism, Buddhist Tourism, Jewish Tourism, etc.,).

 

Chapters may focus on theoretical or conceptual research, empirical full-scale research, case studies, and/or best-practices-related or applied religious tourism activities in developed and developing countries. Recommended potential topics to be included in this book are (but not limited to) the following potential topics:

o   Religious Tourism

o   Pilgrimage

o   Islamic Tourism

o   Christian Tourism

o   Hindu Tourism

o   Buddhist Tourism

o   Jewish Tourism

o   Religious Tourism Trends,

o   Religious Tourism Practices

o   Religious Tourism Customers Behaviour

o   Religious Tourism Challenges

o   Religious Tourism Opportunities

o   Religious Tourism Concepts

o   Religious Tourism Destinations

o   Religious Tourism Firms

o   Religious Tourism Tools

o   International Perspectives of Religious Tourism

 

 

All the needed information regarding the book can be found on the following link: http://www.igi-global.com/publish/call-for-papers/call-details/2121

 

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before April 15, 2016, a chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter, including a summary, preliminary outline, and explanation of the main contribution the chapter will make. Chapters’ proposals can be submitted online through the following link: http://www.igi-global.com/publish/call-for-papers/call-details/2121

 

Your kind professional involvement will greatly benefit the success of the book.

 

Best regards,

 

Professor Hatem El-Gohary

PhD, MSc, MRes, BSc, PGCHE, Chartered Marketer, MCIM, CeM, CSMA, HEA Fellow, AABPP Fellow, CMI Fellow.

 

Professor of Marketing

Editor in Chief: International Journal of Online Marketing

Head of BCBS Enterprise, Finance and Marketing Research Group

Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences, Birmingham City University,

City Centre Campus, Curzon Building, Room C236, 4 Cardigan Street, B4 7BD, Birmingham, UK.

Tel: 0044 121 202 4616

E-mail: hatem.elgohary@bcu.ac.uk

CFP: “Songs of Songs – literal exegesis in the light of new approaches”

Posted on by

Call for Papers: Shir ha-Shirim 2016
Pretoria, 31 August to 2 September

The fifth international conference on Song of Songs in the Shir ha-Shirim conference series will take place in Pretoria, South Africa, from the evening of 31 August until 2 September 2016 (thus ending two days before the IOSOT conference in Stellenbosch, well in time for colleagues wanting to combine these two events as a conference series).
Taking up the central exegetical debate identified in the previous meetings, the theme for 2016 has been formulated as:
“Song of Songs – literal exegesis in the light of new approaches”
Contributions that engage with African publications and thematics are particularly encouraged. As is the tradition with this conference series, exegetical, hermeneutical and cross-disciplinary contributions from different specialisms are warmly welcomed. All papers may afterwards be submitted for publication to the Journal for Semitics (shortened Harvard reference system); they will undergo the usual peer-reviewed process.
If you would like to attend the conference in order to present a paper, please submit a paper proposal (consisting of a title and ± 150-word abstract) no later than 15 April 2016 to stefan.fischer@univie.ac.at.
If you would like to attend the conference without presenting a paper, please reserve a seat no later than 13 May 2016.
The conference fee: R1 500.00. The fee is payable in cash upon registration, and includes the conference dinner. Receipts will be issued by the departmental secretary.
Please note: Colleagues who want to take day-trip game drives or visit important sites in Pretoria and Johannesburg (Voortrekker Monument, Mandela House in Soweto, Apartheid Museum, Mandela Square) should inform Christo Lombaard beforehand. He will arrange group trips with trusted service providers, who will convey the costs to interested participants.
For more information contact:
PD Dr Stefan Fischer
University of Vienna
Schenkenstr. 8-10
A-1090 Wien
Austria
stefan.fischer@univie.ac.at
Prof. Christo Lombaard
University of South Africa
P.O. Box 392
Pretoria 0003
South Africa
ChristoLombaard@gmail.com

CFP: “Spirituality and Theology: visions, postsecularism and religion”

Posted on by

UNIVERSITY OF LATVIA
FACULTY OF THEOLOGY
Raina bulv. 19, Riga, LV-1586, Latvia
Phone: 371 67034441
E-mail: teoldept@lanet.lv
Riga

Call for papers
“Spirituality and Theology: visions, postsecularism and religion”
30 May – 1 June 2016
Faculty of Theology (Room 161), University of Latvia, Raina bulv. 19, Riga
Dear friends and colleagues,
Following on our 2015 conference on interdisciplinarity and theological education (for good
memories, see: http://foto.lu.lv/arhiivs/2015/d_apr/16/index.html), you are herewith
formally notified of the 2016 conference, and cordially invited to present a paper at our
2016 meeting, or to attend the meeting without presenting a paper.
Taking into account the ideas from the 2015 conference, the topic for this year has been
formulated as:
“Spirituality and Theology: visions, postsecularism and religion”.

Please send to me (University of Latvia) and to Christo Lombaard (University of South
Africa) paper proposals containing a paper title and a 100-300 word abstract, along with
your name, title and institutional affiliation: laima.geikina@lu.lv &
ChristoLombaard@gmail.com.
The closing date for proposing papers: the last day of March 2016.
The dates of the conference: the afternoon of 30 May until the evening of 1 June 2016.
Included on the formal conference programme is a visit to the small but beautiful town of
Cesis, particularly the Alternative Family Home “Zvannieki” (www.zvannieki.lv/aboutzvannieki/?
lang=en) there.
With my best wishes
Laima Geikina
www.lu.lv/par/kontaktinformacija/meklesana/persona/66a72fbbe1010b70ddbfc8bc8b9da17a

CFP Special Issue of New Diversities: Religion and Migration in Africa and the African Diaspora

Posted on by

Guest editors: Dr Federico Settler (University of KwaZulu-Natal), Prof Trygve Wyller (University of Oslo), and Dr Mari Engh (University of KwaZulu-Natal)

As the field of transnational and migration studies has burgeoned, research about Africa has remained under-represented, and often Africa is depicted as the place from where people flee from in pursuit of liberty and modernity in the ‘North’. Recent decades has seen a great deal of scholarship in the field of migration focused on movement from the global South to the North, with most studies characterised by sentiments oriented around social exclusion, integration, multiculturalism, and ethnic relations.

In this special issue of the New Diversities Journal (http://newdiversities.mmg.mpg.de/) we wish to include papers that qualitatively explore the religious lives (Islam, African Pentecostalism, Hinduism, and Indigenous Religions) of migrants in Africa and the African Diaspora. The special issue is premised on the idea that when people move, they take their religions and cultural identities with them. In this, migrants make use of, and form, religious communities as networks of support, trust and knowledge, and to accumulate material knowledge of regulations, languages, expectations, desirable jobs, and settlement.

We invite papers concerned with the intersections of religion, migration and transnationalism in African contexts and in African diasporas across the world. We are interested in submissions that consider a cross-section of migratory aspirations, legal status, or extent of integration into the host society. Locating reflections within a postcolonial perspective, we invite contributions that are not simply concerned with migration as a strategy for fleeing from war, patriarchal relations and societies, and/or under-development, but that draw attention to the ways in which religion is produced and used in the migratory processes of people from and within postcolonial societies. We invite papers that provide an analysis of the ways in the religious beliefs and practices of migrants are resources for articulating, obtaining and maintaining transnational mobilities. Ultimately, through this special issue we hope to not only explore the ways in which religious beliefs, affiliations and practices shape migration, but also significantly, how migratory processes shapes our understandings of what constitutes religion, and religious work and practice.

Please submit abstracts (of approx 750 words) via email to Dr. FG Settler (settler@ukzn.ac.za) no later than 15th March 2016.

Schedule:

Submission of abstracts by 15th March 2016

Notification of abstracts selected for full paper submission by 1st April 2016

Submission of full papers by 1st July 2016

Final decision on manuscripts by 15th October

CFP: Translation, Connections and Cultural (re-)Creations of Brazilian Religions in Europe and other National Contexts

Posted on by

CALL for PAPERS

Translation, Connections and Cultural (re-)Creations of Brazilian Religions in Europe and other National Contexts / Tradução, conexões e (re)criações culturais das religiões
brasileiras na Europa e em outros contextos nacionais

Panel organised by Joana Bahia (Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro) and Marcelo Natividade (Universidade de São Paulo) at the 30th Biennial Meeting of the Brazilian Association of Anthropology, João Pessoa – PB, Brazil, 3-6 August 2016, http://www.30rba.abant.org.br/site/capa 

Please express your interest to participate by submitting an abstract (title, author/affiliation and summary in 15 lines – preferably in Portuguese, but is also possible in English and French) to the conveners joana.bahia@gmail.com or natividade@usp.br before 15 March 2016

After the notification of acceptance (19 of April at the latest), you will first need to register for the meeting:  http://www.30rba.abant.org.br/inscricoes/capa

Deadline for the publication of papers on the conference website: 20 June  2016

 For more information, please contact the panel organisers: joana.bahia@gmail.com or natividade@usp.br

CFP: Iranian Cosmopolitanism

Posted on by

Call for Paper: Iranian Cosmopolitanism
Special Issue, Journal of Comparative Islamic Studies
https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/CIS

Journal Editor: Ulrika Mårtensson, The Norwegian University of Science
and Technology Special Issue Editors: Milad Odabaei, University of
California, Berkeley, and Christopher Cochran, University of California,
Santa Cruz

This call for paper invites contributions that will provide theoretical advancements
in understanding textual, conceptual, historical and sociological contours of “Iranian
Cosmopolitanism.” The need for theoretical advancement is propelled by the dilemma
intrinsic to theorization of non-European cosmopolitanisms. Conceptions of
“cosmopolitanism” destabilize the demarcations of terrestrial fixities and invite us to
consider the political and ethical significance of the movement of peoples, things and ideas
that exceed the constitution of territorial identities. At the same time, however,
cosmopolitanism’s political and ethical registers are indebted to the vicissitudes of
philosophical and religious traditions that underlie the identity of Europe. Inevitably, the
analysis of the “cosmopolitanism” of non-Europeans, as in Iran, put forward sociological
determinations with a European genealogy. When European sociological determinations
are reflected back into the object of study, in this case Iran, the conclusion too easily
appears that the cosmopolitanism of Iran, if it exists, comes to Iran from Europe. Hence,
many scholars have resigned to always tracing cosmopolitanism back to Europe, where it
is conceptually at home, while others ignore this dilemma, risking disavowal so they may
better express the actuality of non-European expression of cosmopolitanism.

Highlighting this dilemma, we seek both case studies and theoretical considerations
that bear on the conceptualization of “Iranian cosmopolitanism.” Particularly, we invite
studies of religious traditions, and the place of religion in Iranian statecraft that inform
Iranian cosmopolitanism and its ethical and political registers. We wonder what political
and religious traditions, textual flows, concepts and exchanges can make possible dialogue
with the European concept of cosmopolitanism, perhaps bending or even breaking its
meaning as a result, and bringing forth singularities that may be otherwise hidden. If
instead such a dialogue is found to be unattainable, we ask scholars to theorize its
impossibility. What are the unique ways in which religious traditions relate to Iranian
politics, statecraft and empire at different moments of Iranian development and decline?
What is the relation between political and religious belonging in Iran? Do they coincide?
Does one trump or engender the other? Or is political belonging defined independently of
religious affiliation? Contributors’ case studies may elaborate religious pasts and occulted
presences that express belonging to both Iran and to a world that extends beyond Iran. They
may put forth concepts and theories that have garnered to shape a political authority that
can be properly identified as Iranian, and thereby at the same time provide contours of an
Iran that belongs within a world that exceeds its own identity.

We invite papers that explore classical Iranian political and religious traditions; the
Iranian satrapy model, its regulation of religious difference and its expansion throughout
the Islamic world; the significance of Zoroastrianism in pre-Islamic Iran, its lives as a
minor religion in Iran and in the Indian subcontinent, and its afterlives within the Islamic
tradition and Iranian politics; the development of Islamic tradition and Greek philosophy
in Iran and Iranian milieus in the medieval period; the genres of ethical and political
treaties; the “mirror of the prince” advice literature; Shi’a tradition as it develops in Iranian
milieus and at the same time, extends beyond Iranian political borders. In the course of
their elaborations, contributors might also address Iran’s particular geographical location
on the Eurasian continent; its religious and political reformulations and reinvention by
moments of conquest, destruction and/or decline; its centrality in medieval trade; its
religious and political developments amidst Iranian tajadod, “renewal,” or “modernity” in
the nineteenth century; Iran’s peculiar relation to colonization and imperial domination of
the Middle East and North Africa; its articulation of reformist and revolutionary Islam in
the late nineteenth and twentieth century and around the Constitutional Revolution of 1906
and the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Contributors may investigate the vocabularies and
grammar of difference, which correspond to the various and intersecting registers of
plurality, and condition the possibilities and limits of belonging to Iran. They might do so,
for example, by considering the historical Persian Jewish community; the rise and
persecution of Babism and the Bahai faith in nineteenth century; the Kurdish and Azari
Yarsanis or Sunni Turkmans in the present. Lastly, contributors may investigate the sources
of continuity and discreteness of Iranian historical consciousness across time.
Abstracts of up to 300 words should be submitted to Milad Odabaei and Christopher
Cochran at milado@berkeley.edu by March 1, 2016.
The contributors will hear from the editors by March 15, 2016. The deadline for article submission is September 15, 2016. The articles, including all notes, are expected to be
between 6000-8000 words in length and follow the journal’s style guide